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Being an entomologist means that my scientific point-of-view is literally down-to-earth much of the time. But like just about every scientist whom I know, I am completely fascinated by space exploration.

This morning, I read that Opportunity, one of NASA’s Mars rovers, has likely completed its mission. This is a big deal for a number of reasons, and in particular because the mission was only expected to last a few month but has gone on for 15 years. That, in itself, is a major engineering accomplishment. Add onto it all of the amazing research that has been done in that time, and you can see why this NASA mission was a roaring success.

I have, in the past, measured the temporal run of my scientific career in comparison to space missions. Voyager took me through my grade school years and is still going. The Mars Rovers have taken me through most of my postdoctoral and tenure track years. Opportunity launched in July of 2003, right as I was completing my first postdoctoral stint at UBC and was planning on moving to California for my second. Since then I have completed that second postdoc, landed a position at UNBC, and moved through the various professorial ranks.

But Opportunity, like all other space missions, and indeed all other science, is a great reminder that this entire endeavour of discovery is a massive team effort. And for me, hearing the news of Opportunity’s demise this morning (its last message was along the lines of “I’m running out of battery power and the darkness is closing in”) was a reminder for me of all those who I have to thank for helping to get me this far, and for working alongside me in the past and present.

I know that a list like this will never be complete, but I’m going to attempt it because fear of missing someone shouldn’t stop me from thanking these people. Please know that if I missed you, it was not intentional.

Of course some of my biggest thanks go to my mom and dad who encouraged my love of biology from a young age and who have been constantly there through the ups and downs of graduate school, uncertainty about ever landing a job, stress about the tenure track, and the various ups and downs that continue each year. I love you guys and I’m glad that you’re only a phone call or a reasonably short drive away.

Thanks to Dr. Gerrit Voordouw at the University of Calgary who took me into his lab for a couple of summers during my undergraduate zoology degree. That research experience, including my first publication, helped me to make my choice to work towards a career in the business of discovery. What an amazing opportunity!

Thanks to all of my undergraduate professors, and to a few in particular. Dr. Robert Barclay taught me how to integrate basic information into complex ideas in an animal behaviour course and whose lecturing chalk skills are phenomenal. Dr. Robert Longair and Dr. Ralph Cartar showed me the world of invertebrates and stamped my heart with a desire to learn more about them. Dr. Elisabeth Dixon told us about chemical ecology as a bit of an aside in her organic chemistry course one day, and at that moment sparked my lifetime fascination.

Thanks to Dr. John Borden, my Ph.D. advisor. John took a chance on an untested student straight out of his undergraduate degree. He told me that a Ph.D. is as much a process of maturation as it is of discovery. He provided guidance and funds and a continual stream of great ideas. He taught me how to be organized, how to prioritize multiple tasks, how to give an effective presentation, how to write a publication-worthy paper (depleting many red pens in the process), and how to approach the scientific endeavour with a continual smile. John, I truly appreciate your continued mentorship after all of these years.

Thanks, also, to a bunch of other academic mentors from my time as a Ph.D. student at Simon Fraser University, whether as graduate course instructors, or as instructors in courses that I TA-ed, or in other contexts. These individuals include Dr. Gerhard Gries, Ms. Regine Gries, Ms. Tammy McMullan, Dr. Mark Winston, Dr. Larry Dill, Dr. Bernie Crespi, Dr. Elizabeth Elle, and Dr. John Webster. You each taught me important things about natural history, about surviving in academia, about the practice of teaching, and about professionalism.

Thanks to Dr. Jörg Bohlmann for getting me involved in great projects that truly stretched my thinking and my technical capabilities during my postdoctoral time in his lab at UBC. Thanks also for all of our many past and ongoing collaborations, for our friendship, and for teaching me about approaching both basic and applied science with vigor, passion, professionalism, and kindness.

—We pause here for Opportunity’s launch, 7 July 2003.—

Thanks to Dr. Steve Seybold who gave me the opportunity to experience science in another country and to see how things operate outside of academia. Thanks also to Steve for demonstrating a deep commitment to getting the details correct and for exemplifying a love of forest natural history. Thanks to Dr. Chris Fettig who kept me going in non-host volatile work, who is an example of professionalism, and who continues to be a supportive colleague. Thanks to both Steve and Chris for their ongoing, valuable interactions that help to stretch my thinking and for their friendship.

Thanks to Dr. Staffan Lindgren who noticed my talk at a WFIWC meeting in San Diego and suggested that I apply for an open position at UNBC. Thanks, also, to Staffan for the years of mentorship that continue to this day even though he has retired to somewhat warmer climes. I miss you being here at UNBC, Staffan, but I’m glad that we get to see each other on occasion.

Thanks to UNBC for hiring me and for the many opportunities that I’ve had here over the past 13 years. Thanks to Dr. Keith Egger who was the Program Chair when I arrived and helped me to get my feet on the ground. Thanks to Dr. Kathy Lewis who has been the Program Chair for the majority of my time here at UNBC and who has been an amazing example of gracious, kind, and fair leadership. And thanks to my many colleagues at UNBC who have been great mentors and friends through the inevitable ups and downs (mostly ups!) of institutional life.

Thanks to my colleagues beyond the walls of UNBC who have encouraged me, collaborated with me, written proposals with me, published papers with me, organized symposia with me, tweeted with me, and had a beer or two with me. While not without faults (let’s work on those!) our community of entomologists and ecologists is something special.

