11 Comments

Hi Linda, I stumbled across this writing place of yours by accident. Someone posted a link to your latest article. I subscribed as soon as I finished reading the article.

I have read much of your writing in the past, particularly in the Halifax Examiner, and I have always been impressed by your prose, insights and detail. I look forward to reading more from you here.

I am currently preparing for COP15 Biodioversity in Montreal where I am thrilled to be a member of the Canadian delegation. These essays are helping me sort my thoughts and priorities…. finding them is perfect timing for me.

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Wonderful! Thank you for the kind words, Ken, and I'm so glad some of these pieces resonate with you.

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I find I keep coming back like a homing pigeon to things you write, Linda. From your Genuine Progress Index Reports with Ron Coleman, to your awesome coverage and really comprehensive grasp of the subject in last year's "Biodiversity Hotspot Primed for Logging" of the Halifax Examiner, to the gentle and thoughtful development in the Q&A with Wayne Mackay on vaccine passports, and to yesterday's moving and beautiful tribute to Jeffrey Hutchings (what a wonderful man!) and so many other in-depth explorations. And now swamps! ... you’ve just connected me with my childhood growing up living on a boat moored in Seattle's Portage Bay and spending many solitary hours in a nearby swamp (close to U of W's Arboretum) hanging over the edge of a dingy watching the fish lingering in the boat's shadow or walking gingerly about on a huge maze of floating reed islands that truly quaked underfoot (all of which is now covered with a 4 lane highways because it didn't matter). Thank you for everything you do and thank you for what is to come. Can't wait.

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Thank you for your kind, supportive words, Helen! I'm so glad my writing resonates with you in some way. That's all a writer can hope for. I love your description of the quaking swamp of your childhood, and it's so tragic that it no longer exists.

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I've always been impressed by your journalism and your clear writing. Swamps are some of my favourite places to explore, especially treed ones where many rare lichens like to live I'm looking forward to the pieces you post here.

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Thanks for the invitation, Linda

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Thanks for this beautifully written introduction to The Quaking Swamp --- love that name. It reminded me of the six years I spent covering the Ontario legislature in the 1980s. For about the first three years, I covered stories about the opposition Liberals' complaints about government cuts to subsidies for swamp drainage. (Several of those Grits were farmers.) Then, in the second half of my stint, there were many stories about opposition NDP complaints that the government wasn't doing enough to protect wetlands. Ah, what's in a name? The quotation from Thoreau also reminded me of the million-acre Great Dismal Swamp that the Americans at first devastated, but now are protecting what's left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Dismal_Swamp

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Thank you for the kind words, Bruce. The Great Dismal Swamp is incredibly beautiful! Those Bald Cypress make me want to go to Virginia!

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I love swamps/wetlands and they are being ruthlessly destroyed in the name of the god Pipelines.

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Thank you so much for going out into the swamp like this! I look forward to reading everything you write and would welcome a chance to subscribe and support now!

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Thank you so much for that lovely offer. I'm just not ready for paid subscribers yet. I need to get my rhythm and know that I can make that work over the long term.

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