Walk anywhere on Prince Edward Island, the postage-stamp of a province on Canada’s east coast, and you know that it’s been walked before. The Island has been home to Mi’kmaq for thousands of years, French and English settlers more recently, and now Canadians. It has experienced intensive resource use for centuries, for its forests, its fisheries, and its farming, and it now carries the wounds of soil and water contamination, urban and shoreline development, and coastal erosion. The Island is such a cultural artifact that one can be forgiven for thinking that its nature is nothing but history, time masquerading as space. And yet what has survived is a place still so pastoral, so beautiful that it attracts one million tourists each summer.

PEI’s long and well-documented history, its small size, its status as a distinct political entity, and, of course, its islandness make it a compelling case for studying how past environmental attitudes and practices have shaped a place’s society and ecology. They also mean that we can learn from that past, using it in aid of developing a society suited to the place and its people.

On 13-18 June 2010, the University of Prince Edward Island's Institute of Island Studies and its Environmental Studies program, with NiCHE, will host “Time and a Place.” This weeklong workshop will bring together 60 local, national, and international participants to develop links between the Island’s past, present, and future. National and international speakers include Finis Dunaway, Matthew Hatvany, Alan MacEachern, Daniel Pauly, Harriet Ritvo, Donald Worster, and Graeme Wynn. Local speakers and resource persons include Darren Bardati, Ann Howatt, Mark Leggott, Edward MacDonald, Irene Novaczek, Sara Roach-Lewis, John Joe Sark, Gary Schneider, and Doug Sobey. The goals of the event are both local and global, pragmatic and theoretical:

• to develop understanding of PEI’s environmental history, and to bring together scholars working around that field,
• to assist future environmental planning on PEI, and
• to explore the value of islands for the study of environmental history and more broadly for crafting comprehensive plans for sustainability.

Is “Time and a Place” for everything? Not really, but it is an opportunity to learn what a place can teach us. Come join us.

Deadline for applying:
APPLICATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED
You will be notified by the conference organizers by 15 March 2010 if your application has been successful. If so, you will be asked to pay registration by 1 May 2010.

Registration cost: $150, including food. $250, including food & accommodation.

Student support: NiCHE will pay registration and assist with travel costs for 15 graduate or undergraduate students, up to a maximum $1000/student.

The organizing committee wishes to thank the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada for its support, through the Environmental Issues – Public Outreach program.