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October 2011 issue	Table of Contents Future of Ottawa Space age farming Toronto community gardens Protecting the Bloodvein River Unbeatable beetles DIY science centre Klondike convicts Fracking controversy Guerilla beekeeping The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Book Reviews Reverberations ----------------------------------------------- Past issues archive Subject index Contributors index

AWARDS
Park expansion

Three organizations that worked together for years to realize the sixfold expansion of Nahanni National Park Reserve will be honoured this fall with the Gold Medal from The Royal Canadian Geographical Society for geographical achievement on a grand scale.

In June 2009, Parliament voted unanimously to expand the Northwest Territories’ Nahanni National Park Reserve from 4,766 to 30,050 square kilometres, preserving an ecosystem nearly the size of Vancouver Island that lies in the traditional lands of the Dehcho First Nations. It was the culmination of a unique collaboration between Parks Canada, the Dehcho and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, which had campaigned for nearly 25 years to mobilize Canadians’ support for safeguarding this immense wilderness.

The extended park protects a large portion of the South Nahanni River watershed, which includes the Northwest Territories’ highest mountains and biggest glaciers, Canada’s deepest canyons and considerable populations of grizzly bears and woodland caribou. “To put it in perspective, it’s four times the size of Banff,” says Alan Latourelle, chief executive officer of Parks Canada. “It includes more than three times the number of grizzlies that you would find in all the Rocky Mountain national parks.”

The partnership “reflects a mutual recognition that by working together, this vast and expanded area might be better protected for future generations,” says Samuel Gargan, grand chief of the Dehcho First Nations. “Keeping this area as pristine as possible is a gift not only to Canada but to the rest of the world.”

— Monique Roy-Sole

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RESEARCH
Health in the city

While working as an aboriginal health research assistant as an undergraduate at Montréal’s McGill University, Laura Senese became aware of the health inequities between aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples in Canada. That realization planted the seed for her University of Toronto master’s thesis in geography, which explores the links between aboriginal rights, urbanization and health among First Nations men and women.

“I want to contribute to figuring out why health inequities exist and how best to eradicate them,” says Senese, the recipient of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s Maxwell Studentship in Human Geography. “So I’m focusing on the social and political underlying factors.”

Senese interviewed 36 men and women who had moved to Toronto from a rural area or a reserve within the past two months to 30 years. Her goal is to understand the relationship between urbanization and aboriginal rights and how these factors might affect the health of First Nations men and women living in cities. As this issue is going to press, Senese is analyzing her data and planning to defend her thesis in the fall.

— Jessica Harding

EDUCATION
The silver lining

Team Canada From left: Andrew Cohen, Aoife O’Leary and Alejandro Torres-Lopez with John Fahey, chairman and CEO of the National Geographic Society. (Photo: Beth Dye)

Team members Alejandro Torres-Lopez, 16, of North Vancouver, Alexander Cohen, 15, of Ottawa and Aoife O’Leary, 15, of Surrey, B.C., added to Canada’s near-perfect record of placing in the top three at the World Championship since it started participating in 1995. Beth Dye, a Governor of The Royal Canadian Geographical Society and chair of the Geography Challenge Committee, accompanied the students and notes that this year’s questions were tougher than in previous competitions. She says that the team members, each of whom has participated in the Geography Challenge for several years, were dedicated to working together and shared great pride in representing their country.

— Jessica Harding

FORUMS
A capital vision

The future of Canada’s capital is at the heart of a series of public forums to be held across the country this fall. Organized by the National Capital Commission — the steward of federal lands and buildings in the National Capital Region — and The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the forums will offer Canadians the opportunity to express their views on shaping Ottawa’s development to 2067, Canada’s 200th anniversary. Guest speakers in Ottawa, Québec, Halifax, Victoria and Edmonton will share their expertise on subjects ranging from urban design to sustainable transportation. (For more information, visit www.canadiangeographic.ca/horizon2067.)

Canadians are also invited to post their visions for the capital of tomorrow on the Canadian Geographic website above. Students are encouraged to share their perspectives on Ottawa’s future through lesson plans aimed at grades six to nine, which feature classroom activities and discussions on the city’s status as an international capital, among more than a dozen topics.

— Monique Roy-Sole

FELLOWS
Arctic scientist remembered

Martin Bergmann (Photo courtesy of the Polar Continental Shelf Program/Natural Resources Canada)

Bergmann had always worked to “offer better conditions for researchers in the Arctic and to facilitate exchanges among scientists and with northerners,” says Jean-Marie Beaulieu, a Society Fellow and senior science advisor at the Canadian Polar Commission. “It’s a great loss.”

EDUCATION
Backyard geography

Class groups, families and individuals are encouraged to think locally about geography by exploring their own backyards and communities during Geography Awareness Week, to be held from Nov. 13 to 19. For more on suggested activities, go to www.geographyawarenessweek.org.

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