I have enjoyed the writing of Robert MacFarlane for several years.
This week, I received notice of a new web site: Emergence Magazine. It includes a podcast interview with the author: Speaking the Anthropocene.
RM. “Language and landscape are the two braids that have twined and untwined in my life, and in my writing to this point. I teach in a literature department but really, I think I’m a bit more of a geographer these days.”
EM. “In Landmarks, is the idea that the words assembled in your book are a possibility of how we can re-wild our contemporary language for landscape. You described that as being the hope, so to speak.”
In Landmarks, MacFarlane provides a series of glossaries for different landscapes: flatlands, uplands, waterlands, coastlands, underlands, northlands, edgelands, earthlands, woodlands.
This discussion of the Language of Place took me back to my bookshelf. For Nova Scotia, I retrieved Sherman Bleakney’s book Sods, Soils and Spades: The Acadians at Grand Pre and their dykeland legacy. The word that triggered this search was aboiteau and its role in dykeland construction.
A second Nova Scotian author was Peter Sanger. In particular, I had enjoyed Spar: words in place ( check my blog Place in Words, October 31, 2018).
From time spent on Haida Gwaii, I found a back copy of Haida Laas, the newsletter of the Haida nation. (December 2015).
Thinking in Haida. With a slip of the tongue describes a Haida language class. The class is studying Massett Songs, a collection of songs and stories recorded by anthropologist John R. Swanson and translated by John Enrico.
“Xaad Kil is highly directional, the language is constantly creating a picture of motion and place. Xaad Kil prioritized things like wind direction, water currents and one’s own relative location to the ocean.
“ Lost in translation.
Xaad Kil (Haida) Sahgwii ltl
Literal English
Upstream- Direction I’m going.
Colloquial English
I’m going up town
Explanation
To get downtown from Gaaw, you must travel upstream along Gaaw Kaahli (Massett Inlet). That’s why we say uptown and not downtown like city people. Explained by Rev. Lily Bell.”
Here is my thesis: the language of Place is shaped by the specific geography, e.g. Nova Scotia or British Columbia. It is also shaped by the rules of the language, in this case, either Haida or English.
Regardless of the language, we need to understand the underlying processes, i.e. landscape ecology. In Nova Scotia, we are influenced by our position on the North American continent; the different air masses and ocean currents. These influences are changing within the context of the climate crisis.
I would love to believe that changing our language would help. In practice, we have to deepen our understanding of the landscape, it’s history, ecology and the associated processes.
Acknowledgements
Edward Wedler and Heather Stewart for their thoughtful conversations.
References
Emergence Magazine. emergencemagazine.org
J.Sherman Bleakney. 2004. Sods, soil and spades. McGill Queens Press.
Haida Laas.Newsletter of the Council of the Haida Nation. December 2015. p.8
Peter Sanger. 2002. Spar: words in place. Gaspereau Press
Robert Maher. ernestblairexperiment blog. October 31, 2018. Place in words.
Brian Boates picked up eight bins for juicing in Woodville, before transporting it to Ironworks Distillery in Lunenburg. At the same time, I heard from Pierre that the first shipment of Hunter Brandy should be available later this month.
We started to reflect on the difference. ‘Connected’ suggests a network of relationships between the elements of our natural environment and the people and culture that lived on the land. ‘Rooted’ suggests more a sense of permanence, with both feet on the ground.
We have been working with them to produce a product, ‘Hunter’s Brandy’. Raymond and Rona Hunter were early organic farmers in the Annapolis Valley. In the late ‘80s, Raymond planted a small orchard in Paradise, less than a hundred trees, primarily NovaMac and MacFree varieties with the occasional Liberty and NovaSpy. We took responsibility for the orchard around 2008. Initially, we would hand-press the apples into sweet cider for sale at the farmers’ markets.
More recently, we have reached an agreement with Brian Boates in Woodville to juice the apples and then deliver the liquid to Pierre Guevremont at Ironworks Distillery, Lunenburg. This week, we conducted the final tasting of Hunter’s Brandy. It has been two years in the making. Look out for it at your local farmers’ market or take a drive over the top to Lunenburg on the South Shore.
This week, between Canada Day and Independence Day, we went down to Brooksville, Maine to visit Andrew, Julia and family at Julia’s Mothers house. Besides the kayaking, sailing and beach access we discovered a part of ‘the back to the land’ history.
For those interested, check out the following web site 
To get there is very simple. Take the Digby-St John ferry, drive to the Canada/US border at St Stephen/Calais. Take the Airliner, Route #9 towards Bangor. About two thirds along head south on #179 to Brooksville. Specifically, both The Good Life Centre and Four Season Farm are at Harborside.
A couple of conversations caught my attention. The first was a chat about the conversion of a LiDAR-derived topographic landscape into a hooked rug. This resonated with a new book that I had signed out from the COGS library. Artistic Approaches to Cultural Mapping: activating imaginaries and means of knowing. The second conversation, with Ed Symons, related to my experience at the walk-in clinic in Berwick, looking for a doctor. There, I had picked up a brochure describing the process for 811 registration. Here was my question: why not allow communities to actively engage in the doctor shortage issue. Can we not map citizens who do not have a family doctor from the registry? Can we not map the communities where doctors are retiring? This would allow individual communities, without government oversight and control, to be 
Yesterday, Heather and I joined a group of about thirty woodlot owners for a field trip organized by the 
This week, I received emails, from my brother and Frank Fox, about the new book by Robert MacFarlane, 
In True North Rising, Whit Fraser describes meeting Mary Simon’s parents in the Arizona Desert (p.138). For nearly twenty years, the in-laws made winter camping trips. Bob May started work for the Hudson Bay Company at Arctic Bay, where he met his wife, Nancy. This story reminds me of the changes in technology, and its relation to elder travel.
On our way North, we had a stopover in Ottawa. This was our chance to visit an urban Chapters bookstore. I picked up Dan Rubinstein’s 
Click on any numbered site to see details of when paint-out is/was scheduled.
They mentioned the following objectives:
In an earlier blog post (
The next step in my David Manners research has been to track down his writing, after he moved to California, after the second world war. Fortunately, courtesy of Amazon, I am able to order David Morgan Jones (ed) The Wonder within You: From the Metaphysical Journals of David Manners and Awakening from the Dream of Me.
Manners died in Santa Barbara, aged ninety-eight in 1998. I hope to find them in my mailbox when we return from Iqaluit.
The sky wasn’t just overcast or sunny. The sky was a mix of Burnt Sienna with a touch of French Ultramarine Blue or was a variegated wash from Cerulean Blue to Cadmium Yellow. We were not just engulfed in fall foliage of colours. Hills became brushstrokes of Alizarin Crimson, Quinacridone Gold (I love that colour) and Prussian Blue.
We divided the landscape into zones (foregrounds, mid-grounds, and backgrounds) and described how we would paint aerial perspective, “treat edges” and change tonal contrasts, to give a sense of distance.
Many times we would identify a focal point in the landscape (almost with “eye-spy-with-my-little-eye enthusiasm) and would suggest ways to direct viewers’ eyes to that point. Would it be the slope of the hills, the line of our winding road, edges of forest stands or the illumination of light breaking through the clouds? How would our favourite artists, or The Group Of Seven treat that focal point?
As we drove, we unpacked our landscape NOT in terms of “things” (such as houses, fence rows, barns, silos or cows) but in terms of shape, line, colour, patterns, gradation and composition. We became exhilarated, as artists, to not only view the landscape but to offer ways to interpret the landscape — whether it be as a realist, impressionist or abstract artist — in oils, acrylics, watercolours or inks.
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