It’s difficult to teach students about water history, especially when they are unfamiliar with the rivers or lakes you discuss. One way to get over this problem is to bring the students and the rivers together. This past week I co-led a human geography field school on the environmental history of the Bow River with my colleague, Graeme Wynn. We were based in the Barrier Lake field station in the Kananaskis Valley and visited sites from Banff National Park through Canmore, Calgary and the lower basin. We examined river parks and irrigation canals, flood structures and hydro dams. There seems to be no better way to explain the cause and effect relationships of different water infrastructure than to visit them, and just as importantly, talk to people whose lives they touch. A field course takes a lot of work to organize but I recommend the model. I learned a great deal from my students’ questions and they gained a new appreciation of the difficulties of living with a river.

Here is a photo of the Bassano Dam taken by one of the students, Danny Wong.