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History alumna and Director, On the Land Programs at the NWT Recreation and Parks Association, , has written about her experiences as an environmental historian in the “Rhizomes” series of the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE). The full article, , is available online with a short excerpt below.

Which aspects of your graduate training in environmental history have helped you most in your current position/career? What kinds of skills or training do you wish you could have acquired in graduate school, in light of your current work?

My education as a writer began when I was a child. My mum and brother, both English majors, were attentive editors who inspired me to care about writing well. In graduate school, I likewise benefitted from being surrounded by people who cared deeply about good writing, not the least of whom was my supervisor, John C. Walsh. These smart, community-oriented scholars taught me how to tell important stories in a rigorous, yet accessible way. That said, most of what I wrote as a graduate student was academic in nature: scholarly essays, journal articles, book reviews. Learning how to write for more popular audiences in recent years has been a journey, as has developing my abilities to write in plain language. I’ve had the good fortune to work with generous and patient editors. Nevertheless, I would have liked opportunities in graduate school to practice crafting theoretically-informed histories for folks picking up a magazine or cruising past a website.

I am also very thankful for the commitment to teaching historical theory at �Ӱ�ԭ��, which has served me well as a practitioner working in community. I do wish that education had included more Indigenous thinkers and writers.