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Murder: And Other Essays
By David Richards. 2019
A thrilling, revelatory collection from one of the most provocative and original literary voices in Canada today.David Adams Richards is…
one of Canada's greatest writers, his place in the pantheon ensured by seventeen novels of consistent power and vision. He is also the author of four marvelous non-fiction ruminations on religious faith, hockey, hunting and fishing and their roles in his and the nation's identities. His loyal readers may feel they know him well. But they also know that this is a writer who never fails to surprise. This new collection of essays--his first in a quarter-century--is rich with revelations and insights, deepening our appreciation for this major talent and offering a provoking thought on every page. Murder is one of David's great subjects. In his novels, in the Russian classics he loves and in his life, murder has been a shaping force. The title of this volume refers to a suite of essays on the subject: a hitchhiker with whom David strikes up an unnerving philosophical debate; the killers of the Miramichi and their victims; Caligula; the villains of Russian literature; and, forever in David's mind as he examines this grim topic, the self-deception involved in the allure of evil. But in this wide-ranging collection there is much to delight in too: married love; family; travel; the beauty of the natural world; even Wayne Gretzky is invited to the party. David's principled outlook and spirituality inform his thinking throughout. And he draws many of his favourite writers into the discussion--from Tolstoy to Dostoevsky, Mary Shelley to Alden Nowlan--revelling in their work, as we do in David's, as sources of ideas, inspiration and sheer literary pleasure. As a considerable bonus, the book also contains at its midpoint a literary debut: a slim but substantial collection of David's poetry.Two Trees Make a Forest: Travels Among Taiwan's Mountains & Coasts in Search of My Family's Past
By Jessica J. Lee. 2020
An exhilarating, anti-colonial reclamation of nature writing and memoir, rooted in the forests and flatlands of Taiwan, from the winner…
of the RBC Taylor Prize for Emerging Writers. "Two Trees Make a Forest is a finely faceted meditation on memory, love, landscape--and finding a home in language. Its short, shining sections tilt yearningly toward one another; in form as well as content, this is a beautiful book about the distance between people and between places, and the means of their bridging." --Robert Macfarlane, author of Underland. A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities.Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre-shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories. Winner of the 2020 Roger’s Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Canada Reads 2021.The Imperilled Ocean: Human Stories from a Changing Sea
By Laura Trethewey. 2020
A Globe and Mail Best Book of 2020A Writers' Trust of Canada Best Book of the YearCBC Books: The Best…
Canadian Nonfiction SelectionSilver Medal, Miramichi Reader's "The Very Best!" Book AwardsAn exploration of the earth's last wild frontier, filled with high-stakes stories of people and places facing an uncertain future.On a life raft in the Mediterranean, a teenager from Ghana wonders whether he will reach Europe alive, and whether he will be allowed to stay. In the North Atlantic, a young chef disappears from a cruise ship, leaving a mystery for his friends and family to solve. A water-squatting community battles eviction from a harbour in British Columbia, raising the question of who owns the water.The Imperilled Ocean by Laura Trethewey is a deeply reported work of narrative journalism that follows people as they head out to sea. What they discover holds inspiring and dire implications for the life of the ocean — and for all of us back on land. Battles are fought, fortunes made, lives lost, and the ocean approaches an uncertain future. Behind this human drama, the ocean is growing ever more unstable, threatening to upend life on land.Restigouche: The Long Run of the Wild River
By Philip Lee. 2020
Shortlisted, New Brunswick Book Award for Non-FictionA CBC New Brunswick Book List SelectionAn Atlantic Books Today Must-Have New Brunswick Books…
of 2020 SelectionThe Restigouche River flows through the remote border region between the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick, its magically transparent waters, soaring forest hillsides, and population of Atlantic salmon creating one of the most storied wild spaces on the continent. In Restigouche, writer Philip Lee follows ancient portage routes into the headwaters of the river, travelling by canoe to explore the extraordinary history of the river and the people of the valley. They include the Mi’gmaq, who have lived in the Restigouche valley for thousands of years; the descendants of French Acadian, Irish, and Scottish settlers; and some of the wealthiest people in the world who for more than a century have used the river as an exclusive wilderness retreat.The people of the Restigouche have long been both divided and united by a remarkable river that each day continues to assert itself, despite local and global industrial forces that now threaten its natural systems and the survival of the salmon. In the deep pools and rushing waters of the Restigouche, in this place apart in a rapidly changing natural world, Lee finds a story of hope about how to safeguard wild spaces and why doing so is the most urgent question of our time.Making love with the land
By Joshua Whitehead. 2022
