Choosing Wildness: My Life Among the Ospreys.

Sandy Campbell is a reference librarian in the Science and Technology Library at the University of Alberta.

Claude Arbour moved to the wilderness of northern Quebec in 1988 to fulfill a love affair with nature. This volume is a translation of his Letters from LacVilliers, where he lived for 25 years. The translation by Joan Irving is good quality. Generally the language flows easily. Occasionally, one encounters a turn of phrase that is a bit odd, but usually it is simply a direct translation that isn’t quite the same in English.

While this is an epistolary work, the letters were written as newsletters to the 100 people who each contributed 100 dollars per year to support Arbour’s work as an ornithologist and naturalist, so they are not as personal as one might expect. However, the richness of the detail that Arbour provides about both the natural history of the area and his day-to-day life makes the book both engaging and interesting.

The 60 letters or chapters vary greatly in length and often focus on a theme, a trip, or a time, so one doesn’t have the sense of a strict chronology through the work. Rather, reading this book is more like sitting in Arbour’s presence and listening to him begin a story with something like, “I remember a time when …” The story might be about his sled dogs, having a summer student help him put up platforms for osprey nests, or watching a wolves at a pile of frozen meat, the way most of us watch birds at a backyard bird feeder.

Over time Arbour became widely recognized for his careful observation and recording of the wildlife around him and for his work in improving the nesting sites for osprey and, through that, increasing their population.

Arbour’s last letter is from 2006, when, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, he was no longer able to carry on the rigorous lifestyle and was forced to abandon his cabin and move to a larger centre.

While this book is an interesting read, its enduring value will be in the 25-year snapshot it provides of the natural history of northern Quebec.