Resumo de The Sea's Voice: An Anthology Of Atlantic Canadian Nature Writing

Trying to define nature writing is like trying to dissect a butterfly: you can break it down into its parts, but the parts never equal the wonder of the whole. Yet, Henry Thurston makes a thoughtful, well-aimed effort to pin down this elusive genre. In his introductory essay, he speaks of nature writing as a blend of science and art, with observations about the natural world and man?s interactions with it. But not only does he attempt to tell us what it is, he shows us, with this anthology devoted to works associated with Atlantic Canada.

The list of writers that Henry Thurston, himself a nature writer, has drawn from spans just over a hundred years. His opening portion is from Joshua Slocum?s account of his solo trip around the world. To those of us who know little more of Slocum than his name and his accomplishment, his writing is a revelation of the man. His straightforward prose is sprinkled with touches of fancy, such as his description of the rainbows that scatter and break around the prow of his boat.

The authors come from a variety of backgrounds. Scientist Rachel Carson is represented with an excerpt from her groundbreaking environmental treatise Silent Spring, while journalist Farley Mowat?s contribution is a selection from his gripping book Sea of Slaughter. In it, he traces the exploitation and near extinction of the Northern right whale. Mark Kurlansky is a chef and sometime journalist who takes as his subject the lowly cod fish in ?With Mouth Wide Open.? Before reading this, I never knew cod could be so fascinating.

The landscapes cover a wide range as well, from a solitary, remote island of murres to the deep woods of New Brunswick, which Beth Powning discovers are just as solitary and remote in their own way. All are connected to the Atlantic Coast in some way, but they encompass both locations in our own backyards as well as wild places that most of us will never see.

Bruce Armstrong takes the reader to such a place when he writes about his experience on Sable Island, a location that has always lured me with its isolation. He speaks of revelling in the close contact with the seals, first inching toward them on his stomach to get as close as possible then, when they leisurely evade him by plunging into the sea, tearing off his clothes and jumping in after them. Barry Lopez offers another glimpse of an unknown world in ?Ice and Light,? which recounts a northern Sea expedition that brought him into close contact with icebergs. His illustration prose captures the colour, texture, light, and almost sickening immensity of icebergs in a way that no film ever could.

Probably the greatest value of an anthology such as this is the way it brings together authors that you otherwise might never hear or, let alone read. To this end, Thurston includes a very helpful, very brief biography of each author at the beginning of each section, including honours which they have received and recommendations of other works to read.

To finish it all off is a perfectly concise essay by David Weale on ?Islandness,? in which he states ?I will go to my grave satisfied that it is a better and more certain path to wisdom to know the smell and feel of one small place than to travel the surface of the entire earth and feel little.? If the book often seems to include too much of man?s conflict with nature, it is satisfying to end on a note that speaks of the communion of man with his environment.

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