Category: conference review

Second Annual Geotourism Change Summit Review

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By Simmons Buntin, February 5, 2010 6:53 pm

Award-winning travel entrepreneurs share practices to preserve authenticity of place and local character

Loreto Bay

Geotourism at Loreto Bay, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Photo by Simmons Buntin.

WASHINGTON (Feb. 4, 2010)—The Second Annual Geotourism Change Summit at  National Geographic headquarters showcased travel leaders from around the globe presenting success stories from both major cities to countrysides, all with the mutual purpose of preserving the character of the world’s special places and furthering sustainable travel.

The  200 attendees on Feb. 2 heard inspiring presentations by the winners of the 2009 Geotourism Challenge, sponsored by National Geographic and Ashoka’s Changemakers, as well as speakers discussing advances in geotourism and other new trends in sustainable travel.

Geotourism is defined as tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place — its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage and the well-being of its residents.

“The forces of globalization are making places look just like the next one.  The Summit   honored those who have not bowed to mass tourism — in fact, they are offering the most authentic experiences possible,”  said Jonathan Tourtellot, director of National Geographic’s Center for Sustainable Destinations.

Award-winners ranged from river.India.com, the world’s first outfitter on the challenging Siang River, that has trained locals to be river guides, to Evergreen Brick Works in Toronto, which took an abandoned brick factory and has turned it into a vital part of the city, with farmer’s markets, summer camps and an ice skating rink.

Tourtellot noted that despite terrorist threats, a shaky world economy and the increasing inconvenience of air travel, people are still traveling, and the number will likely top 1 billion international trips within very few years.

Other news from the Geotourism Summit:

  • Economist James Gilmore, coauthor of the books Authenticity: What Customers Really Want and The Experience Economy, provided the keynote address.  He said that the world is moving out of the “service economy” into what he calls an “experience economy” – a desire by consumers for authenticity and memorability. His message to travel entrepreneurs at the Summit: consumers now desire a combination of the “four E’s”:  entertainment, education, esthetic and escapism.
  • National Geographic unveiled its Geotourism Impact Map Concept, to be integrated into the Center for Sustainable Destinations website, and a testament to the proliferation of geotourism around the world. It will become a huge aggregate for geotourism practices and existing maps, available to both businesses and travelers.  It will also identify regions where geotourism activities are unknown and need help.
  • Details of the 2010 Geotourism Challenge were announced. The theme will be  “Places on the Edge: Saving Coastal Destinations.” Tourtellot noted the world’s coast lines, more than any other geographical feature, are under pressure from tourism.
  • Vanessa Healey, vice president, global brand marketing, InterContinental Hotel Group, was a member of the panel devoted to destination stewardship strategies. She shared how the hotel group has fully embraced geotourism, including training their 60,000 employees in how to help visitors “go local.” Information cards on local activities and history are often left at night on guests’ pillows.  Other comments from panelists:  “We must move from Joe Tourist to Joe Citizen;  “follow the locals’ lead”;  “travel is a life value.”
  • Geotourism Challenge-winner Alex Khajan, CEO of Nature Air in Costa Rica, conveyed the passion of Summit attendees to preserve the world’s special places.  “We are rebels by nature and want to be catalysts for change,” he said to the group when accepting his award.

The Geotourism Challenge is a global competition of tourism-related projects that promote natural and cultural heritage while improving the well-being of the local people. The 10 finalists honored at the Summit are the best of 610 entries from 81 countries,

“The Geotourism Change Summit offers an opportunity to showcase the true nature of tourism. These 10 innovators demonstrate not only that tourism needs a major rethinking, but also that these pioneers have already done it and are now leading initiatives to help alleviate poverty, conserve natural and cultural assets, and provide enriching experiences for visitors. If we want to know what the future of travel looks like, this is it,” said Charlie Brown, executive director of Ashoka’s Changemakers.

The three Geotourism Challenge winners — Nature Air (Costa Rica), PEPY (Cambodia), and Wikiloc Community Maps (Spain) — were selected by online voting. Each received a $5,000 award at the Summit.  The winners:

  • Nature Air, the 100 percent carbon-neutral airline in Costa Rica, offsets 100 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions to encourage reforestation of tropical forests in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula.
  • PEPY (“Protect the Earth, Protect Yourself”) is Cambodia’s Educational Volunteer Tourism Program, providing adventure bike tours and on-site volunteer projects, like building rainwater collection units.
  • Wikiloc Community Maps in Girona, Spain, created by a software engineer with a passion for travel, is built on maps, photos and video submitted to offer honest impressions about destinations.

The seven Geotourism Challenge runners-up:

  • Ger to Ger Foundation, Mongolia, links visitors with genuine nomadic families.
  • Evergreen Brick Works of Toronto, Canada, is an adaptive re-use of the heritage structures at the Don Valley Brick Works.
  • Virgin Islands Youth Heritage Exchange Farm Excursions, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, focuses on food as the basis of youth identity and education.
  • Context Travel, based in Philadelphia, offers walking seminars in major European cities, encouraging sustainable ways to visit urban destinations.
  • RiverIndia.com’s Bamboo Eco-Lodge River Trips, Arunachal Pradesh, India, help protect India’s Siang River through locally guided expeditions.
  • Trout Point Lodge, Nova Scotia, a Five Green Key-designated nature retreat in Canada, has revitalized backwoods and Acadian French cultural tourism.
  • Reality Tour Viagens e Turismo Ltda’s Route of Freedom, Rua Bom Jesus, Brazil, commemorates the African Diaspora in Brazil.

For more details about the innovative work of all 10 finalists, go to www.changemakers.net/geotourismchallenge.

The Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) joined forces with the National Geographic Society and Ashoka through the Changemakers Geotourism Challenge 2009 “Power of Place” competition. The goal was to capture regional creativity and demand as well as provide co-financing opportunities for small geotourism initiatives in Latin America and the Caribbean that benefit local communities by improving the competitiveness, social use and sustainability of the tourism sector. The FOMIN received 319 proposals from 24 countries, selecting seven projects for co-financing.