And some of my biggest thanks to the many students, postdocs, and technicians whom I’ve worked with over the years. Some of you influenced my thinking (and continue to do so!) during my undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral years. Many of you have worked in my program or in the programs of close colleagues. Most advances in science happen because of hard work by those in the trenches, and I’m thankful to each of you with whom I’ve interacted with in various ways – as a peer, as a mentor, as an examiner…

And finally my definite biggest thanks to my wife, Joyel. We were married about a month after the launch of Opportunity, and we moved from BC to California almost immediately thereafter. I know that it’s not always easy being the spouse of an academic with the uncertainty about the next job, the moves to who-knows-where for said jobs, and generally weird (but thankfully generally flexible) schedules. There’s no way I could do the work that I do without your support.

I am certain that I’ve missed some people here, and this blog post will likely grow with edits over the years.

While Opportunity is now cold on Mars, my heart was warmed today thinking of all of you who have influenced me during its time of exploration.

Three of my broadsides are on display for the next month or so in the UNBC Rotunda Gallery as part of a VIS-PO show. They’re below as part of this post (click any of the images for a larger view if needed).

Please swing by to see those, as well as works by Art Fredeen, Si Transken, and Rob Budde.

 

 

 

 

 

The boy had spent the previous late-evening – when he was supposed to be sleep-dreaming – clandestine-reading Field & Stream. Cloaked in quilt. Instructions for the next-day’s project: two balsa wood rectangles, one inch by two inches by one-half inch; pen-knife-notched one-quarter inch deep by three-quarters inch wide in the middle of each; wrap a fat rubber band around one; place notches together; tighten band just so; blow; an injured rabbit screams. Now in this evening August-still, the boy sits in the front yard on a green-web-woven lawn chair and summons the rabbit. And summons magpies. One lands in the old cottonwood. Rabbit squeal. Magpie skrawk. Two magpies. Three. Four. Arriving like tuxedoed meteors. Until the branches are dappled with dancing noisy expectant iridescence.

You know that moment just before you sleep? A moment you never remember when it ends in sleep, but that you feel deeply when it doesn’t. A moment on the edge, tipping. Which way? The day just passed compresses all into that one instance that seems like all instances since the world began. Since earth dust was mixed with Mars and Jupiter dust, motes breezing in the centrifugal vacuum. Since the blazing heat of coalescence. Since the first sparks of movement in that little warm pool over there. Since swimming things swam, walking things walked, flying things flew. Since this blip of consciousness; as you slip into the unconscious and for that one moment you are simultaneously all moments.

This evening the Prince George City Council will be discussing the rezoning of park-designated land for development. The planning philosophy of selling park land to presumably pay for maintenance of other park land seems to be something of a growing and unfortunate trend in our city.

In response, I wrote the following letter to Council.

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To whom it may concern,

I am writing to express my concern with the proposed rezoning – and presumably the eventual sale and development – of the park-zoned space near to Ron Brent Elementary School. Beyond that, I am writing to express a general concern about the overall direction that the city seems to be taking toward the rezoning of park land not just at Ron Brent, but also elsewhere.

To put it concisely, our city has more than enough non-park space that is either undeveloped or languishing in seemingly permanent semi-development. Much of it is at least as near to services as is the proposed-to-be-rezoned area, and would thus be appropriate for such development without having to remove space from park inventory.

In my decade-plus living here I have repeatedly seen vast tracts of land cleared for supposed upcoming development. After clearing work, development often happens at a snail’s pace – witness much of the land adjacent to Tyner. Some land is actually cleared and then sits so long that it regrows a small forest and needs to be cleared again. Even then, I have seen cleared-twice land just sit there again for stretches of time – a prime example being whatever is going on next to the Save-On shopping complex in College Heights. Other examples of prepared-and-then-snail’s-pace development can be seen all over town. And this doesn’t even take into account the plethora of empty lots and abandoned or barely-used buildings (and even partially-built buildings, like that next to the library) ranging from the downtown core out to the various communities.

If there is something in this city that we do not lack, it is unused or poorly used land. It would be much more prudent to focus on completing development on sites like those rather than permanently removing valuable park space from residents while leaving bare development scars and shuttered buildings and projects all over our cityscape.

I understand that there is an underlying philosophy at work whereby rezoned park land is sold to developers and the money is then to be used to improve existing park land or to create new park land. How about instead ensuring that developers make proper and timely use of land upon which they propose to work and then using some of the tax revenue obtained from fully-developed land to fund park improvement? How about giving precedence and encouragement to developers who have creative ideas for the use of abandoned or slow-to-develop land and shuttered buildings, thereby also increasing tax revenues?

I am not knowledgeable of the ins and outs of the carrots and sticks used to entice and enforce development decisions, but from trends easily observable around our city it seems that there is a lot of carrot to clear and very little stick to complete.

People buy in neighborhoods in part because of the parks that are zoned there. People use and care about those particular parks in their places. Those parks improve quality of life in myriad ways. Once park land is removed from park inventory, it is never going to return to that state again. When land is designated as a park, the city has an obligation to preserve those lands, not to simply use them as a bank from which land can be withdrawn for future revenue.

If Prince George’s population was exploding at the seams and we were hemmed in by geography or political boundaries, then perhaps a case could be made for judicious use of park land. However we are not affected by any of these issues, and so it is time for the city to work with developers toward a more prudent use of our land base that does not involve the removal of existing parks from the communities that have come to rely on them.

Sincerely,
Dezene Huber