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Acknowledgements
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vii Acknowledgements This book would not have been possible if not for the helpful guidance and patient listening of many people. Laurie Ricou has compelled me to take risks I would likely have avoided (and surely would have regretted not taking) without his challenging provocations and selfless attitude. He has taught me the value of paying attention to habitat—and all it entails—and the importance of writing as a way of thinking. Laura Moss knows what questions to ask and what accomplishments to celebrate. Mike Healey (the “alien” scientist in the ranks) offered astute, slightly suspicious commentary that has made this work stronger. Bill New has been a model of openness, humility, wisdom, and constant encouragement without which I would not be writing. I am grateful to friends and colleagues whose conversations along the way have made my work enjoyable, including Sarah Banting, Nicholas Bradley, Jennifer Delisle , Matt Huculak, Eddy Kent, Alyssa MacLean, Shurli Makmillen, Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi, Shane Plante, Tyson Stolte, Katja Thieme, Terri Tomsky, Angela Waldie, and Onjana Yawnghwe. Maia Joseph and Lisa Szabo-Jones generously shared their time, knowledge, and editing prowess; Duffy Roberts offered unflagging support and willingness to read anything and respond with candour. Kitty Lewis at Brick Books has been generous and open with her time; Kieran Kealy shared many bird books; and Simon Bonner provided birding companionship and expertise. I benefited a great deal from my time spent at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, where I revised much of this manuscript while red-winged starlings and cape weavers sang just outside my office. The Andrew Mellon Foundation made my time there possible. Dan Wylie and Ann Smailes shared some of their favourite birding spots and game drives. The Department of English at Dalhousie University provided a welcome and accommodating space in which to complete this manuscript . I am grateful to the Killam Trusts for financial support; to Carrie Dawson for offering sage advice; to Dean Irvine for listening; to Erin Wunker for uplifting and for reminding that sparrow is also a verb. Parts of this book have been published elsewhere and appear here in revised form. Parts of Chapter Two were published as “Naming and Knowing in Don McKay’s Poetry,” The Dalhousie Review 90.1 (2010); parts of Chapters Nine and Ten appeared in “Toward an (Avian) Aesthetic of (Avian) Absence,” Alternation: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa 16.2 (2009); part of Chapter Eight appeared in “Listening at the Edge: Homage and viii • Acknowledgements Ohmage in Don McKay and Ken Babstock,”Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne 33.1 (2008); parts of Chapter Two and Seven appeared in“Lick Me, Bite Me, Hear Me, Write Me: Tracking Animals between Postcolonialism and Ecocriticism,”Other Selves: Animals in the Canadian Literary Imagination, University of Ottawa Press, 2007; and shorter versions of Ecotones One through Three were published as“West-Coast Birding as Postcolonial Strategy: Literary Criticism in the Field,” Kunapipi: Journal of Postcolonial Writing & Culture 29.2 (2007). Lisa Quinn, acquisitions editor at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, has worked tirelessly to ensure publication of this book. I am thrilled to be included in WLUP’s Environmental Humanities Series, which is led by intrepid series editor Cheryl Lousley . Leslie Macredie and copy editor Rob Kohlmeier have helped shape this book in ways I could not have envisioned or articulated. The suggestions from the two anonymous readers have been invaluable in turning a manuscript into a book. Any remaining errors are mine alone. My family deserves credit for nurturing my work by virtue of accepting it for what it is. That my mother, who died in 2011, can no longer express her happiness at my accomplishments makes this work bittersweet, to say the least. My father, Kerry Mason, has always supported me, and for that I’m grateful. Finally, this book would not be possible without the patience, intelligence, and humour of my partner and my wife, Maryann. I dedicate this book to her, as if that were enough. ...