• Congratulations 2013 Geography graduates, including Shane Doddridge from 100 Mile House, BC, who earned his undergraduate degree.

  • Congratulations 2013 Geography graduates, including Krista Vandersteen from Fort Nelson, BC, who earned her undergraduate degree.

  • The Annual Alumni Awards Reception recognized UNBC graduates Daniel Milburn (for Professional Excellence) and Jennifer Herkes (for Community Service). Also recognized was Alice Downing, who was inducted as an Honorary Member of the Alumni Association.

  • Research into ecotourism in Costa Rica has implications for the industry in BC according to researchers at the University of Northern British Columbia.

  • UNBC geography professor Greg Halseth, a renowned expert in the field of rural and small town studies, is UNBC’s first Tier 1 Canada Research Chair.

  • UNBC Geography student Jed Zimmerman was recently runner-up in the Best Undergraduate Student Paper Presentation category at the 55th annual meeting of the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers in Lethbridge Alberta.

Geography

 
-Photo: Percy Rojas, EPAF


Guatemala Field School 2012:
Evening of Images and Reflections

 

Geography Meet & Greet

The Geography Program & Geography Student Association (GSA) invite you to join in a Meet & Greet gathering on September 12th - 5:30 to 7:30.


Welcome to our Fall Courses 2012
  • Geog 100: Environments & People
  • Geog 101: Human Geography
  • Geog 111: Theory & Practice of Physical Geography
  • Geog 203: Roots & Rituals: Geography of Canada
  • Geog 204: Intro to GIS for the Social Sciences
  • Geog 206: Society & Space (Social Geography)
  • Geog 209: Migration & Settlement
  • Geog 210: Geomorphology
  • Geog 300: Geographical Information Systems
  • Geog 312: Geomorphology of Cold Regions
  • Geog 401: Resource Geography
  • Geog 420/620: Geographies of Environmental Justice
  • Geog 432/632: Remote Sensing


UNBC Geography in Guatemala -
May & June 2012
 
The Guatemala crew including: 
Front row: Dr. Catherine Nolin, Heather Carson, Kathryn Wesley; Back row: Natalie Wiesmann & Robyn Oxley. Missing from photo are graduate students Erica Henderson & Alexandra Pedersen who are already in Guatemala and Cristian Silva, Emilie Teresa Smith, James Rodríguez, and Grahame Russell of Rights Action who will meet up with us there. Departure day is Thursday, May 24th from Vancouver.
 
UNBC Geography in South Africa,
April & May 2012
Drs. Kevin Hall, Greg Halseth & Neil Hanlon lead the Geography field school to South Africa. The UNBC, University of Pretoria, and Rhodes U. Crew at Ganora in South Africa, May 17, 2012.
 

Adjunct Professor Fredy Peccerelli
Top Human Rights Award recipient, May 2012
Fredy Peccerelli, winner of the 2012 ALBA/Puffin Award for Human Rights Activism, addresses the audience at the Museum of the City of New York, May 13, 2012. Photo Len Tsou See: http://www.albavolunteer.org

UNBC Named one of Canada’s Greenest Employers

UNBC Geography professor Roger Wheate, left, and UNBC BA Geography student Shane Doddridge meet under the new LED lights at the Thirsty Moose Pub at UNBC's Prince George campus. The lights, installed in 2010, were just one reason for UNBC's selection as one of Canada's Greenest Employers. See: UNBC Press Release, 20 April 2012

Professor Kevin Hall -
Fellow of the Society of South African Geographers
The Geography Program sends warm congratulations to our own Dr. Kevin Hall who, in June 2012, will be made a Fellow of the Society of South African Geographers (SSAG). Since 1970 there have been but 24 Fellows, and this award will be only the second to a non South African.

In the written notification, Cecil Seethal, the SSAG President, wrote that the award was for "inter alia, the indelible mark you have made on Geography in South Africa through globally respected research and a legacy of students who are now leaders in the discipline in the country....and for your prolific and sustained publication record."


