National Network for Equitable Library Service

For more than 50 years, William Francis Ganong explored the wilderness of New Brunswick to document its natural history. The importance of his work is well understood by academics studying natural history or cartography, but for the most part, it is unknown to the general public. The intention of this book is to provide a photographic and narrative account of a selection of Ganong's reports to the Natural History Society of New Brunswick through first-hand research and fieldwork. For the most part, I have attempted to find the exact locations in which Ganong may have stood when he conducted barometric readings to measure the height of mountain or a series of compass bearings to triangulate a particular location to a known reference point. Poring over his sketched maps and reports, and aided by current topographical maps and Google Earth, I identified coordinates and routes that would guide me to the various sites. Always the advocate, I usually invited friends along, for safety as well as to spread the word about Ganong. With field notes, maps, GPS, compass and, most important, my camera equipment, we tramped through some pretty tough forest, across brooks, in streams, slogged through wet meadows and down steep mountainsides, in pursuit of the best photographs to illustrate the physiographic elements that Ganong documented.