I went to my first American Society of Environmental Historians Conference last month. It was inspiring-flat out! (I mean it was 'Great'--just to be sure I'm clear on this). The ASEH doesn't normally meet in Toronto but I'm glad they did this year. Some of my favourite sessions dealt with northern issues, but the range was quite broad. Joy Parr chaired a session called "Keeping Calm and Carrying on in Contaminated Communities." It covered Youngstown, Ohio to Asbestos, Quebec. The Asbestos presentation by Jessica van Horssen was pretty shocking (not a 'fancy' word but it definitely describes how I felt hearing about that town). At another session Matthew Farish spoke about the DEW Line and Arn Keeling about oral history challenges. Great stuff!
I brought a poster of my research on Moosonee and handed out page size copies. I hope it helps encourage more research on the Pinetree line.
Another part of the conference which was totally worth the four hours was the tour of the Don Valley. There were three facilitators who took us back several hundred years to the time when the Don Valley had a naturally curving river (picture oxbows). We started at an historical mill site and ended up at Lake Ontario. I had anticipated one or two people showing us around, but three experts who carried historical maps with them was a treat. In particular, Jennifer Bonnell and Wayne Reeves made this tour the highlight of the conference for me.
Back to reading....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment