It was one of our staple classes during grade school. The mystery behind iridescent glowing mobile devices revealed. How that cedar tree keeps growing in the backyard. It is, quite simply, how everything works: you, your home, oceans, planets, galaxies, universes and beyond. Science.

As a practice, science is an endeavour exclusive to our species—at least on this planet. The word comes from the Latin “scientia,” meaning “knowledge,” but the modern vestige evokes the notion of humans systematically studying processes through observation and experiment. So while the world works in truly mysterious ways, with atoms and chemical compounds and laws of thermodynamics, science doesn’t exist without us trying to figure those puzzles out. No names or microscopes. No theories or formulas. It just is. Science is more curiosity than data. It’s us trying to answer the undying questions that have driven us to spaceships and particle accelerators. The question “how?” is the inquiry that always seems to follow the giant.

So here’s our stab at being all scientific—quenching our thirst for what is baffling by trying to understand the fascinating things spinning our mountain-culture world round and round. From beer to geological formations, grizzly to sturgeon, iPhone apps to psychoactive plants, even profiles of Kootenay scientists. Time to geek out.