Shannon Stunden Bower has provided a helpful statement on the historical context of the Assiniboine River flood on the NiCHE website.  For those of you who don’t know Shannon’s work, she has written on the historical geography of water in Manitoba.  She authored an interesting piece on the watershed idea in Manitoba in Environmental History in 2007.  Even more relevant to the current situation is her essay in the Journal of Historical Geography published in 2010, entitled “Natural and unnatural complexities: flood control along Manitoba’s Assiniboine River”.

Her new book, to be released in June with UBC Press, is called, Wet Prairie: People, Land and Water in Agricultural Manitoba.

Over the past term, I taught a senior undergraduate seminar on the historical geography of water in Vancouver.  We read widely, carried out  field trips and visited several archives.  The students exceeded my expectations with a series of interesting papers grounded in original research.  For example, Adrian Martynkiw analyzed the development and disappearance of a public drinking fountain in the heart of Gastown, which shed light on the role of water in the early city and of the changing function and politics of space.  He will be leading a tour of the site as part of the ThinkCity series on May 8.  Check it out! 

http://tctoursgassyjackpublicdrinkingfountain.eventbrite.com/