About Ashoka’s Changemakers

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka, an organization with over three decades of finding, funding and expanding the work of social entrepreneurs across the globe. It is a global online community of action that connects people to share ideas, inspire and mentor each other, and find and support the best ideas in social innovation. The Changemakers online community builds on this history and expands the Ashoka vision by creating an “Everyone a Changemaker” world through networking, relationship-building and the sourcing of funding opportunities. Through its collaborative competitions and open-source process, Changemakers has created one of the world’s most robust laboratories for launching, refining and scaling ideas for solving the world’s most pressing social problems.

About National Geographic

The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest nonprofit scientific and educational organizations. Founded in 1888 to “increase and diffuse geographic knowledge,” the Society works to inspire people to care about the planet. It reaches more than 375 million people worldwide each month through its official journal, National Geographic, and other magazines; National Geographic Channel; television documentaries; music; radio; films; books; DVDs; maps; exhibitions; live events; school publishing programs; interactive media; and merchandise. National Geographic has funded more than 9,200 scientific research, conservation and exploration projects and supports an education program promoting geographic literacy. For more information, visit nationalgeographic.com. To learn more about the mission and work of the Center for Sustainable Destinations, visit www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/sustainable/.

About the Multilateral Investment Fund

The Multilateral Investment Fund (FOMIN) is an autonomous fund composed of 38 member countries that is administered by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the main source of multilateral financing for development in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 1993, the FOMIN has been providing grants, loans and equity investments for innovative projects that promote economic growth and poverty reduction through private sector development, focusing primarily on micro, small and medium enterprises. It is the largest private sector-focused development donor in the region, with an extensive network of over 650 local executing agency partners. Created in 2004, the FOMIN’s sustainable tourism cluster is a group of 27 projects in 19 countries aiming to increase the competitiveness of locally owned micro, small and medium enterprises by mainstreaming sustainability in the tourism sector.

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Guest Blog: Aldo Leopold and the Roots of Environmental Ethics

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By Simmons Buntin, July 27, 2009 5:28 am

By Joshua David Bellin

From June 22 to July 17, I was one of 25 college and university faculty to participate in the National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute on Aldo Leopold. Titled “‘A Fierce Green Fire at 100’: Aldo Leopold and the Roots of Environmental Ethics,” the institute commemorated the 100-year anniversary of Leopold’s arrival in Arizona to take up his first position with the United States Forest Service. During the course of the four weeks, we heard from experts in the field; traveled to locations Leopold visited during his time in the Southwest; discussed and debated Leopold’s legacy in the disciplines of environmental ethics, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, and environmental literature; and (occasionally) unwound over a few beers. It was an exhausting, invigorating, exhilarating experience, one that taught me loads about Leopold and, more importantly, about the distance we have yet to travel to approach the ideal he voiced sixty years ago in “The Land Ethic,” his signature essay from A Sand County Almanac (1949): “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Aldo Leopold

The institute took place in Prescott, Arizona (pronounced like British “waistcoat”), a small town that, at an elevation of 5,300 feet, provides a summertime refuge from the brutal heat of Phoenix. “Everybody’s Hometown,” banners on lampposts announce; the ubiquitous ravens who cackle imperiously from atop these perches seem to agree. The former state capitol of Arizona, Prescott now offers mostly tourist attractions, including remnants of a once-famous Whiskey Row, plenty of restaurants and antique shops, and (so they say) the world’s oldest rodeo. July is monsoon season, when moisture from the Sea of Cortez gets sucked up into the sky and dumped on the land in storms of amazing suddenness and ferocity. West of town Thumb Butte, haven for nesting peregrines, floats in the blue distance. Our accommodations were provided by Prescott College, an experimental school founded in the 1960s that offers a robust environmental curriculum, recycled granite in the bathrooms, herds of wild javelinas wandering the alleyways between dorms, and neither grades nor credits. Our main classroom, in the Sharlot Hall regional history museum, was an unfinished cement studio space with a horrendous echo and squealing chairs; considering that the museum now faces the loss of all state funding due to Arizona’s budget crisis, though, the director and staff were incredibly generous in permitting us to take over their grounds for a month.

The institute’s participants were a diverse group, both regionally and by discipline. Philosophers were particularly well represented (all of them, unlike me, sporting enviable heads of hair; maybe philosophical reflection encourages follicle retention). But there were also faculty from my own disciplines of Literature and American Studies, as well as from Biology, Religious Studies, Political Science, Women’s Studies, and even, in the case of a woman who teaches in Hawaii, Dance. The disciplinary diversity, unfortunately, wasn’t matched by much visible ethnic diversity, though one woman did tell me she’s part-Cherokee. Inevitably, our discussions turned to issues of environmental justice, something Leopold, surrounded though he was by Native and Hispanic populations, barely touched on, and something our own ethnic makeup suggested still needs to be vigorously addressed. We also talked about hunting — another Leopold passion that the vegetarians in the group, myself included, wrestled mightily to understand as a form of love for the wild — as well as about the question of Leopold’s radicalism (or lack thereof), the applicability of his land ethic to the global-scale environmental crises we now face, the proliferation of land ethics in such contemporary settings as urban gardens and the slow foods movement, and much more. The faculty who steered us through these subjects represented the cream of the Leopold crop: biographer Curt Meine, a cheerful and energetic soul who offered me an impromptu lesson in reading land health during an interminable bus ride to Leopold’s rookie post of Springerville, Arizona; Julianne Newton, whose own biography of Leopold emphasizes the development of his ecological thinking; J. Baird Callicott, the dean of environmental ethics, who almost single-handedly put Leopold on the map for philosophers initially inclined to dismiss him as a mere government functionary unworthy of joining their arcane brotherhood; and in the final week, author Scott Russell Sanders, whose writings, including his recent, marvelous A Conservationist Manifesto (reviewed in the forthcoming issue of Terrain.org), have earned him a spot in the Leopold tradition of environmentalist philosophy and prophecy. By month’s end, all of us had designed or retooled syllabi that we’ll be taking home to our own campuses, as well as making publicly available on the website of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University. If in so doing we can spread the gospel of Leopold to as wide and diverse an audience as possible, the institute will have served its purpose.

