ISLANDS AT THE EDGE
THE BOOK THAT WILL SAVE SOUTH MORESBY
Looking South Over South Moresby Photo credit:From the collection donated to I.P.S. for Islands at the Edge
from the Publisher Douglas & McIntyre
It is not often that a publisher has the opportunity to create a book which may help initiate political action as well as celebrate a spectacular land, and we are proud to be associated with this one. The purpose of ISLANDS AT THE EDGE is to focus the broadest possible national and international attention on South Moresby Island and the need to preserve it as a wilderness area. The book itself will be an outsized, very beautifully printed and bound look at the flora and fauna of South Moresby Island. What will differentiate it from similar efforts will be a text of real substance from as wide a range of contributors as Bill Reid, Dave Denning, Jim Pojar, Wayne Campbell, Bristol Foster and others. It will also include art from many of the artists whose work has been influenced by time spent in the Islands, such as Emily Carr, Joe Plaskett and Toni Onley. Finally it will feature 150 photo-graphs from the cream of North America's nature photographers.
Contributors:
JOHN BROADHEAD lived on the Queen Charlotte Islands for ten years as an artist, commercial
fisherman and carpenter. A long-standing Director of the Islands Protection Society, he also sat
on the South Moresby Resource Planning Team. Author of innumerable letters-to-the-editor,
designer and producer of posters and publications advocating conservation in South Moresby, he
has spent the past two years in Victoria as a spokesman for IPS, as well as producing ISLANDS
AT THE EDGE and doing freelance design work.
WAYNE CAMPBELL attended the University of Victoria, completed graduate studies on birds of
prey at the University of Washington, and is presently Associate Curator of the Vertebrate
Zoology Division of the British Columbia Provincial Museum. He has published over 200
scientific papers, popular articles and books on British Columbia vertebrates, and is a favourite
public speaker on the birds of British Columbia. His recent research has resulted in an extensive
inventory of the wildlife resources, especially sea-birds, of the entire British Columbia coast.
Wayne Campbell's piece is called "Down on the Water" in which he discusses the incredible
range and abundance of seabirds in South Moresby, where over one-third of all nesting seabirds
on Canada's Pacific coast are found.
DAVID DENNING graduated from Reed College in Oregon and conducted graduate studies in
marine biology at the Universities of Washington and Victoria, and at the Bamfield Marine
Station on the west coast of Vancouver Island. He has co-directed nine film productions about
marine life, written numerous Reid's introduction "Capacity for Wonder", movingly
acknowledges not only natural history articles, and is an accomplished nature photographer. He
currently works as field trip co-ordinator for the Bamfield Marine Station. David Denning's piece
is called "Life on the Edge . . . and Beyond" in which he highlights the remarkable diversity of
marine life on South Moresby, describing the characteristics of marine flora and fauna from
microscopic phytoplankton to the largest baleen whales.
DR. J. BRISTOL FOSTER began his love affair with the Queen Charlotte Islands when he started
his doctoral work on the evolution of the land mammals on the Charlottes in the early 1960's.
Since then he has served Director of the Provincial Museum in Victoria, British Columbia; and for
the past nine years, Director of the British Columbia Ecological Reserves Program. Bristol Foster's
piece is called "Canadian Galapagos" in which he explores the creatures of the Queen Charlotte
Islands. The Charlottes have the highest percentage of endemic (unique) animals and plants
found anywhere in Canada. Foster explores the evolutionary distinctions for South Moresby's
mammals, birds, fish, insects and plants, and discusses the possibility of the Charlottes being a
"glacial refugium" during the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago.
unexcelled in size and grandeur anywhere in Canada. These coastal forests contain the largest
accumulations of living matter on the planet, greater even than those of tropical forests. The
complexities of the remaining virgin forest is described as well as the rich variety of vegetation
zones from conifer swamps and bogs to alpine tundra.
THOM HENLEY was intercepted by the Queen Charlotte Islands half-way through a kayak
expedition from Seattle to Alaska. After exploring the South Moresby Wilderness area he helped
to draft the original South Moresby Wilderness Proposal, became a founding member of ISP and
served as one of its spokespersons for many years. In 1978 he founded Rediscovery, a natural
and cultural heritage rediscovery program for youth on the west coast of the Charlottes, and
presently serves as its program director. Thom Henley and John Broadhead have written a piece
which examines the future for South Moresby.
JAQUES COUSTEAU is one of the world's best known defenders of environmental causes. His
oceanographic expeditions have resulted in a series of best-selling books and powerful
documentary films. A household name, Jacques Cousteau's foreword is an expression of the
international concern for the Queen Charlotte Islands preservation.
BILL REID is one of Canada's best known artists. No other contemporary western artist has
received the critical acclaim accorded to him. His contribution to the development and
reinstatement of Northwest Coast Indian Art has been unsurpassed. As Reid's international
reputation has grown he has become a focal point not only for those interested in art but for all
those who revere the culture of which his art is so integral a part. Bill Reid’s introduction
"Capacity for Wonder", movingly acknowledges not only the Haida need for an undamaged
environment, but also a global need for unspoiled places.
