Ecology and Wonder celebrates Western Canada's breathtaking landscape. The book makes several remarkable claims. The greatest cultural achievement in the mountain region of western Canada may be what has been preserved, not what has been developed. Protecting the spine of the Rocky Mountains will preserve crucial ecological functions. Because the process of ecosystem diminshment and species loss has been slowed, an ecological thermostat has been kept alive. This may well be an important defence against future impacts of climate change in the Canadian West.

This book traces the aesthetic of wonder from the romantic period through contemporary philosophy and literature, arguing for its relevance to ecological consciousness. Most ecocritical scholarship tends to overshadow discussions of wonder with the sublime, failing to treat these two aesthetic categories as distinct. As a result, contemporary scholarship has conflated wonder and the sublime and ultimately lost the nuances that these two concepts conjure for readers and thinkers. Economides illuminates important differences between these aesthetics, particularly their negotiation of issues relevant to gender-based and environmental politics. In turn, readers can utilize the concept of wonder as an open-ended, non-violent framework in contrast to the ethos of domination that often surrounds the sublime.

Cold Matters is a vital and approachable work that distills the scientific complexities of snow, ice, water and climate and presents the global implications of research put forth and funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. This timely book gives the concerned reader an opportunity to take part in the conversation about our global environment in a way that transcends traditional scientific journals, textbooks, public talks or newspaper articles that are so often ignored or forgotten. In the end, Cold Matters will change the way you think about ice and snow. The impassioned narrative and sophisticated illustrations found within the pages of Robert Sandford’s latest work offer ecologically and globally minded citizens an understanding of the behaviour of our ever-changing climate system and its effect on cold environments in western Canada over the past 400 years. Using revolutionary prediction scenarios to model glaciers and glacier meltwater in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, Yukon, NWT and throughout the world, Cold Matters presents a clear snapshot of how altered ecosystems will impact future climates, urban centres and agricultural landscapes.

Becoming Water takes the reader on a tour of Canada's glaciers, describing the stories they tell and educating the reader about how glaciers came to be, how they work and what their future holds in our warming world. By visiting Canada's high and low Arctic and the mountain West, the reader will learn how varied and complex our glaciers really are, how they are measured and how they figure into the national and global story of inevitable change. The reader will learn to think like a scientist, in particular how to look at climate-related data that contains cycles, trends and shifts, and then ponder what questions to ask in the face of our dramatically changing environment. This book encourages Canadians to explore upstream from ourselves, learning about our origins and how climate change and encroaching human settlement are drastically affecting our glaciers and therefore the natural and human landscapes that lie below--and are dependent upon--them.

The Columbia Icefield is the largest sub-polar accumulation of glacial ice in North America. Because it is possible to drive to the second largest glacier flowing out of the Columbia Icefield, it is the best-known ice age feature in Canada and a remarkably popular tourist destination. From this amazing and accessible ice mass we can learn a great deal about how water shaped our landscape in the past and how it will shape our civilization in the future. Despite a century of accelerating recession, the Columbia Icefield is still an incredible geographical feature. It is a high basin of accumulated snow and ice that presently straddles 223 square kilometres, some 86 square miles, of the Great Divide, the stupendous mountain wall that marks the boundary between the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. It also straddles Banff and Jasper National Parks, contributing significantly to their designations as United Nations World Heritage Sites. Written by one of Canada's most respected experts on water and water-related climate processes, this remarkable book offers a clear and concise visual overview of the geological history and features of the Columbia Icefield; an outline of human presence in the glaciated landscapes of the mountain West; and a breathtaking photographic tour of one of the world's most amazing landscapes.

A Delicate Arthighlights the paintings and photography of six artists in Alberta who with passion and long moments of observation have made an inspired contribution to wildflower art. Covering a period of one hundred years to the present, the story behind these creators Mary Schäffer Warren, Mary Vaux Walcott, William Copeland McCalla, Annora Brown, Robert Sinclair and Carole Harmon is also told. A blend of biography, botanical and regional art history and commentary by the artists themselves about their treasured subject, A Delicate Artis intended for the lay reader and is accompanied by sumptuous reproductions of the artwork and an alluring overall design that will appeal to anyone interested in art, mountain-life and gardening.

In British Columbia by the Road, Ben Bradley takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the history of roads, highways, and motoring in British Columbia’s Interior, a remote landscape composed of plateaus and interlocking valleys, soaring mountains and treacherous passes. Challenging the idea that the automobile offered travellers the freedom of the road and a view of unadulterated nature, Bradley shows that an array of interested parties – boosters, businessmen, conservationists, and public servants – manipulated what drivers and passengers could and should view from the road. When it came to roads and highways, planners and builders had two concerns: grading or paving a way through “the wilderness” and opening pathways to new parks and historic sites. They understood that the development of a modern road network would lead to new ways of perceiving BC and its environment. Although cars and roads promised freedom, they offered drivers a curated view of the landscape that shaped the province’s image in the eyes of residents and visitors alike.