And we're off.

Photo by Robin

Last night, the 60 or so participants of "Time & a Place" gathered at the Confederation Centre of the Arts for the opening reception. (Colin Duncan tells me to mention -- with enthusiasm -- the bacon-wrapped scallops.) There were a substantial number of participants from PEI, but also from 6 other Canadian provinces, from the US, the UK, Iceland, Australia, and Chile; experts in environment, in history, or in both; students and scholars. Seeing this diverse group all milling together for the first time, gathered for an unusual weeklong experience that we organizers ourselves refused to characterize as a "workshop" or "conference", settling instead for "event", I felt positively Ricardo Montalban-esque, welcoming them to Fantasy Island.

Finis Dunaway of Trent gave an excellent start to the program with a public lecture on "Seeing Connections: Environmental History and Visual Culture." Beginning & ending with images of oil spills -- Santa Barbara, 1969, and Gulf of Mexico, 2010 -- Finis discussed what images have been used to support environmental effort, and how they may be used to tell environmental history. I was especially taken with his discussion of how images of atomic bomb testing aestheticized the bomb, creating the "atomic submlime", and how in the 1960s nuclear opponents countered with a simple image in magazines of smiling children, the caption noting that their teeth contained Strontium 90. (Must find article by Elspeth Brown that Finis recommends for how historians should read images.)

Today, we are heading west to Lennox Island First Nation for much of the day. The day ends with a public talk by Donald Worster. I'll have much to report tomorrow.