The Mountain Legacy Project began its blog adventures in 2010 as a way to document and share our work. The old blog site—and indeed the structure of mountainlegacy.ca—moved to a University of Victoria-hosted WordPress platform earlier this year. This shifted how the blog works, including the mailing list function. We had a necessary interruption but are back in business.
The launch of this series seems a good moment to reflect on some of the other changes that 2023 has brought. Our core research team has grown to include a record number of PhD students – Alina Fisher, Emilia Hurd, Shima Tajarlou, James Tricker, Sonia Voicescu and Claire Wright – plus postdoc, Sarah Jacobs. Their wide-ranging research projects are investigating the effects of rapid ecological change on wildlife and people, creating new visualization techniques, using landscape architecture to inform ecological restoration, and furthering our understanding of the culture and history of Canada’s mountain landscapes. A brief but intensive period of fieldwork this summer sent teams to Banff, Waterton and Jasper, where we continue to build relationships with agencies and First Nation communities using the photographic collection and repeat photography methods. The ever-diligent Kate Fryer remains in her role as “archival wizard,” ensuring that two and half decades of work stays organized and accessible. And we were fortunate to have two summer students, Larissa Bron and Kristyn Lang, take a deep-dive into our machine-learning software, improving our capacity for future work. Lastly, over the year, we marked the retirement of two long-time collaborators, Mary Sanseverino and Dr. Jill Delaney, whose talents, camaraderie and creativity greatly enriched the MLP. We wish them both the very best in the next chapters of their lives.
Stay tuned for upcoming posts that share mountain news, stories from the field, and some of our latest research developments and directions.