I’ve always respected Leopold as both a thinker and writer, but the institute gave me a greater appreciation both for the quality of his ideas and for the lengthy process by which he achieved their full flowering. When he first arrived in the Southwest, Leopold was a faithful disciple of the Progressive-era utilitarianism preached by the head of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, who saw timber as a “crop” to be managed solely for commercial purposes. Only gradually, over decades of observation, reflection, communication with leaders in the emerging field of ecology, object lessons in the United States and abroad, and more than his fair share of mistakes and missteps, did Leopold emerge as the revolutionary thinker who emphasized the need for humans to live harmoniously with the natural world, to reject economic profit as the sole measure of the land’s value, to view the biota as a unified whole with which humans should tamper only reluctantly, and to understand ourselves as a part of that unity, linked to the land in material, historical, ethical, and spiritual ways. The Southwest proved a fertile starting-point for Leopold’s development, his tutorship in the region’s fragile ecosystems making him particularly alert to the human impact on the land. It was also in the Southwest that the seeds were sown for his most dramatic about-face: his revolution from advocate of predator eradication to defender of wolves and grizzlies as essential members of the land community. In a stunning confessional from his most famous short essay, “Thinking Like a Mountain,” Leopold recounts the epiphany he experienced upon the downing of a mother wolf:

We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes — something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.

Leopold exaggerates and compresses his revelation here; though a letter has recently surfaced proving that he did indeed shoot two timber wolves during his first year in Arizona, it would be decades before he seriously reconsidered the wisdom of predator-eradication programs. (Indeed, in the letter itself, he laments not the death of the wolves but the loss of his pipe.) But as Scott Sanders pointed out, the fact that Leopold retells this incident in a way that isn’t literally true enables him to evoke its deeper truth: the need for each of us to see the land as a living whole, worthy of our love and respect. In this sense, Leopold provides a powerful example for students and for all of us who struggle to meet the environmental challenges of our time: rather than assuming that he knew what was best for the earth, he allowed that far older and wiser teacher to instruct him in its ways.

In Leopold’s essay “Some Fundamentals of Conservation in the Southwest,” written in 1923 but unpublished until 1979, some 30 years after his death, he places the American experiment in its historical context and finds occasion for judgment and regret: “Five races — five cultures — have flourished here. We may truthfully say of our four predecessors that they left the earth alive, undamaged. Is it possibly a proper question for us to consider what the sixth shall say about us?” I hold this question in my mind as I return to my home to teach, to raise my children, and to work for the restoration and revitalization of the land.

Joshua David Bellin with his children at the Grand Canyon, a not-too-far drive from Prescott, Arizona.

About the Blogger

Joshua David Bellin teaches American, Native American, and Environmental Literature at La Roche College in Pittsburgh. Having published three scholarly books and numerous articles in these fields, he has recently taken a break from academic writing to focus on fiction and creative nonfiction. Under the pen name of J. David Bell, he has published in such periodicals as Word Catalyst, SNReview, Gander Press Review, Queen City Review, and the upcoming issue of Terrain.org.

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Victoria / Vancouver Island Photo Gallery

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By Simmons Buntin, June 9, 2009 8:43 am

The full Victoria and Vancouver Island photo gallery by Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin — shots taken before, during, and after the ASLE conference and field trips — is now online:

http://www.simmonsbuntin.com/images/gallery/2009/victoria/index.html

Enjoy!

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 6

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By Simmons Buntin, June 8, 2009 8:02 am

Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment conference in Victoria, BC:


Second-growth red cedar on the way to Walbran Valley, a four-hour drive from Victoria.

Though last night’s banquet pretty much closed out the ASLE conference, a couple post-conference field trips were held today, including a 12-hour trek, by schoolbus no less, to the Walbran Valley to view Canada’s oldest old growth forests.

Our excursion was led by representatives of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, a nonprofit environmental organization working hard to save British Columbia’s last remaining old growth forests, as well as to promote sustainable logging. Look for a photo essay from Joan and Rick Maloof on the work of the Wilderness Committee on Vancouver Island in the next issue of Terrain.org.

The following photos are from the majestic Walbran Valley, or nearby, and close out my coverage of the ASLE conference. Be sure to check out the full gallery of photos in a few days on my personal website, and thanks for tuning in!


Old growth forest on the Walbran Valley floor.
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ASLE members take a hike.
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The Emerald Pond, where large steelhead can often be found.
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Many of the forty or so ASLE members who made the trip.
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Oh, just a 600-year-old tree or so; no big deal, eh?!
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Plank trail through the rainforest.
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Author self-portrait at a campground originally set up to protest encroaching logging.
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Taking a break after hiking to a waterfall (kind of hard to see here in the background).
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Columbine before full bloom.
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Flower and berries. Lots of wildflowers were blooming there and on the way.
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The beards of forest wisdom on the old growth trees.
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Our bus, leaving Walbran Valley.
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Clearcutting on the road from Walbran.
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Pretty good views, when you can get them. Still, I’ll take the trees over the clearcut-induced view, thanks.
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ASLE Conference Review : Day 5

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By Simmons Buntin, June 7, 2009 5:36 am

Terrain.org editor (and traveling dope*) Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment.


A painted eagle sculpture on the promenade in front of the Empress Hotel, Victoria’s Inner Harbour.

* A traveling dope, you ask? Yes, sadly: First, I didn’t realize until after I got up to British Columbia that my credit union doesn’t allow the use of my debit/VISA card in Canada. I’m a dope not because I didn’t know (I mean, really, who calls their credit union before heading up to Canada from the U.S.?) but because I left my Wells Fargo card at home, and it would work just fine up here. Second, I failed to bring a rainshell with me up here. So far I haven’t needed one, but I’m participating in the Walbran Valley rainforest day trip/hike tomorrow, and it’s likely I will.

So this afternoon, before the ASLE banquet, I caught a bus to the local mall, only to get there fifteen minutes after it closed. (What mall closes at 5:30 p.m. on a Saturday, anyway?! Apparently all of them in Victoria.) At that I cut my losses (rather than heading downtown, where for all I know stores may have already closed, as well), and headed back to UVic. Here’s hoping it doesn’t rain on our trip tomorrow!

Summary

Another wonderful day of panels and plenaries to close out the ASLE conference.