"Much-anticipated non-fiction from the author of the Giller-longlisted, GG-shortlisted and Canada Reads-winning novel Jonny Appleseed. In the last few years,…
following the publication of his debut novel Jonny Appleseed, Joshua Whitehead has emerged as one of the most exciting and important new voices on Turtle Island. Now, in this first non-fiction work, Whitehead brilliantly explores Indigeneity, queerness, and the relationships between body, language and land through a variety of genres (essay, memoir, notes, confession). Making Love With the Land is a startling, heartwrenching look at what it means to live as a queer Indigenous person "in the rupture" between identities. In sharp, surprising, unique pieces--a number of which have already won awards--Whitehead illuminates this particular moment, in which both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are navigating new (and old) ideas about "the land." He asks: What is our relationship and responsibility towards it? And how has the land shaped our ideas, our histories, our very bodies? Here is an intellectually thrilling, emotionally captivating love song--a powerful revelation about the library of stories land and body hold together, waiting to be unearthed and summoned into word."Conservation Through Cultural Survival: Indigenous Peoples And Protected Areas
By Bernard Nietschmann, Stanley Stevens, Peter Herlihy, Paul Sneed, Terry Delacy Dean. 1997
For more than a century the establishment of national parks and protected areas was a major threat to the survival…
of indigenous people. The creation of parks based on wilderness ideals outlawed traditional ways of life and forced from their homelands peoples who had shaped and preserved local ecosystems for centuries.Today such tragic conflicts are being superseded by new alliances for conservation. Conservation Through Cultural Survival assesses cutting-edge efforts to establish new kinds of parks and protected areas which are based on partnerships with indigenous peoples. It chronicles new conservation thinking and the establishment around the world of indigenously inhabited protected areas, provides detailed case studies of the most important types of co-managed and indigenously managed areas, and offers guidelines, models, and recommendations for international action. The book: discusses the goals and development of the global protected area system assesses the strengths and limitations of a range of different types of indigenously inhabited protected areas discusses key issues and indigenous peoples' concerns recommends measures to promote conservation suggests international actions that would promote co-managed and indigenously managed areas Contributors who have been actively involved in projects around the world provide in-depth accounts from Nepal, Australia, New Guinea, Nicaragua, Honduras, Canada, and Alaska of some of the most promising efforts to develop protected areas where indigenous peoples maintain their rights to settlement and subsistence and participate in management.Conservation Through Cultural Survival will be required reading for environmentalists, protected area planners and managers, and all who care about the future of indigenous peoples and their homelands.The Scent of Eucalyptus: Precious Poems
By Sophie Chenoweth. 2016
This book is an ode to the fragrant, yet rough-hewn Australian bush. By delving into its pages, you will be…
transported to a parallel realm where flannel flowers sing, cockatoos choreograph and paperbark trees seduce. A memoir of sorts, this poignant and ethereal collection of poems celebrates the beauty, the harshness and the resilience of this ancient land and its unforgettable inhabitants. In addition, you'll be serenaded by harps and fairies, meander through time in a yellow dinghy and stand in quiet awe as a ballerina beguiles. Refreshingly honest, this waltz down memory lane is intensely emotional but has a lightness that will soothe even on the blusteriest of days. Illustrated with sensitively taken photographs, it is a keepsake you will cherish for many years to come.Water: A Natural History
By Alice Outwater. 1996
An environmental engineer turned ecology writer relates the history of our waterways and her own growing understanding of why our…
waterways continue to be polluted#151;and what needs to be done to save this essential natural resourse. Water: A Natural History takes us back to the diaries of the first Western explorers; it moves from the reservoir to the modern toliet, from the grasslands of the Midwest to the Everglades of Florida, throught the guts of a wastewater treatment plant and out to the waterways again. It shows how human-engineered dams, canals and farms replaces nature’s beaver dams, prairie dog tunnels, and buffalo wallows. Step by step, Outwater makes clear what should have always been obvious: while engineering can depollute water, only ecologically interacting systems can create healthy waterways. Important reading for students of environmental studies, the heart of this history is a vision of our land and waterways as they once were, and a plan that can restore them to their former glory: a land of living streams, public lands with hundreds of millions of beaver-built wetlands, prairie dog towns that increase the amount of rainfall that percolates to the groundwater, and forests that feed their fallen trees to the sea.For many people gardening is predominantly about plants and choosing the right combination and balance to make beautiful borders. This…
