Macfarlane Receives 2015 Floyd S. Chalmers Award
DJ DeLong
Creative writing and history major
College of Arts and Sciences, Marketing and Communications student employee
On November 7, Dr. Daniel Macfarlane, an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Sustainability Studies at Western Michigan University, received the 2015 Floyd S. Chalmers Award for his book, Negotiating a River: Canada, the U.S., and the Creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway. University of British Columbia Press nominated the book for the award.
His research on the St. Lawrence megaproject began in fall 2008 and became his doctoral dissertation at the University of Ottawa, which he defended in December 2010. Macfarlane turned his dissertation into a book over the next several years as a postdoctoral fellow and a Fulbright Visiting Research Chair. Finally, he published the book in February 2014.
Negotiating a River looks at the profound impacts of the planning and building of the St. Lawrence Seaway and Power Project from the complex diplomatic negotiations, political maneuvering, and the environmental diplomacy to the implications on national identities and transnational relations. This project is one of the largest trans-border projects ever undertaken.
The Floyd S. Chalmers Award is given annually to the best book written on any aspect of Ontario history in the preceding calendar year. The award is judged on the basis of the strength of the arguments presented in the book, the range and significance of the subject, the quality of the research and the excellence of the literary style. Macfarlane achieved all of these areas and has won the prize, which includes a $1000 cash award as well as an Inuit carving.
The award jury concluded that Macfarlane’s Negotiating a River was the top submission and said, “This superior piece of scholarship communicates the geopolitical, bureaucratic, technological, and social implications of one of North America’s megaprojects.” They added that the book is “well written and well researched” and that “it concludes with the assessment that the completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway fulfilled a long-standing dream in Canadian and Ontario history.”
WMU and the College of Arts and Sciences has provided Macfarlane with the teaching and research opportunities to continue his focus on water in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin. Macfarlane is in the process of writing another book on the trans-border engineering of Niagara Falls, which is directly linked to Negotiating a River. He is also co-editing a book with WMU professor Dr. Lynne Heasley on US-Canadian border waters.
When asked about how it felt to find out he had won the award, Macfarlane says, “It makes one feel that all the hard work was worthwhile and that the end result is valued by your academic peers.”