I slept in, so missed the first sessions of the day, which also gave me the time to staff the Terrain.org table in the exibitors area for a bit before hitting the “Borderlands” panel, which featured (among others) Tom Leskiw, a Terrain.org contributor (see his essays here and here, the latter an essay on southern Arizona’s San Pedro River, relevant for this panel’s discussion). Though the panel featured a ranging mix of academic and creative literary work, it was a good mix, and I learned a lot and appreciated the diversity.

I should also praise Tom (and more so his wife Sue, who suggested it) for bringing from their home in northern California a bottle of Eel River Brewing Company’s Acai Berry Wheat beer, which I’ve yet to enjoy, but will before I leave Victoria.

The afternoon plenary was headlined by Andrew C. Revkin, New York Times journalist and author behind the excellent Dot Earth Blog. Turns out that Andrew is a friend and neighbor of Terrain.org editorial board member and columnist David Rothenberg. I purchased Andrew’s book The North Pole Was here: Puzzles and Perils at the Top of the World, which he kindly signed for my daughters, as it’s a book aimed at middle-school-aged children.

Milkweed Editions publisher and CEO Daniel Slager and Orion Society executive director and Orion magazine editor-in-chief H. Emerson Blake sat with Andrew on a sort of Q&A panel following Andrew’s great multimedia presentation. The overall topic of the panel was “New Publishing Environments: The Changing Landscape of Reading,” and it spanned what publishing may look like in the realms of books and magazines over the next ten years.

The phrase of the day might be: Change, it’s a comin’. But of course change in the publishing industry is already here. For a journal like Terrain.org, the changes bode well, I think. But for traditional print publications, it’s hard to say. With Chip Blake at the helm of Orion, though, and knowing the great use they’ve made of their website and the new Orion digital edition, I’d bet they’re poised well. Ditto for Milkweed, which understands the need to get excerpts of their books out into the webosphere (like, for example, in Terrain.org), as well as to feature actual book content on their own website. As for the books themselves? Well, there’s Amazon’s wireless reading device Kindle, of course, and advanced wireless, portable book readers from other manufacturers are less than a year away, blowing open that market.

So how we read books, magazines, and the like will certainly evolve, and that will undoubtedly save costs as well as resources (think of the elimination of production, printing, and distribution). As I see it, the wireless readers may also force online journals that want to be included in this new digital reading format to create Kindle-friendly versions in addition to our “traditional” websites, as these readers are definitively not web browsers. That’s exciting to me; though for a low- or self-funded publication like Terrain.org, could be a real barrier if these readers charge to host our issues, which are already provided for free. The internet may be (relatively) free, but most content on wireless reading devices certainly won’t be.

Following logically from the afternoon plenary, “The Virtues of the Virtual: Using Blogs to Communicate Place across Space” roundtable featured a number of bloggers (though really only one who’s place-based, and that anonymously so), and was an interesting discussion, though given my blogging experience a bit remedial. Still, only two or three members of the audience, when asked by a panelist, said they were bloggers, and I was one of them, so I suspect the content was right on for the majority of folks in the audience.

Finally, the ASLE banquet and awards presentation featured — beyond the good food, great company, and typical end-of-conference accolades — headliner Ruth Ozeki, a Japanese-American filmaker and novelist whose award-winning novels include My Year of Meats and All Over Creation. Her presentation/lecture/discussion/speech (really, what do we call these things: keynote address, I guess) was wonderful, eloquently weaving novel excerpts with a pointed yet not painful environment/food/literature discussion, initiated with a meditation excercise that put me, at least, in a fluid mood set for listening.

:: By the way, I think it’s important to note here that I’m listening to U2’s “So Cruel,” from the album Achtung Baby on my iPod. It’s song #1863 of 2432 on my all-play list — I’ve been listening to the full library of my iPod’s songs in alphabetical order, which I started several weeks (or months) ago. It’s a beautiful song on a stellar album from an amazing band. But for the record: The Joshua Tree is U2’s best album and, I think, the best rock album ever produced. Discuss among yourselves. Okay, we return now to your regular ASLE blog update…. ::

The banquet in effect concluded the ASLE conference. It was announced that the next conference, in 2011, will be in Bloomington, Indiana at Indiana University, hosted in part by Scott Russell Sanders. Count me in, as this conference (and its location) have been all I’d hope they would be — and more.

Environmental Note

I have not driven a car or watched a television for the past week. I can’t say that very often. Well, maybe I could say that about the TV — except for The Office, college football, and the occasional DVD, I don’t watch much TV anyway. Of course, I’ve been on the computer a lot, including the continuously rotating Terrain.org slideshow at our exhibitor’s table, but even with that my overall computer energy use is down from my standard resource suck. Does that offset the carbon used to transport me up here? Possibly not, but combine it with the proverbial energy and connections I’ve gained toward my work on Terrain.org and my writing while up here, plus the carbon offset fee I added onto my ASLE registration, and I think it gets me close.

Energy or not, though, you can’t walk away from this conference any less concerned about the dire situation of the Earth. As Andrew Revkin says, “By 2050 or so, the world population is expected to reach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas to the number of people alive today. Those billions will be seeking food, water and other resources on a planet where, scientists say, humans are already shaping climate and the web of life.” How we sustain our environment and cultures into the future, when we’re not doing such a great job of it right now, is the ultimate question.

Best Event/Activity

Tough call, this. I really enjoyed both the plenary and keynote speaker at the banquet. And sleeping in this morning deserves good marks, as well.

But I’ll give the nod to my conversation with Milkweed Editions publisher and CEO Daniel Slager at the banquet, something I wasn’t expecting. I’ve long admired Milkweed’s work, so chatting it up with Daniel about Milkweed’s future website plans, opportunities for including Milkweed excerpts on Terrain.org, fatherhood, sons vs. daughters, living in Minneapolis compared to New York City, and my own work and writing, capped off the conference in a pretty great way.

Worst Event/Activity

Wasted bus ride to the closed mall, hand’s down. Though, really, do I ride the bus in Tucson? No, so here was a rare opportunity. And besides, Victoria has cool double-decker buses. So it wasn’t so bad, was it? Nah — I did get back to the banquet on time, after all.

Beer Note

I drank a couple lovely IPAs at the banquet. But from where? The bottle labels were blue, I think. Anyway, good brew, as they all have been, without exception. Thanks Victoria!

