Canadian Geographic magazine
magazine / jun08

June 2008 issue


FEATURE

Sibling science
John Smol and Jules Blais are half-brothers in blood and full partners in the service of the environment. Meet our environmental scientists of the year.
By Allen Abel

You probably wouldn’t pick out the two men sitting at the booth at breakfast as siblings. The older man, John Smol, is ebullient, chuckling, roly-poly. The younger by 12 years, Jules Blais, is a bit more angular, less effusive at first meeting, blindingly bright.


Advertisement


top

Share your suggestions!
Suggest a scientist for next year’s Environmental Scientist of the Year
But for the past 20 years, Blais and Smol have worked, together and separately, with their colleagues and their students, in some of the most isolated and inhospitable locations in Canada and abroad, only to find in each place a noxious concentration of chemicals, contaminants and poisons in the ground, in the water and in the cells of living things. Little of what they have reported since the 1980s can be taken as good news; the residue of human progress touches and tarnishes every corner of our world.

We talk a bit about beginnings, how young people become enticed, then enchanted, by a career in pure, hard science, the world of centrifuges and chromatographs and peer review and the relentless quest for funding.

Blais mentions Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. Smol says he was inspired by the undersea adventures of Jacques Cousteau. Millions of other boys and girls read the same book, saw the same films, then moved on. But these brothers seized them as launching pads of ambition and dedication.

For the rest of this story, visit your local newsstand or go to our store to buy this issue.


Search our site: Environmental scientist of the year, Environment



ADVERTISEMENT
Subscribe to Canadian Geographic Magazine and Save
Province 
Privacy Policy  




Meet our client partners
CG Contests
Featured Destinations
Smooth Operators
ADventures
Classifieds
Advertiser Directory
Canadian Geographic Magazine | Canadian Geographic Travel Magazine
Canadian Atlas Online | Canadian Travel | Mapping & Cartography | Canadian Geographic Photo Club | Kids | Television | Canadian Contests | Blog

Royal Canadian Geographical Society | Canadian Council for Geographic Education | Geography Challenge | Canadian Award for Environmental Innovation

Jobs | Internships | Submission Guidelines

© 2010 Canadian Geographic Enterprises