�Ӱ�ԭ��

History alumnus and curator of agriculture, food, and fisheries at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, , has written about his experiences as an environmental historian in the “Rhizomes” series of the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE)’s blog, The Otter~La Loutre. The full article, , is available online with a short excerpt below explaining how �Ӱ�ԭ��’s interest and specialization in public history shaped Will’s career path in significant ways.

Tell us about your path from graduate school to your current position/career. What key choices, encounters, or moments brought you to where you are today?

The path from graduate school to my current job was unplanned, a product of circumstance and distraction. Out of all the choices and moments, three are worth relating. One was deciding to narrow my dissertation from a study of Canadian natural history museums to a single one, the Canadian Fisheries Museum (1884-1918) in Ottawa. Refocusing my project led me into a deeper encounter with the working life of one curator and one museum and, more broadly, with material culture. I said to myself, at one point, “This research might be good preparation for a museum career.”

More practically speaking, I participated in two public history projects during my studies at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University that both distracted me from my dissertation and set me on a museological trajectory. The first was an exhibition at Ottawa’s in 2012. I helped Joanna Dean—who supervised my doctoral work—curate “Six Moments in an Urban Forest,” which was based on her research. This was my first experience in museum work, and it was a thrill to see an exhibition materialize and later engage people with key themes in environmental history. The next important moment arrived courtesy of Jim Opp, co-director of the . Jim hired me to be project manager for , an iPhone app which was launched in 2013.

Both these projects forced extra innings in my dissertation, but the experience gained was full compensation for the additional pain. And I can’t discount the element of fortunate timing and luck. I defended in late January of 2014 and the curatorial position I now hold was posted in late February. I was interviewed and hired in April and began work in June. With a then 14-month-old child about to enter daycare, the job could not have come at a better time.