WDCAG 2012
Once again this year, the UNBC Geography Program sent a group of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty to the Annual Meeting of the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers.
 
This year’s conference was held 8-10 March in Kelowna, BC, and was hosted by the Geography program at the Okanagan Campus of the University of British Columbia (UBCO) . Conference photos


New Adjunct Faculty Member José Pablo Baraybar
José Pablo Baraybar is the Executive Director of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team / el Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense (EPAF) which is a non-profit organization that promotes the right to truth, justice, and guarantees of non-repetition in cases of forced disappearance and extrajudicial execution.
 
In mid-Februry 2012, José Pablo sends this photo from Bungoma, Kenya where the EPAF is starting a new project in the area and in partnership with Western Kenya Human Rights Watch to assist in recording gross Human Rights violations in the area of Mount Elgon.  

Dr. Brian Menounos on CBC
 
Glacier time-lapse images reveal 'epochal change,'
13 January 2012


Dr. Greg Halseth helps Kitimat, BC Prepare for Smelter Expansion
Geography professor Dr. Greg Halseth working wtih Kitimat to prepare for one of the largest industrial expansions in the history of northern B.C. See: UNBC News Release, 5 December 2011


 Ice Breaking Research
Play Video
NRES Geography PhD candidate Matt Beedle takes you on a tour of Castle Creek Glacier where he & supervisor Dr. Brian Menounos are conducting a comprehensive study of the current state and future fate of glaciers in BC and Alberta. For UNBC students and researchers, the world is the classroom.

Convocation 2011
Aimee Smith & Dr. Neil Hanlon. Aimee received the Top Geography Student Award for the Class of 2011.
-Photo: Z. Meletis
The UNBC Geography Program congratulations to all of you who graduated with Geography Majors & Minors and graduate degrees!  Convocation Day Photo Gallery


Geography Field Schools 2012
  
NRESi Colloquium
Dave Trepanier, Director
Prince George Activator Society
‘Aghelh Nebun:
Bringing an environmental perspective to the criminal justice system
Nov 2, 2012 at 3:30pm
Rm 7-152
Everyone is welcome

New Book
Congratulations to José Pablo Baraybar (Geography faculty member, Adjunct) on the publication of his new book "La Muerte a Diario" which "masterfully addresses genocides, ethnic cleansings, confrontations, and other absurd machinations of governments and armed groups" based on his work in Peru, Rwanda, the Balkans, among other conflict zones. 


Congratulations
to Alex Martin
 
Congratulations to Dr. Alex Martin & his academic supervisor Dr. Greg Halseth on the successful defence of his PhD dissertation in Natural Resources & Environmental Studies (Geography) on June 20, 2012:
"Community-Company Relationships in Forest-Dependent Communities in Northern BC: Assessing the Local, Sectoral, and Theoretical Implications"

 
WDCAG Award Winners
Congratulations to
Jessica Blewett (MA NRES candidate, supervisor: Dr. N. Hanlon) for best Master's oral presentation
&
Alex Koiter (PhD NRES candidate, supervisor: Dr. Ellen Petticrew) for best PhD poster
Canadian Association of Geographers (WDCAG) held at UBC-O in Kelowna, BC (8-10 March 2012).


New Publications

de Leeuw, S.*, Maurice, S., Holyk, T., Greenwood, M. & Adam, W. 2012. With Reserves: Colonial geographies and First Nations health. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. DOI:10.1080/00045608.2012.674897

Heikkilä, K., and G. Fondahl. 2012. Co-managed research: Non-Indigenous thoughts on an Indigenous toponymy project in northern British Columbia. Journal of Cultural Geography 29 (1), 61-86. 

Sumner, P.D., Hall, K.J., Meiklejohn, K.I. & Nel, W. 2012. Rock Weathering. The Geomorphology of southern Africa. Sun Press, pp. 73-91.

Hall, K. 2012. The shape of glacial valleys and implications for southern African glaciation: A reply.  The South African Geographical Journal, 94, 4-8.

