From Floods to Encounters

Habitat Studies and Reading <i>This</i> River

Abstract

I set out to learn everything I could about the North Saskatchewan River. I read broadly, looking to websites and science articles, historical photographs and travel writing, poetry and drama—but found myself overcome by endless information. I had drawn a slip of paper from a bag, as had my classmates in a graduate English course; each paper named one integral component of the ecologies of the place in which we live. In this way I had “met” my more-than-human guide, the North Saskatchewan River; my task was to learn, following a Habitat Studies methodology suggested by Laurie Ricou. I realized that while information about the North Saskatchewan River does not have a discrete starting or end point, I can encounter this river, from here. This article outlines my approach to Habitat Studies and, through prose and formal experimentation with “ice pancakes,” stories my journey with the North Saskatchewan River, kisiskâciwani-sîpiy.