Take Away

The ASLE conference was a success for Terrain.org and for me personally. Couldn’t ask for more than that.*

* Well, I could, actually: At one time I had planned to travel up here with my wife and two daughters, but alas, economics and a quickly approaching family reunion in San Diego snuffed those plans out. They would have loved it, though.

Photos


Victoria’s Inner Harbour, with Prince of Whales whale-watching boats.


Sunset and bay view from Cadboro Gyro Park, just a few blocks south of UVic.


Driftwood (drifttrunk?) at Cadboro Gyro Park.


Victoria’s famous Butchart Gardens? Nope, this is one of the courtyard paths to my dorm. Though the UVic campus kind of feels like a suburban office park, it is not without its charms.

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 4

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By Simmons Buntin, June 6, 2009 7:49 am

Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference:


Heading out from a Victoria inlet for an afternoon of sea kayaking, an official ASLE field trip.

The fourth day of the ASLE conference in Victoria, BC:

Summary

Another great day, which included:

  • First panel: “The Everyday Wild: Nonfiction from the Sky and Ground,” featuring Christopher Cokinos reading from his new book, The Fallen Sky: An Intimate History of Shooting Stars, Jennifer Henderson on Machine in the Sky: A Biography of the Tornado, and John T. Price, on Backyard Nature: Children, Parents, and Insects. With the possible exception of the photography panel way back on the first day, this is the best panel so far. Great readings by all three.
  • Next panel: “Let There Be Night: The Value of Darkness, the Cost of Light Pollution,” facilitated by Paul Bogard, editor of Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark, and including four writers with essays in the dark night anthology: Gretchen T. Legler, Christina Robertson, Thomas Becknell, and John Tallmadge.
  • Sea kayaking ASLE field trip with two dozen other participants — Pacifica Paddling’s “Oak Bay Coastal Explorer” kayak excursion (see photos below), which was great fun. Pretty good wind and waves. We saw bald eagles and a mother seal with her pup, as well.
  • Evening plenary session: “Green Poetries from Canada: Place, Poetry, and Witness” featuring discussion and readings by Rita Wong and Jan Zwicky. Jan’s reading, particularly, just blew me away.
  • Drinks with Orion’s Chip Blake, Milkweed Editions’s Patrick Thomas, and Hawk & Handsaw’s Kathryn Miles (more on that below).

Environmental Note

The global warming may, at least for the rest of this week, be behind us up in Victoria. It’s pretty chilly up here this evening, and the day was mild (and downright nippy out on the water when kayaking). Still, people, don’t let up your guard on that whole global warming thing. My sources tell me it’s the real deal….

Best Event/Activity

This morning, this section was slated for the panel with Cokinos, Henderson, and Price. Then, following the kayaking excursion, it was reserved for that little adventure. I’m settling at this late hour, however, on my evening conversation with Chip, Kathryn, and Patrick. It’s not often I get to talk shop — not to mention share hilarious family stories — with good folks like these. Our small gathering over local brews at the UVic Student Union pub/grill was a delight and a privelage.

Worst Event/Activity

I have very sad news to share — news I learned yesterday but wasn’t prepared to share until today (and I do have permission). As many of you know, Christopher Cokinos founded and has served as the editor of the outstanding journal Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing for more than a decade now. Many of you also know that state university funding has been drastically cut nearly everywhere. Combine those two, and we learn that Utah State University will no longer be publishing Isotope.

Folks, Isotope is one of the three or four best environmental literary journals, and its closure is a huge blow not only to the good folks working on the journal at USU, but to environmental and science literature readers and writers everywhere. But what to do? We need to find a large endowment to sustain the journal, under Chris’s excellent editorial skills, and find it now. So ante up!

There is a possibility that Isotope will move to another university or other editing team, but unless it stays at USU, as far as I know Chris will no longer be the editor. That is sad, indeed.

Beer Note

Enjoyed a couple local brews at the pub tonight, but didn’t get their names. You pretty much can’t go wrong with any of the the local stuff, I realize, so brand/name may not be an issue.

Take Away

  • Creative nonfiction panels = good
  • Ocean kayak excursions = good
  • Late-night conversations with editing peers = good
  • Shutting down environmental lit mags = bad

Photos


I’m including only kayak photos in this entry. Here are the kayaks on the dark, pebbly beach before we loaded into them and pushed out.



I took along my new Canon PowerShot D10, which is waterproof to 33 feet, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the lens won’t get smudged with drops of saltwater from my sporadic paddling (or otherwise)….



Greg and Kathryn Miles threaten to capsize our kayak (no, not really; we all did a little bump-and-float along the way).



We saw three bald eagles, though I couldn’t get a good shot of any of them. Here’s one, but this could be a nautical turkey for all this picture reveals.



My paddling partner: Charlie.



And me.



All in all, a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 3

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By Simmons Buntin, June 5, 2009 7:40 am

Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference:


Darth Vader plays a mean fiddle in downtown Victoria, and it wasn’t all Star Wars theme, either.

The third day of the ASLE conference in Victoria, BC:

Summary

Well before the ASLE conference started, coordinators Dan Philippon (ASLE president and program chair) and Richard Pickard (local arrangements chair) noted that there would be more time for network-building and socializing before, between, and after the sessions of this year’s conference. We haven’t been disappointed. While today’s sessions were strong once again, I enjoyed the discussions and gatherings outside of the panels more so.

This morning I attended the paper jam titled “Poetic Forms, Poetic Places: Readings and Reflections,” featuring Ian Marshall on haiku and the International Appalachian Trail, Cara Chamberlain on the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming, Emily Carr on the poem as ecotone, Mary Pinard on the sonnet redouble as an “archipelago of song,” a phrase nearly as beautiful as her sonnets, and Terrain.org contributor Andrew C. Gottlieb reading his Isle Royale National Park poems, two of which appear in our current issue (with audio). Poetry is always a great way to start out the morning, and this panel did not disappoint.

I then skipped the ecocriticism mid-morning plenary session (I mean, aren’t we all critical enough of our environment, anyway?! okay, sorry…) and worked the Terrain.org table through lunch, catching up with a few Terrain.org contributors like Andrew Wingfield and Joan Maloof and meeting lots of other great folks.

