Canadian Topics supported by FHS Awards and Fellowships

Alfred D. Bell Travel Grants

An average of 6 awards are given annually to support travel and lodging expenses incurred by persons conducting research at the Forest History Society.

• Jean Martin, a doctoral candidate in historical geography at Laval University in Quebec City, Quebec, received a Bell Travel Grant in 1993 to work in the Forest History Society Archives on a dissertation to be entitled "La geographie historique de l'industrie quebeçoise du sciage au XIXe siecle" (Historical Geography of Quebec's Sawmilling Industry in the 19th Century).

• James Alsop, professor of history at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, studied the impact of mosquito-borne illnesses, such as yellow fever and malaria, on the forest products industry of the southern United States and Latin America. He was interested in the economic impact of such diseases and the response of industry to scientific advances in the knowledge of the disease.

• Danny Côté, an independent scholar from Québec, conducted research in the Society's collections while on a Bell Fellowship in 2002. He gathered information for a comparative study of the evolution of sawmill and wood cutting technology in the United States and Canada. He also consulted sources on log driving techniques in Canada.

• In 2003 history professor Alan MacEachern from the University of Western Ontario visited the Society to search for evidence of the influence of the Miramichi Fire of 1825 on subsequent development of forest fire policy in Canada.

• The Society awarded Michael Clow, associate professor of sociology at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, a Bell Fellowship in 2003. Clow mined from the Society's collections information pertinent to a comparative study of changes in tree harvesting technology and the resulting repercussions in eastern Canada and in the southern United States.

F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellowships in Forest and Conservation History

Given annually to a graduate student at Duke University whose research involves forest or conservation history.

• FHS granted David Massell, a doctoral candidate in history at Duke University, a Weyerhaeuser Fellowship in 1994 to support research for his dissertation "Amassing Power in a Northern Landscape: J. B. Duke and the Development of the Saguenay River, 1897-1927." His study focused on the development of water resources in Quebec. David received his degree in 1997 and now teaches at the University of Vermont.

• Erica Sasser, a doctoral candidate in natural resource policy in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, won the 1997 Weyerhaeuser Fellowship to support research for her dissertation, "The Construction of Property Rights and Its Implications for North American Forests." For this study of the development of concepts of property rights in forest land in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, she examined differences between public and private lands in each country and studied the ways in which differing property rights regimes have influenced forest management in the three nations.

Leopold-Hidy Award

Awarded annually for the best article in Environmental History [or its predecessors].

• Gillis, R. P., et al. "The Ontario and Quebec Experiments with Forest Reserves, 1883-1914." Journal of Forest History 26 (January 1982): 20-33.

• Rajala, R. A. "Bill and the Boss: Labor Protest, Technological Change and the Transformation of the West Coast Logging Camp, 1890-1930." Journal of Forest History 33 (October 1989): 168-179.

Theodore C. Blegen Award

Given annually to the author of the best article in a journal other than Environmental History.

• Rajala, R. A. "The Forest as Factory: Technological Change and Worker Control in the West Coast Logging Industry, 1880-1930." Labour/LeTravail 32 (Fall 1993): 73-104.

• Gillis, R. P. "The Ottawa Lumber Barons and the Conservation Movement, 1880-1914." Journal of Canadian Studies 9 (February 1974): 14-30.

Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Book Award

Awarded biennially in odd-numbered years for the best book on forest and conservation history.

• Rajala, Richard A. Clearcutting the Pacific Rain Forest: Production, Science, and Regulation. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 1998.