Alan MacEachern


image of Alan MacEachern

Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada                                                                                                                      PhD, Queen’s University, 1997
Telephone: 519-661-2111 ext. 84993
Email: amaceach@uwo.ca
Office: Lawson Hall 2268
Office hours: Mondays 9:30 am - 11:30 am

 

Research Interests

Professor MacEachern teaches & researches Canadian history, with an emphasis on environmental & climate history. 

Teaching Philosophy

A healthy society spends most of its energies trained on the present & the future. But a healthy society also devotes some of its energies to remembering & understanding the past. The historian's job is to tell or remind people today about the lives of others in the past. That's it. Doing so goes a small way to fulfilling the obligation that people of the past are not forgotten. And it holds a promise & a threat to people of today, that they won't be forgotten either.  

I am available at the coordinates above, and welcome hearing from you.

Major Research Projects

In summer 2024, I completed a two-part project about Myrtle Webb, whose diary tells of living for a half-century in “Green Gables,” Prince Edward Island, as it was in the process of becoming the most famous house in Canada. Becoming Green Gables was published by McGill-Queen’s UP and the entire diary was made available at a companion website, GreenGablesDiary.ca.

I am now in the early stages of work on Observation Nation, a book on the Meteorological Service of Canada’s weather observation program.

Selected Publications

Books

Environmental Fable Book Cover

Becoming Green Gables, McGill-Queen's University Press, July 2024.

      The Green Gables Diary website

 

 

Image of Book Cover "The Summer Trade"

(with Edward MacDonald)  The Summer Trade, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022

 

 

 

Image of Book Cover "The Miramichi Fire. A History"

The Miramichi Fire: A History, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020.

 Image of Book Cover "Origins"

(with Robert Wardhaugh) Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 8th ed., Nelson, 2017.

Destinies book cover

(with Robert Wardhaugh) Destinies: Canadian History since Confederation, 8th ed. Nelson, 2017.

Method & Meaning Book Cover

(with William J Turkel) Method and Meaning in Canadian Environmental History. Nelson, 2009. Includes "An Introduction, in Theory and Practice" and "Lost in Shipping: Canadian National Parks and the International Donation of Wildlife."

Environmental Fable Book Cover

The Institute of Man and Resources: An Environmental Fable. Island Studies Press, 2003.

Natural Selections Book Cover

Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935-1970. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2001.

Recent Chapters & Journal Articles

Recent Public & Digital History Projects

  • "Home-Front Green Gables," Canada's History, Apr-May 2023, 37-43.
  • (with Edward MacDonald) “The Summer Trade” museum exhibit, Confederation Centre of the Arts. Charlottetown, PEI, Jun - Sep 2022.
  • “Observing Weather, Revealing Climate, Knowing Nature,” part of RCCGlasgow exhibit, COP26, Glasgow, Scotland, Nov 2021.
  • “The Rainmaker,” Canada’s History, Aug-Sep 2021, 28-34.
  • “Forecasting Trouble,” Canada’s History, Aug-Sep 2021, 34-5.
  • Occasional historical posts on the Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Weather App, Jan - Dec 2021.

Conference Organization

Awards and Distinctions

  • Visiting Scholar, L.M. Montgomery Institute, University of PEI, Charlottetown, PEI, 2021-23.
  • Visiting Professor, School of Architecture & Urban Planning, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, 2017-22.
  • Carson Fellow, Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU Munich, 2016.
  • SSHRC Strategic Knowledge Clusters grant, principal investigator, 2007-15.