Nature’s Past

Nov 26, 2024 | niche-canada.org | Matthew Holmes

Matthew Holmes, The Graft Hybrid: Challenging Twentieth-Century Genetics, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024. Imagine you had the power to create a new species by simply attaching – “grafting” – two different plants together. You would be holding a graft hybrid, one of the most controversial organisms in the entire history of biology.

Nov 21, 2024 | niche-canada.org | Mary Baxter |Charan Mandur |Thomas Stroyan

Environmental historians—all historians, really—are grappling with an ever-growing volume of information because of the availability of digitized data and sources. As these datasets grow, they become impossible for historians to read and analyze without the aid of digital tools. Text mining and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are two strategies historians in the twenty-first century are applying to manage the volume.

Nov 8, 2024 | niche-canada.org | Daniel Macfarlane

I would not be an environmental historian if it wasn’t for the Network in Canadian History and Environment.  For that reason, and many more, NiCHE is my favorite academic association. So many collaborations, opportunities, and friendships came out of NiCHE. I began a Ph.D. in History in 2007. Initially, my proposed topic had nothing to do with environmental history.

Nov 7, 2024 | niche-canada.org | Alister Wedderburn

Kinngait artist Jamasee Pitseolak’s carving Martin Frobisher, made of a locally quarried steatite or soapstone, depicts the Elizabethan privateer and explorer as a mechanical excavator. Between 1576 and 1578 Frobisher led three expeditions to Qikiqtaaluk (Baffin Island), initially in search for a Northwest Passage. On the first of these three expeditions, however, Frobisher found an ‘ore’ that hinted – wrongly, as it turned out – at the presence of gold.

Nov 6, 2024 | niche-canada.org | Emily Eaton

Andrea Olive, Protecting the Prairies: Lorne Scott and the Politics of Conservation, Regina, Saskatchewan: University of Regina Press, 2023. 280 pgs. ISBN 9780889779631. Reviewed by Emily Eaton. In Protecting the Prairies: Lorne Scott and the Politics of Conservation, political scientist Andrea Olive undertakes a unique project of combining the history of conservation in Saskatchewan with the political biography of Lorne Scott, a farmer, conservationist, and former NDP provincial Cabinet Minister.