The first afternoon session was difficult to choose, as the roundtable “Earth’s Body: An Ecopoetry Anthology” featuring Ann Fisher-Wirth, Laura-Gray Street, and others, and the “Poems on Place” reading featuring Suzanne Roberts and other poets were both very tempting. But I felt especially drawn to the paper jam “Creative Nonfiction: Transformations,” facilitated by Hawk & Handsaw: The Journal of Creative Sustainability editor and Unity College environmental literature associate professor Kathryn Miles. Hawk & Handsaw deserves mention here not just because of its cool (sub+)title and the (full disclosure here) fact that I have an essay in its just-released second issue, but because this beautiful journal is going to raise the bar for creative environmental journals. I’ll have it down at the Terrain.org table if you want to check out the copy — just don’t take it from me, please! (You may take the Hawk & Handsaw postcard, instead.)

The panel featured Jennifer Calkins on quails, Robert Scott Elliott on flyfishing the Sol Duc, Catherine Meeks on the Tennessee Valley Authority, Mary Webb on the urban heat island that Reno has become, Elizabeth Van Zandt on Mojave’s sky islands, and Russ J. Van Paepeghem, editor of Camas: The Nature of the West (another really good environmental journal) on the topography of silence. A lovely mixture!

The afternoon closed out with a packed, and delightful, author’s reception, where I picked up books by Kathryn Miles (Adventures with Ari: A Puppy, a Leash, and Our Year Outdoors) and Suzanne Roberts (Nothing to You: Poems), as well as the brand-new From the Fishhouse: An Anthology of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great, edited by Camille T. Dungy (thanks Camille!). I also met Terrain.org contributor Anca Vlasopolos, whose work I much admire.

Name dropping here? Yeah, sort of, but understand that I know a lot of folks digitally through the journal (and/or Facebook, blogging, etc.), so finally meeting them in person is a big deal to me — worth mentioning, certainly! And the spaces in between the sessions and author’s reception today, especially, resounded with these wonderful connections.

This evening, Terrain.org editorial board member and columnist Lauret Savoy and I traveled to downtown Victoria for a really excellent dinner at Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub & Guesthouses (more on that below) and stroll around the Inner Harbor (where we saw Lord Vader on violin, pictured above). I finished the evening catching up with folks at the Orion/Milkweed Editions reception, though once again I arrived too late for free beer, dangit!

Environmental Note

Anyone else notice that water from a stainless steel bottle tastes like, well… steel? Color me picky, but I like my water to taste pretty much like nothing.

Best Event/Activity

I’ve already mentioned the great connecting with folks — via the Terrain.org table, author’s reception, pre- and post-panel, and otherwise — so won’t hit that again. And I’ll discuss Spinnakers a bit below.

So let’s select my outing with Lauret Savoy, who kindly drove us to downtown and back. I first met Lauret in person back in NYC for the AWP conference, January 2008. She was a participant on “The Future of Environmental Essay” panel I chaired. I learned about her and her work through Alison Deming. To say I was blown away by Lauret’s presentation on the panel is an understatement. It was a great panel across the board — really great (read and hear excerpts of the panel that also included Alison, David Gessner, and David Rothenberg here) — and Lauret capped it off beautifully. Since then, she has joined our editorial board and is now writing a regular column, A Stone’s Throw, for each issue. Check out her first contribution on placing Washington, D.C., before the inauguration.

It was splendid to really have the opportunity to talk with Lauret this evening, the conversation ranging easily from family to geology to publishing and well beyond.

Worst Event/Activity

I’d still like a bigger crowd in the exhibitors area. Things definitely picked up just before the author’s reception, but we should have attendees strolling through in greater numbers all the time. I’ve heard from a few folks that they didn’t even know there is an exhibitors area.

Put the coffee out earlier and keep it filled up, maybe?

Beer Note

Before heading up to Victoria I Googled “Victoria brewpubs” and three came up: Canoe (see Day 0), Swanns (which I’ve yet to visit), and Spinnakers, which Lauret and I easily found across the Johnson Street Bridge this evening. What a great restaurant and brewpub this is! We got a table on the shady patio looking out toward the Inner Harbour, I opted for the delicious halibut fish and chips, and the beer was oustanding. I had the Nut Brown Ale: smooth and a bit smoky, in a good way. A gorgeous color and head, too.

Folks, they know how to brew some beer up in Victoria!

Take Away

1. I cannot stay up this late blogging.

2. I should instead stay up this late chatting with my many new ASLE friends.

Photos


The view from our table at Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub.


Simmons Buntin and Lauret Savoy in front of the Empress Hotel.


The Pacific Grace, docked near the Inner Harbour esplanade.


Lauret photographs the harbour and the British Columbia Parliament Buildings.


Parting shot: silhoutted rigging. I don’t know what all this stuff is, but I do know that it is beautiful.

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 2

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By Simmons Buntin, June 4, 2009 6:08 am

Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference:


The British Columbia Government Parliament Buildings near the Victoria Inner Harbour.

The second day of the ASLE conference in Victoria, BC:

Summary

Today the ASLE conference kicked off in full, beginning with the opening plenary, featuring conservation biologist, professor, and writer Richard Primack, and ecologist and writer Amy Seidl, author of the new, acclaimed book Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World.

I next attended “Essays from the Wildbranch Writing Workshop,” facilitated by Anne Arundel Community College English professor Susan Cohen, and featuring creative nonfiction readings from Susan, Sierra College instructor Eve Quesnel, and not-an-English-professor me. I read my essay “Songbird,” which I first drafted as part of the Wildbranch Writing Workshop in northern Vermont last summer.

I spent lunch manning the Terrain.org table in the (warm/stuffy/underlit/moderately sparse) exhibitors area. I should note that the onion rings from the UVic Student Union grill around the corner and down the hall are particularly tasty.

After lunch I attended the session titled “Conservation Photography as a Form of Literary Expression,” which was just grand (more on that below), though I was sorry to miss “How and Why to Write about Humans and Nature,” featuring Terrain.org contributors Anca Vlasopolos and Joan Maloof, as well as “Bubbas and Babes in the Woods: Real Men Read Creative Nonfiction about Children and Nature,” which is closest to my own writing. Too bad so many great sessions occured at the same time, but such is the risk when there are fifteen concurrent sessions!