Hall, K., Thorn, C., & Sumner, P. 2012. On the persistence of ‘weathering’. Geomorphology, Vol 149-150 (May), 1-10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2011.12.024

Arocena, J.M., Hall, K., Zhu, L.P. 2012. Soil formation in high elevation and permafrost areas in the Qinghai Plateau, China. Spanish Journal of Soil Science, 2, 34-49. 

Ryser, L. M. & G. Halseth (2012) So you're thinking about a retirement industry? Economic and community development lessons from resource towns in northern British Columbia. Community Development, 1-14.

Skinner, M., N. Hanlon, and G. Halseth. 2012. Health- and social-care issues in aging resource communities In Health in Rural Canada, eds. J. C. Kulig and A. M. Williams, 462-480. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press. 

Silver, Jennifer J., Zoë A. Meletis, and Priya Vadi. 2012.  Complex Context: Aboriginal participation in hosting the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. Leisure Studies 3(1) (Special Issue: Leisure, Culture and the Olympic Games): 291-308.

Albers, Sam J.* and Petticrew, E.L. 2012. Ecosystem response to a salmon disturbance regime: Implications for downstream nutrient fluxes in aquatic systems. Limnology and Oceanography. 57 (1): 113-123. DOI: 10.4319/lo.2012.57.1.0113

Jost, G., Moore, R.D., Menounos, B., and R. Wheate 2012. Quantifying the contribution of glacier runoff to
streamflow in the Columbia River Basin, Canada. Hydrology and Earth System Science 16, 849-860.

See our New Publications page for a full listing of faculty publications. 

Alumni News
Christine Creyke

2010 Jane Glassco Arctic Fellow

Christine Creyke defended her MA NRES-Geography thesis (Co-supervisors: Drs. Greg Halseth and Gail Fondahl) in April 2011 & is now based in her mother's home community of Old Crow, Yukon, working as a "Jane Glassco Arctic Fellow" on research titled "Natural Resource Policy Recommendations for the Vuntut Gwitchin Government."


 Graduate Student News
 
NRES (Geography) graduate student JP Laplante (Supervisor: Dr. Catherine Nolin) and Stephen St. Laurent directed and produced this film Amazay: A Film About Water to highlight the battle against the Kemess North development in northern BC during 2007-2009.
The full film is now available through YouTube.


What is Geography all about?
Geography provides a framework for comprehending the world we live in. Every one of us is born with an inherent curiosity about the world around us: geographers channel that intellectual curiosity into a systematic and disciplined method of study. As a modern physical and social science, geography plays a crucial role in addressing local, national and global concerns such as acid rain, hazardous waste, housing for low income people, and world population growth.

Geographers work in a wide array of fields including cartography and computer mapping, remote sensing and climatology, urban and regional planning, housing and community development, retail site analysis and market research, environmental analysis and resource conservation, geophysics and natural science research. Given this breadth there are significant employment opportunities with government, in teaching, in business, or in private sector consulting. The reason for this wide range of opportunities, and for the demand for trained geographers in the workplace, is the perspectives and range of skills the geography graduate has to offer.

Geography is the study of objects, ideas, or processes in place, or space, in the same sense that history is the study of events across time. This spatial perspective helps the geographer to make sense of available information to explain specific phenomena - whether that involves rock weathering in Antarctica or homeless populations in the inner-city. As such, geography is an integrative field of study - it can draw upon a wide range of work from other disciplines in order to understand the outcomes of processes or actions in particular places.

The constantly changing physical and human landscapes demand continuing interpretations of the world from a spatial point of view, a challenge geographers are well prepared to meet.

 
June 3, 2012: The UNBC Geography Field School to Guatemala participants at Peace House in
Santa Cruz del Quiche, Guatemala
L-R: Kathryn Wesley, Heather Carson, Erica Henderson,  Robyn Oxley, Dr. Catherine Nolin, Natalie Wiesmann & Alexandra Pedersen]