“One word is worth a thousand pictures”–La Grande Sauterelle in Jacques Poulin’s Volkswagen Blues

I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in historical geography at the University of Alberta.  Reading is still my greatest passion beacuse words allow me to imagine landscapes and places (and the ‘spaces’ in between) that are so important to my work.  I am writing about the height of land idea in present-day western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia.  My project meanders–much like heights of land and the rivers & ranges that are so vital to the boundary making narratives that get attached to these landcapes.  I provide readings into all kinds of writing that frame the height of land including fiction, verse, prose, and dialogue (for movies).  Oral histories that draw upon heights of land to tell stories that are transferable to other places are particularly instructive when placed side by side with fixed cartographic depictions of the height of land (commonly known as The Great Divide) that define interprovincial and treaty boundaries.  I also consider visual imagery from paintings to postcards to commemorative monuments.  Finally, I also use Government of Canada Record Group (RG) files , in particular the Departments of Indian Affairs and Interior.

In the end the experience of landscape is the most rewarding ‘reading’ of all.  I am a proud father of a gregarious six year old who reminds me why I am doing what I’m doing.  Our family moments in these places may not happen as regularly as one may wish but when they do is when I truly appreciate what I am doing.

Little surprise here:  I did NOT start my Ph.D. with the above in mind but over time it has come to define me.  But then again, I have had a facination with heights of land since my first adolescent forays out of the concerete urban jungle and into the Canadian Shield of Algonquin Park, Temagami, Killarney and Quetico for those precious few July and August weeks.  Heights of land were invariably psychological half-way points on gruelling portages and believe me, I came to realize almost immediately why no one else was taking the dreaded wannigan:  Woe on to you if you fall on the food…

So the dissertation has me, and me it.  I can see the end of this portage.  The next one is just over….

Advertisement