History alumna and Director, On the Land Programs at the NWT Recreation and Parks Association, Jess Dunkin, has written about her experiences as an environmental historian in the “Rhizomes” series of the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE). The full article, Rhizomes: An Interview with Jess Dunkin, is available online with a short excerpt below.
Which aspects of your graduate training in environmental history have helped you most in your current position/career? What kinds of skills or training do you wish you could have acquired in graduate school, in light of your current work?
My education as a writer began when I was a child. My mum and brother, both English majors, were attentive editors who inspired me to care about writing well. In graduate school, I likewise benefitted from being surrounded by people who cared deeply about good writing, not the least of whom was my supervisor, John C. Walsh. These smart, community-oriented scholars taught me how to tell important stories in a rigorous, yet accessible way. That said, most of what I wrote as a graduate student was academic in nature: scholarly essays, journal articles, book reviews. Learning how to write for more popular audiences in recent years has been a journey, as has developing my abilities to write in plain language. I’ve had the good fortune to work with generous and patient editors. Nevertheless, I would have liked opportunities in graduate school to practice crafting theoretically-informed histories for folks picking up a magazine or cruising past a website.
I am also very thankful for the commitment to teaching historical theory at Carleton, which has served me well as a practitioner working in community. I do wish that education had included more Indigenous thinkers and writers.