Book Review of Watershed: Reflections on Water by Grant MacEwan

Authors

• Lee Foote, University of Alberta

Date of this Version

2003

Document Type

Article

Comments

Published in Great Plains Research Vol. 13, No.1, 2003. Copyright © 2003 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Used by permission.

Abstract

Watershed, the last of forty-eight books by Grant MacEwan, was completed in the year of his death and published posthumously. This work integrates his ninety-seven years as a keenly informed student of western Canadian water issues. Three attributes make it noteworthy. First, The Source: MacEwan was an excellent observer and student of water-related development, personal struggles, politics, and environmentalism in western Canada. Second, Voice: poetic yet spare prose embodies a voice of western scholarship free from romantic pandering. Third, Temporal Scope: Grant MacEwan renders a first-person account and commentary across a century of change.