Voices for the Watershed: Environmental Issues in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence Drainage Basin

Patrick Colgan is the former executive director of the Canadian Museum
of Nature.

The editors and small army of contributors provide a set of essays,
variable in style and length, that blend information, histories,
emotions, and reminiscences. Slices are taken by place, time, species,
discipline, and emotion, with attention to such elements as acid rain,
agricultural runoff, dams, food chains, lake trout, urban sprawl, zebra
mussels, and love of nature. Good points include questioning how much we
have learned from Aldo Leopold, whether we know our ecological address
as well as our postal one, and the level of environmental literacy
generally.

With so many contributors redundancy is inevitable (e.g., the deadly
outbreak of Cryptosporidium in Milwaukee in 1993 is thrice reported).
Consistency of interpretation is also an issue (e.g., the Ontario
government is variously seen as achieving much or little). While hill
and valley country may indeed be voluptuous, and some may be moved to
prayer, it is neither factual nor poetic to claim that geographical
“names are soaked into my DNA.” The illustrations, chiefly
black-and-white photographs, are excellent and the selected references
and list of conservation organizations helpful.

Litteljohn admits that this volume is only an introduction, and indeed,
while it is broad it lacks depth. In her classic volume, Rachel Carson
expressed a sense of natural wonder briefly, so a book the size of the
present one should have some significant biological and/or political
content. Unable to serve as an authoritative source, it is suitable only
for already groaning coffee tables.