The Sea's Voice: An Anthology of Atlantic Canadian Nature Writing

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta. He is co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities:
British Views of Canada, 1880–1914, author of The Salvation Army and
the Public, and editor of “Improved by Cult

“There is a century-old tradition of nature writing in Atlantic
Canada,” states Thurston in his lucid and lively introduction,
“dating back to the early animal stories of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts.
It is a tradition that is alive and well thanks to a growing list of new
practitioners of the nature story. Among them are poets, biologists,
novelists, and naturalists, all bearing eloquent witness to the
extraordinary richness of the natural world in this seagirt region.”
Notwithstanding the fact that there is some good nature writing
preceding that of Roberts, Thurston is essentially correct, as this
anthology so enjoyably demonstrates. Some of the names are quite
familiar—Roberts, Fred Bodsworth, Franklin Russell, Farley Mowat,
Rachel Carson, Harold Horwood, and David Adams Richards—and while the
chosen selections may not always be our favourites, they are certainly
well worth reading, even as reminders of the whole from which they come.
Others are less familiar, perhaps, and so much the better, for they may
make us seek out the larger context of such excellent writers as John
Steffler, Gary Saunders, and Donna Smyth.

Nature writing is not a neglected genre, of course, but an anthology
like this can certainly serve to make it more accessible and better
known, especially as it would make an ideal addition to any university
reading course. For it proves, as Wordsworth so aptly put it, “Nature
never did betray / The heart that truly loved her.”

The Sea’s Voice was shortlisted for the Best Atlantic Book Award and
won the IPPY Award for Regional Non-fiction.