The final session of the day for me was what the ASLE coordinators call a “paper jam,” which simply means fitting more presenters/readers into a single session. “Online, On the Page, and Out of This World: A Reading of Emerging Multicultural Ecopoetries” was led by Camille T. Dungy, and featured delightful short readings by her as well as Shane Book, Sean Hill, and James Hoch. Much to my chagrin, Oliver de la Paz, who was listed, wasn’t able to make the session.

All in all, a great slate of sessions, which is just what I hoped for!

Then I joined Susan Cohen and her husband, plus Eve, University of Nevada – Reno English lecturer Mary Webb, and Terrain.org current issue contributors Andrew Gottlieb and Suzanne Roberts for a lovely dinner at Sauce Restaurant & Lounge, patio dessert along the water, and a walkabout along Victoria’s Inner Harbour that included a street performer juggling flaming torches on a raised unicycle (not to mention a cool bus ride back to campus in a double-decker city bus) this evening.

Environmental Note

I’ve rinsed out my new Earth Basics 900 ML stainless steel bottle and am ready to roll with it. No more plastic bottles, I say!

On a more relevant note, I enjoyed the opening plenary, especially Richard Primack’s conversational style and slideshow about tracking global warming at Thoreau’s Walden Pond using historical data from Thoreau himself, as well as Primack’s and his students’ research. As an opening plenary, however, I would have liked Primack to expand his global warming discussion a bit to the role of environmental literature in general. Something to really launch us into the conference. Or maybe that should have been Seidl’s role? Either way, neither really got me jazzed up or ready to actively think more critically about it, which seems to me the role, in part, of the opening plenary.

Speaking of global warming, I do believe that Victoria is experiencing the phenomena this week. While it’s not too bad outside — not too bad? Why, it’s downright beautiful! — inside the Student Union and classrooms the temperature is uncomfortably warm. Simmons should have brought himself more pairs of shorts, is all I’m saying!

Best Event/Activity

The photography session early this afternoon was stunning visually — slideshows and films — and just as important thought-provoking and essential, especially for me in the context of Terrain.org, which attempts to bring together the web’s best environmental literature and photography (as well as other media). Professional photographers Garth Lenz, Cristina Mittermeier, and Amy Gulick — all members of the International League of Conservation Photographers — introduced the ILCP and its work, and then addressed specific projects each photographer is working on to “bring conservation into focus.” Do yourself a favor and check out the ILCP website, and then keep an eye out in future issues of Terrain.org, where I’m certain we’ll be covering the organization’s good work and photographers.

Worst Event/Activity

Other than the persistently stuffy session rooms — which I’ve already harped on more than enough (and I’ll stop now) — there was nothing to complain about today. Sure, we missed the evening plenary and the opening free bar at the international reception, but that was our own doing as we enjoyed our stroll in downtown Victoria so much.

Beer Note

At Sauce this evening, I enjoyed a Vancouver Island Brewery Vancouver Islander Lager, crafted here in Victoria. I thought it was smooth and refreshing, complementing my delicious caramel pepper salmon quite nicely. Andrew, on the other hand, thought it was bland. The light lager could have used a bit more robustness (both in color and taste), I agree. For that I think we’d need Vancouver Island Brewery’s Hermann’s Dark Lager, which the restaurant did not, alas, have on tap.

By the way, as I type this I’m enjoying the jazz/electronica tunes streaming from Sauce’s website. Check it out.

Take Away

At the Wildbranch panel this morning, one audience member — a two-time Wildbranch participant — noted how great it was to attend Wildbranch and write/commune with like-minded souls. That’s pretty much how I feel following the first full day of the ASLE conference. While I’m not of the academic ecocriticism ilk (most attendees are), the passion, concern, and dedication toward the environment in lifestyle and writing serve as an essential bond and support system. I appreciate being a part of that.

I appreciate, too, the ability to form closer relationships with folks like Andrew and Suzanne, who I knew (mostly) only through Terrain.org before this conference began.

Photos


A large totem pole in front of the British Columbia Government’s Parliament Buildings, which we strolled by this evening.


A wonderful plaza near the Inner Harbour.


In my first blog entry I included photos of the painted eagle sculptures. Here are a couple whale samples.


Whale sculpture, tiled, with the Empress Hotel in the background.

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 1

comments Comments (3)
By Simmons Buntin, June 3, 2009 5:14 am
Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference:


The Empress Hotel at Victoria’s Inner Harbour. I didn’t make it back there today, but hopefully tomorrow! This photograph is from yesterday (Monday, for those keeping track of such things).

