Some history

A courier came to the door late last week with the second volume of the History of the Book in Canada. I was awaiting it: At the very back, just before the appendix, I found my contribution on reading practices in Canada’s north during the 19th century. It is the first to appear of two articles I have written for the three-volume History of the Book in Canada project. The chance to collaborate with Canada’s leading scholars in the field of book history was a welcome change of pace.

This week, I am tidying up stories for the spring issue of Vendor, an Alberta-based magazine for liquor retailers, as well as a story for the farm press on the challenges British Columbia meat packers face as fallout continues from the 2003 discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or ‘mad cow’ disease) in a single Alberta cow. The high cost of disposing of waste tissue in a manner that satisfies government inspectors threatens to reduce meat processing capacity in B.C. as some processors opt not to spend tens of thousands of dollars upgrading their plants. The reasons for not upgrading range from the small scale of many of the operations to a lack of trust in the efficacy of the controls the federal food inspection agency has proposed. If you’d like to hear more of the offal details, contact me.