book will help you achieve this - and more, because it will also help you create an ecologically sound, bee-friendly garden, showing that you can have an aesthetically pleasing garden full of beautiful flowers which at the same time will attract and nurture bees. It will enable you to select bee-friendly plants, and to plan borders which are beneficial to bees, encouraging these most valuable of insects to come to your garden over and over again, both for sustenance and to aid pollination. It contains a wide range of practical, beautiful and easy-to-follow planting plans for bee-friendly gardens of all sizes, including: - Traditional mixed, cottage, and colour themed borders - 'Designer' and 'natural' borders - Borders for acid and alkaline soils - Ideas for container planting This book will be of interest to every gardener who cares for the plight of the honeybee and other bees.The Night Country
By Loren Eiseley. 1971
Toward the end of his life, Loren Eiseley reflected on the mystery of life, throwing light on those dark places…
traversed by himself and centuries of humankind. The Night Country is a gift of wisdom and beauty from the famed anthropologist.Water Histories and Spatial Archaeology
By Michael J. Harrower. 2016
This book offers a new interpretation of the spatial-political-environmental dynamics of water and irrigation in long-term histories of arid regions.…
It compares ancient Southwest Arabia (3500 BC–AD 600) with the American West (2000 BC–AD 1950) in global context to illustrate similarities and differences among environmental, cultural, political, and religious dynamics of water. It combines archaeological exploration and field studies of farming in Yemen with social theory and spatial technologies, including satellite imagery, Global Positioning System (GPS), and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping. In both ancient Yemen and the American West, agricultural production focused not where rain-fed agriculture was possible, but in hyper-arid areas where massive state-constructed irrigation schemes politically and ideologically validated state sovereignty. While shaped by profound differences and contingencies, ancient Yemen and the American West are mutually informative in clarifying human geographies of water that are important to understandings of America, Arabia, and contemporary conflicts between civilizations deemed East and West.Stepping Off: Rewilding and Belonging in the South-West
By Thomas Wilson. 1897
Stepping Off is a book for locals and travellers alike. It is the story of the south-western corner of Western…
Australia: an environmental history, a social history, an invitation to reconnect with the land – and in doing so, to reconnect with ourselves.The Story of the San Francisco Earthquake (Cornerstones of Freedom)
By R. Conrad Stein. 1983
Ghost Buck: The Legacy Of One Man's Family And Its Hunting Traditions
By Dean Bennett. 2015
In Ghost Buck, outdoorsman Dean Bennett takes readers along to the place where he feels most connected to nature and…
his family--Camp Sheepskin. Guided by his family's camp register, photos, and letters ranging from the 1800s to the present, Bennett reflects on his annual visits to his Western Maine camp since his boyhood. Through intimate narrative, he recalls hunting triumphs and defeats, including the elusive Ghost Buck that haunts the camp's surrounding forest. This multi-generational tale combines memoir, history, and politics as it illustrates the environmental and cultural changes that have altered hunting and the rural culture of the Maine woods. Ghost Buck is not a book about how to hunt, but rather a story of how a tradition like hunting in Maine can forge unshakeable family bondsLast-Minute Survival Secrets contains more than a hundred ingenious survival tips that may sound quirky at first, but really do…
work. Readers will discover a wide range of handy and unusual secrets to outsmart the unexpected and escape perilous situations using common, household products. Green shows how to start a campfire with potato chips, open a locked suitcase with a ballpoint pen, and prevent heatstroke with a disposable diaper. Readers will learn to build a solar cooker using cardboard and aluminum foil, a flood alarm with aspirin and a clothespin, and a wi-fi antenna with a coffee can. The book is even helpful for life's everyday disasters such as when a thunderstorm knocks out the power, the dog is sprayed by a skunk, or your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere. The book also includes interesting and goofy sidebars related to these survival tactics and fascinating trivia to keep you entertained until FEMA arrives. It's the perfect resource for armchair survivalists, budding MacGyvers, and adventurists on a budget.Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants
By Ed Begley Jr., Christopher Nyerges. 2014
An array of abundant wild foods is available to hikers, campers, foragers, or anyone interested in living closer to the…
earth. Written by a leading expert on wild foods and a well-known teacher of survival skills, Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants is more than a listing of plant types--it teaches how to recognize edible plants and where to find them, their medicinal and nutritional properties, and their growing cycles. This new edition features more than 70 plants found all around the United States along with more than 100 full-color photos plus a handy leaf key to help readers identify the plants. It also includes fascinating folklore about plants, personal anecdotes about trips and meals, and simple and tasty recipes.Field Guide to the Grasses, Sedges, and Rushes of the United States
By Edward Knobel. 1980
With its clear, easy-to-use format, accurate line drawings, and concise descriptions, Edward Knobel's Field Guide can help make you an…
