A few years ago, Heather went to a Department of Agriculture workshop in Kentville. They were trying to persuade landowners to diversify their tree crops.She brought home and planted some hazel nuts.
The other evening, looking out of the living room window she noticed hazel nuts in the greenery, besides the house. This struck a chord.
In England, Peter and I, lived at 39 Hazel Close, Whitton, in Middlesex. Perhaps it is time to name our property on Highway #201: HAZEL CLOSE.
In response to my latest blog, Glen Langford, from BC, was wondering how and where Heather and I met.
The simple answer was the West Coast of Newfoundland, Gros Morne National Park in 1975. Heather was a seasonal naturalist. I was running ten day back-packing trips into the Long Range Mountains, for Black Feather, Wally Schaber in Ottawa. During the rest of the year, I was teaching in the Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s.
In turn, I should explain that I met Glen Langford in Edmonton , Alberta in 1979. I was working for Chip Ross at Alberta Recreation, parks and Wildlife. Glen had developed a GIS/ Image Analysis system (POLYGRID). This was before I established a relationship with ESRI in the early ‘80’s and the move to COGS.
Let. me fill in some of the missing pieces. University of Birmingham 1963-66. 1966-67 VSO in Montserrat. Upon returning to England, I had to find employment. My Mother encouraged me to take computer aptitude tests for both IBM and ICL I accepted the position of Junior Systems Analyst with IBM. This led to to a job maintaining IBM 360 computers at GCHQ ( Government Communication Head Quarters) in Cheltenham. After two years, I recognized that I did not want to become a corporate employee. The opportunity arose to return to Canada, as a graduate student at the University of Western Ontario, under the supervision of Professor Michael Goodchild. From 1969-1972, for both my M.Sc and Ph.D. The latter awarded in 1976.
Acknowledgements
It was Heather’s sharp eye that spotted the Hazel tree.
References
R.V Maher. 1971. Complexity Analysis of Vegetation Patterns in an Alpine Meadow. M.Sc. thesis. Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario.
R.V.Maher.1975. An Inquiry into the Nature of Biogeography. Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Geography, University of Western Ontario.
Ernest Blair Experiment 