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September/October 2004 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Atlantic salmon In-depth: Salmon farms The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Explorer Reverberations À la carte Mosaic

Golden accolades
Jean Lemire and Edryd Shaw, The Royal Canadian Geographical Society’s gold medallists for 2004, will be honoured this fall for their significant achievements in the field of geography.

There is a lighthearted scene in The Great Adventure, Jean Lemire’s documentary about a five-month sailing journey through the North-west Passage, in which Lemire and a fellow expedition member get mired in thick muck. It’s comical until the gravity of the situation sets in: the men are sinking in melted permafrost at the edge of the Beaufort Sea.

For Lemire, a former Canadian Wildlife Service biologist turned filmmaker, it was unsettling to find such visible proof of global warming’s impact on the Arctic. "In the movie theatres, people laughed at the scene," he says, "but as it went on, they realized that it is not funny at all."

Based in Montréal and îles de la Madeleine, Que., Lemire produced a five-part documentary series that focused on his sailing expedition to track the effects of climate change on the flora, fauna and people of the Arctic. The films have attracted 10 million viewers worldwide since their release in 2003.

His next mission, planned for September 2005, is to spend a year sailing in Antarctica, another global-warming hot spot.

Ten years ago, Canadian satellites could only capture images of the portions of the globe that were illuminated by the sun. That changed on November 4, 1995, when Canada’s Radarsat-1 satellite was launched.

Working for the Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) between 1980 and 1988, Edryd Shaw led the development of the cutting-edge imaging technology, which used radar waves to scan the Earth in different directions and could pan and zoom regardless of lighting or weather restrictions.

Initially designed to monitor ice conditions, the technology was soon found to have a variety of applications, including documenting glacial movements, forest clear-cutting, moisture levels in soil and topographical mapping.

Shaw, an electrical engineer, moved to Canada from England in 1966 to begin a long career in remote-sensing research. He was director general of the CCRS when he retired in 2001.

That the satellite has operated for nearly twice as long as expected is a testament to Shaw’s work. "It would have been great if it had lasted for five years," says Shaw, "but it’s been up there for nine."

Chris Mason and Monique Roy-Sole

Bringing you the world
Canadian Geographic marks its 75th anniversary this fall with a special gift for readers: a new wall map of the world. Look for it in the November/December anniversary issue, whose theme is Canada as global citizen. A current political map of the world is featured on one side, with highlights of the contributions Canada and Canadians are making globally in science and culture. The reverse side presents up-to-date information on key development indicators for every country in the world. Available in French and English, the map will be sent to 17,000 schools across the country, and beginning in November, its content — and more — will be available on the web at www.canadiangeographic.ca/worldmap.

Geo-boosters
Dale Gregory has taken teachers around British Columbia’s Okanagan region to show how glaciation created rich fruit-growing soils, to Victoria for weather seminars and near Whistler to learn about tectonics — all to help them teach geography.

"These trips give teachers hands-on experiences and ideas for class field trips," says Gregory, a retired teacher from Port Coquitlam, who is one of the recipients of the Canadian Council for Geographic Education’s (CCGE) 10th Anniversary Awards for contributions to geographic education and to the council.

Gregory is a founding member of the CCGE and has been chair of its B.C. chapter for six years. He also writes all the questions for The Great Canadian Geography Challenge, a process that has him compiling trivia 10 months a year.

Five other teachers have also been honoured with the award: John Trites (Atlantic), Yves Khoury (Quebec), Linda Gollick (Ontario), Gail Smith (Manitoba/Saskatchewan/ Nunavut) and Wally Diefenthaler (Alberta/Northwest Territories).

Gregory says the CCGE has helped improve geographic education in B.C. "Before the CCGE, there was no teacher-focused group advocating the teaching of geography."

Wild rendezvous

Photo: Marten Berkman/CPAWS

For two weeks this November, some of them will reunite, but this time, they’ll be on stage to tell their stories, read their poetry, show their slides and sing songs about their experiences to audiences across the country.

The principal aim of the series, which is an initiative of CPAWS (Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society) and is supported by The Royal Canadian Geographical Society, "is to tell people about the value of the boreal forest," says Raffan. "It’ll be an evening of stories and fun."

Going to the extreme

Photo: Jerry Kobalenko

Chris Mason

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