The first (half) day of the ASLE conference in Victoria, BC:
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Summary
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Today I had the morning off to figure out this internet connection stuff, as well as to check in at registration and set up the Terrain.org table in the exhibit hall. This afternoon I participated in the Ecomedia pre-conference session, for which I prepared (but we did not at all discuss, nor even mention, much to my chagrin, my “Virtual Sense of Place” hypertext essay).
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After the three-hour session I had the (easy) opportunity to photograph the sprawling herds / flocks / pods / kettles of rabbits here on campus (see below), which is when I ran into my friend and Terrain.org editorial board member Lauret Savoy, who no doubt thinks I’m crazy. Crazy like a rabbit, I say!
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The ISLE Reception, sponsored by Oxford University Press which now publishes ASLE’s fine journal Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, gave me the opportunity to mingle with conference participants, including a couple Terrain.org contributors and Susan Cohen, who organized the Wildbranch Essays panel for which she, Eve Quesnel, and I read tomorrow (10:30 a.m., Session B14, Clearihue C115).
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I finished the evening by walking down Sinclair Road to Cadboro Gyro Park (a couple photos below), which has a beach loaded with driftwood off a small inlet adjacent to the Strait of Georgia. The walk back up the long, steep hill was definitely good exercise.
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Environmental Note
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The problem, folks, is that I need caffeine, but I don’t drink coffee. Sure, I’ll drink tea — had some this morning and again at a stop at Starbuck’s on the way back from the park this evening — but there’s something about a cold Coke Zero that gets me going. Sad thing is, all the soda up here seems to come only in plastic bottles. So I’ve added another to my collection. Perhaps I’ll line them up outside before I leave and photograph them with the rabbits?
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Best Event/Activity
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A toss-up between the park, with the glowing boats on the water, and tracking down the feral European rabbits. Not sure what it is with me and these critters, but I find them fascinating. Learn more here, and here, too. Those are the official UVic sites. Now check out this article about the bunnies moving off-campus and the dreaded Rodentator. Or you could just kill and cook them, a certain kind of sustainability, I suppose. Guess that means that rabbits aren’t entitled to graduate and move off-campus like the rest of us…?
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Worst Event/Activity
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I see now this section could get me in trouble, so I may change it to something a bit more politically correct. Suggestions?
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While I enjoyed reading the papers of the Ecomedia pre-conference seminar, and there was interesting discussion, I admit it wasn’t relevant to my needs as an editor, publisher, writer, or environmentalist on more than a peripheral level. That’s primarily because of the nature of the discussion, which focused not on technology or even content, as I hoped, but on research and teaching methodologies for ecocriticism and ecomedia. That’s fine: of the dozen or so of us in the session, only two people (me one of them) isn’t a full-time professor. I had this concern — about being a right fit for the session — before I put together the hypertext essay.
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One notable exception that warranted much discussion and interest is Claudia Hemphill Pine’s research on ecological thinking in the transformative culture of fandom. Apparently, online communities of fans — think of the Harry Potter fandom — tend to rally around social causes, with the notable exception of environmental issues. Claudia explores why, and why not.
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Beer Note
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I had a localish Canadian ale at the ISLE Reception, but I didn’t get the name, gosh darnit. Not bad, but not as tasty as Canoe’s Beaver Brown.
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Take Away
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My take away today is: I’m rolling my sleeves up for the full conference kickoff and sessions tomorrow. I’ll be dancing back and forth between the Terrain.org table and sessions, including my reading in the morning. There are fifteen concurrent sessions in each time slot, and while there are 670 registered participants, I wonder just how many audience members each panel can expect. I’ll let you know tomorrow evening!
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Photos


First, you see one of these cute, pet-looking bunnies.



Then you see a few more lounging around in the full spectrum of pet bunny colors and sizes.



Being European rabbits, I can’t help but think of Watership Down, which I recall so well from my fourth-grade teacher’s reading of the classic book. Here, as there, they’re territorial and heirarchical — and dig broad networks of warrens.



Then you begin to realize the damn things are everywhere….



Everywhere, I say, and they’re coming after me!



The rabbits are not, however, down at the beach at Cadboro Gyro Park, where this photo was taken as the sun set behind the hills behind me.



A few boats (ships seems too big a word here, but then I’m no sailor) in the inlet, with the Strait of Georgia behind and the Olympic Mountains (and Washington State) in the far distance.

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ASLE Conference Review : Day 0

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By Simmons Buntin, June 2, 2009 5:05 pm

Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin blogs the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference:


Leaving Seattle aboard the Victoria Clipper hydrofoil ferry.

Technically, the ASLE conference hasn’t yet started, so this first post includes my trip from Tucson, Arizona, up to Victoria, British Columbia.

Summary

I’m spending eight full days traveling to and from Victoria for the ASLE conference, which affords a bit of time on either side of the conference to explore. Today (Monday), I had enough time in Seattle to check out the Olympic Sculpture Park before settling into the three-hour ferry ride up to Victoria.

Once I arrived in Victoria, my priorities were to check my bag and stroll around the Inner Harbour area until finding a brewpub; in this case Canoe Marina, Brewpub, and Restaurant (more on that below). In my travels I’ve found that the best food tends to align itself with the best, locally-brewed beer, and I’m all about local foods (even if I did have lunch at Subway in Seattle, on the fly).

The evening ended with a taxi ride to the University of Victoria, where the conference is being held, and a solid two hours of grappling with the sporadic wireless internet connection in the dorm room in which I’m staying. Just this morning (Tuesday) I figured out the ethernet connection, so problem finally solved!

Environmental Note

The concierge at the Inner Harbour hotel where I checked my bag noted how, from what he’d heard, America isn’t as environmentally progressive as Canada. And when it comes to Arizona, anyway, he’s spot on. Victoria’s full of hybrids — passenger cars, taxis, and buses — and recycling centers can be found, seemingly, on every other corner.

Yet when I went to breakfast at the campus cafeteria, this morning, the only juice I could buy was in a plastic bottle; ditto for water. So I sit here with three plastic bottles already gathered from my trip: two waters and one soda.

The solution? I visited the Student Union pharmacy where steel water bottles happen to be on sale, and picked one up. That should hold me well through this and many other trips. (I didn’t bring one up because our plastic BPA-free bottles at home are beginning to leak; this is my first stainless steel variety).

Best Event/Activity

While strolling around the Port of Seattle and the Olympic Sculpture Park was good fun, the highlight has definitely been wandering Victoria’s Inner Harbour. What a gorgeous city! I may not get to further explore the downtown area until Friday and Saturday (Friday promises a sea kayaking trip, Saturday a long hike through a nearby rainforest), but I can’t wait to get back to such urban vibrancy.

Worst Event/Activity

Canoe forgot to bring me my halibut fish and chips (I waited an hour), but they comped the meal, so I can’t complain too much about that. Plus the beer was outstanding (see below). Nope, I’ll go with being checked into the wrong room here at UVic and then being asked — after unpacking everything — to move next door. Which I did, without complaint, even though there are no hangers in this closet, much to my chagrin. And then of course the whole internet connection battle.

Beer Note

This section may change, depending on what tasty local beverage I can find, but for today I give a hearty endorsement to Canoe’s Beaver Brown Ale: delicious! The Red Canoe Ale was good, too, and that’s saying something for me since I’m not much of a Pilsner fan generally.

Take Away

Now that I’m settled in, I look forward to the conference beginning (for me, with an Ecomedia pre-conference seminar) this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how the exhibit area looks — Terrain.org has a table, but will I be too tempted by the many enticing concurrent sessions to stick around?!

Photos

Some photos from Monday. I’ll post some photos each day if possible, and then a large gallery at the end of the trip.


Victoria’s iconic Empress Hotel on the Inner Harbour.


Just as American cities often have painted sculptures placed around the city (in Denver, it was horses), Victoria has both eagle and whale sculptures.


An eagle sculpture along the Inner Harbour walkway, with the provincial capitol in the background.


British Columbia capitol.

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