expert at identifying the common grasses, sedges, and rushes of the United States. Over 370 of the most common species are accurately described in this handy volume: varieties of timothy, rye, foxtail, fescue, bluegrass, nutrush, cottongrass, bulrush, etc. Knobel's emphasis is upon wild varieties of these plants common to the eastern and central United States, but many cultivated strains and food grains such as rice, oats, and maize are also included.A general key on the first page of this book allows you to fit each plant into one of several basic structural categories. Further subdivisions, classified according to the structure of the ear and spikelet (the flowering part of the plant) identify the particular species. Each plant is then described according to common name, Latin name, height, color of flower and stem, texture, smell (if applicable), habitat, and even edibility. Close resemblances to other varieties are also noted, which helps to make identifications even easier. Each description is also accompanied by a drawing of an entire plant, and a second drawing of the actual spikelet (with scale of the drawing noted). The author includes a total of 28 plates and over 600 line drawings.This new Dover edition has been completely revised, with common and scientific nomenclature updated, by Mildred E. Faust, Professor of Botany, Emeritus, Syracuse University.Glaciers
By Wendell V. Tangborn. 1988
Five Acres and Independence
By Maurice G. Kains. 1973
Everyone who has ever dreamed of getting back to the soil will derive from Maurice Grenville Kains' practical and easy-to-understand…
discussions a more complete view of what small-scale farming means. Countless readers of Five Acres and Independence have come away with specific projects to begin and moved closer to the fulfillment of their dreams of independence on a small farm.Whether you already own a suitable place or are still looking, Five Acres and Independence will help you learn to evaluate land for both its total economic and its specific agricultural possibilities. There are methods of calculating costs of permanent improvements -- draining the land, improving soil, planting wind breaks, putting in septic tanks, cellars, irrigation systems, greenhouses, etc. -- and methods of carrying out those improvements. There are suggestions for specific crops -- strawberries, grapes, vegetables, orchards, spring, summer, and fall crops, transplanting, timing, repairing what already exists -- with methods of deciding what is best for your land and purposes and techniques for making each of them pay. There are suggestions for animals for the small-scale farmer -- goats, chickens, bees -- and means of working them into your overall farm design. And there are suggestions for keeping your small farm in top production condition, methods of continually increasing the value of your farm, methods of marketing your produce and of accurately investing in improvements -- virtually everything a small-scale farmer needs to know to make his venture economically sound.Some things, of course, have changed since 1940 when M. G. Kains revised Five Acres and Independence. But the basic down-to-earth advice of one of the most prominent men in American agriculture and the methods of farming the small-scale, pre-DDT farm are still essentially the same. Much of the information in this book was built on USDA and state farm bureau reports; almost all of it was personally tested by M. G. Kains, either on his own farms or on farms of the people who trusted him as an experienced consultant. His book went through more than 30 editions in the first 10 years after its original publication. It has helped countless small farmers attain their dreams, and it continues today as an exceptional resource for those who want to make their first farming attempt.Responses of Fruit Trees to Global Climate Change
By Fernando Ramírez, Jose Kallarackal. 2015
Global climate change is expected to produce increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, higher temperatures, aberrant precipitation patterns and…
a host of other climatic changes that would affect all life on this planet. This review article addresses the impact of climate change on fruit trees and the response of the trees to a changing environment. The response of fruit trees to increasing carbon dioxide levels, phenological changes occurring in the trees themselves due to increased temperature and the lower chilling hours especially in the temperate regions, ecophysiological adaptations of the trees to the changing climate, impact of aberrant precipitation, etc. are reviewed. There is very little data on the impact of rising CO2 levels on fruit tree performance or productivity including the temperate region. Based on a large number of observations on the phenology, there is reason to believe that the flowering and fruiting of most species have advanced by quite a few days, but with variations in different crops and on different continents. The chilling hours have also grown shorter in many regions, causing considerable reductions in yield for several species. In the tropics, there is very little work on fruit trees; however, the available data show that precipitation is a major factor regulating their phenology and yield. The ecophysiological adaptations vary from species to species, and there is a need to develop phenological models in order to estimate the impact of climate change on plant development in different regions of the world. More research is also called for to develop adaptation strategies to circumvent the negative impacts of climate change.