I served as a discussant for the Monday plenary at PECS-3
Amidst all the defenses mentioned in the last message, I attended two conferences back-to-back. The first was the third meeting of the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (PECS-3), which was held in Montreal. I was honoured to be asked to serve as a discussant, along with Rafa Calderon-Contreras, for the Monday morning plenary that matched Berta Martín-López and Divya Vasudev to talk about relational viewpoints. It was a great event, with lots of wonderful networking, but the plenaries were particularly well designed with compelling pairings in every instance.
Sketch by Pamela Macquarrie of my CAG Lecture
I went straight from Montreal to St. John’s, where the Canadian Association of Geographers were meeting at Memorial. This was a welcome return to my Geography roots. I missed the first day in transit, but every session I attended was interesting. I was excited to be asked to deliver this year’s CAG Lecture, which I did on the Friday afternoon, with a talk called Landscapes on the Edge. Special thanks to Arn Keeling for the invitation and hosting, and Evan Andrews for the lovely introduction. Earlier in the week I had seen Pamela Macquarrie of Mount Royal University doing sketches and watercolours in the various paper sessions, and was delighted that she showed me one she did of me while I was doing my talk (see right). The conference was friendly and inspiring. I sat on a panel about the CAG journal, Canadian Geographies, sponsored by the publisher Wiley, and had a wonderful time on the field trip to Cape Spear with Carissa Brown. The exquisite Cape Spear Café picnic basket lunches were a big highlight on the field trip, as well as the earlier Terre restaurant meal with outgoing president Nathalie Gravel.
