![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Yesterday |
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
![[You can still see the scissors]](/images/2004/0901tims.gif)
Photo by Chris Hughes, UW Graphics |
Michelle Robinson writes from the athletics department that "We have changed the way that we offer our fitness classes." She elaborates: "Instead of individual registration, participants can now purchase a 'shoe tag' or 'punch card' for the classes. Shoe tags are good for the entire term, for as many fitness classes as the participant wants to take. The punch card is good for 10 fitness classes. Faculty and staff can purchase their shoe tag or punch card now -- they don't have to wait." She adds that fitness classes aimed particularly at staff (who may have different fitness needs from students, since they're typically older, and are available mostly at noon hour) will begin the week of September 20 and finish December 17. A shoe tag that covers the noon-hour staff class, "plus anything else they want", will cost $45 for the term.
A cover photograph of a lonely horse, silhouetted against burning oil wells during the Kuwait war of 1991, introduces the September-October issue of Alternatives magazine, published from UW's faculty of environmental studies. The theme of this issue is war and the environment, with articles on "Canada's military landscape", "pillage and plunder" in the Congo region, the development of new nuclear weapons, "Dams, Guns and Refugees", and "parks for peace". Among the UW people involved in this issue of the magazine is Christine Rehbein, a graduate student in environment and resource studies, with a note on Iraq's marshland restoration, a project in which UW is involved.
The baseball game between the Warriors and Brock University, which had been scheduled for today, is to be played on Friday instead, I'm told. . . . Flyers posted in several spots on campus note the loss of a "silver pinky ring" of great sentimental value (the owner can be reached at ext. 3300). . . . Among the many events scheduled on campus in early fall will be an on-campus part-time job fair in the Student Life Centre on Tuesday, September 21. . . .
| POSITIONS AVAILABLE |
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On this week's list from the human resources department:
Longer descriptions are available on the HR web site. |
One is a lightweight volume titled The Grand River Watershed, published last year as part of a series of "Heritage Landscape Guides" to areas of interest in Ontario. The guidebooks note that they "are intended to help people understand how the land has evolved and what changes seem to be underway today and why. In this respect the Guides can be useful in building awareness of community roots among residents and visitors."
![[Nelson]](/images/2004/0901nelson.gif)
The Grand River book, about 90 pages long, has seven authors, headed
by Nelson (left) and including geography graduate student
Christopher Lemieux. It describes the watershed area in terms of geology
("three basic regions"), plants and animals, and human heritage.
The largest section of the book divides the watershed into "eight
major landscapes", from "Luther Country" (much of it marshland)
in the north, through "Waterloo-Paris Country" in the middle to "Dunnville
Country" at the edge of Lake Erie.
There are dozens of illustrations, including historic and current maps, typical landscapes, and photos of landmark buildings.
"The Grand River Watershed," the book tells readers, "covers an area of about 7,000 km2 (2,600 miles2) in the great triangle between Lake Huron, Georgian Bay, and Lake Erie. The main stem of the River stretches about 290 km from its mouth at Lake Erie to its headwaters in the imperfectly drained terrain north of Luther Marsh. The Grand has several major tributaries, notably the Conestogo, the Speed, and the Nith. . . .
"The terrain is mainly farmland focusing on corn, grains, soybeans, beef, pigs, chickens, and other products. The cities and towns are in flux from often highly successful 19th and early 20th century industrial economies to those with more information and service industries such as computers and high tech, notably at Waterloo."
Important spots in the Grand watershed include the Elora Gorge, "the Living Levee in Galt, now part of Cambridge", and the Six Nations Reserve south of Brantford.
The book reminds readers that the geology of this area was largely created by the ice age that ended about 11,000 years ago. "Paleo-Indian, Archaic, and Woodland peoples" lived here "until the late 1790s and early 1800s when large scale invasion by people of European origin began" -- French traders, then Mennonites, Loyalists and other settlers. "By the 1880s and the 1890s much of the forest had been cleared and wolves, cougars, passenger pigeons and other animals largely eliminated."
The book brings the story up to date with discussions of flood control, industrial development, conservation and urban sprawl.
Map of the Grand River, from the
Canadian
Heritage Rivers System web site. Some 800,000 people live in the
Grand watershed.
![[Map]](/images/2004/0901grand.gif)
More than 30 other researchers have contributed to the Sense of Place volume on such topics as "Bedrock Geology of the Grand River Watershed" (Alan Morgan and Paul Karrow of earth sciences) and "The History and Geography of Urban Dispersion" (Pierre Filion and Trudi Bunting of the planning school). Other chapters touch on climate, hydrology, vegetation and wildlife, Aboriginal and early European settlement, agriculture, the Mennonite and Six Nations communities, air quality, conservation, recreation and government.
Besides UW researchers, the book draws on experts from the Grand River Conservation Authority, the Region of Waterloo and other agencies.
"The river is mostly taken for granted by people who live in the watershed, especially those in the middle third of it where the river flows through one of the most rapidly urbanizing regions of Canada," writes George Francis, a retired professor of geography, in a preface to the book.
"Although the river and associated underground aquifers provide the source of domestic water supply for almost everyone who lives in the watershed, this dependency does not create much sense of vulnerability. . . . While numerous other Canadian watersheds could be considered more spectacular or dramatic than the Grand, it has become increasingly apparent over the years that the Grand exhibits considerable human-scale variety rooted in a deep local history. For those sensitive to this, it can contribute to a feeling of well-being."
And Nelson writes in his introductory chapter that "Not long after the designation of the Grand as a Canadian Heritage River, more information on it began to be built into school curricula. For example, Wilfrid Laurier has established a branch campus at Brantford in which the watershed is a focus of studies."
Nelson noted proudly last week that as soon as Sense of Place was published, WLU adopted it as a textbook for the first-year students in that Brantford program.
CAR