Three mistakes I made during my academic job interviews

Actually, that’s an arbitrary number. I’m pretty sure that I made more mistakes than that — and I have no doubt that the people who interviewed me saw more than I remember.

But my goal is to help others who might be chasing the academic dream to…reveal…to you what I know for sure that I did wrong during my short-lived time attempting to land an elusive position as a tenure-track faculty member somewhere in Canadian academia.

Swamp Fever

I’ve been working a little bit on a little side project, which I’ve known about for years but kept putting in the bottom drawer of my research life: swamp fever.

What, Merle, is swamp fever?

It’s equine infectious anemia, and let me say right from the outset, that it remains a terrible killer of horses. The Merck manual, that guide for all veterinarians, notes that it is a non-contagious virus. And it can kill a horse, either quickly or very slowly.

Others have likened EIA, or swamp fever, to a horse-form of AIDS. In fact, some researchers have pointed to the work done to find a vaccine for swamp fever as holding out some possibilities for AIDS researchers. 

So, it’s viral, and non-contagious. Except when spread by blood. In this case, EIA is spread by the bite of a fly. Any biting fly. So, EIA is found more readily in places where there may be a lot of biting flies.

Like a swamp. Or a low-lying swampy region, filled with luscious grass and abundant water. The bottom of a pasture. Or, the edge of a forest.

In western Canada, swamp fever rose to critical prominence as agriculture grew. First noted with alarm in the 1880s, it was a disease of the edge, of the new homesteads created in the bushy places, where water is abundant. It was not, nor is it now, a disease much found or noted on the open, dry plain.

Symptoms were distressing but distressingly difficult to pinpoint. A high fever. Or a small one. Or one that bounced around. Lethargy and extreme tiredness. Flesh wasting away while an animal gorged itself, eating itself to starvation. A change in personality. Depression, in an otherwise happy, playful, even spiteful animal.

How do you tell the vet: my horse is depressed? How do you tell an early 20th Century vet: my horse is depressed? It’s a symptom that hadn’t really been invented yet. It wasn’t an available condition.

Results could be quickly lethal, or distressingly chronic. A horse could seem to recover, but with any work, could relapse. Another horse could sicken and die within days, leaving a farm with limited horsepower. In a busy season, swamp fever was a disaster. For a small farm with few resources and little money, it could be the straw that breaks the farm’s back.

But here’s the real problem: another horse can look completely healthy, but be carrier. Those are, in fact, the most problematic. Because in order for an outbreak of swamp fever to occur, there must be a carrier present. There must be a sick horse nearby, for the biting flies to feast upon, to spread the disease. The obviously sick ones can be quarantined. The healthy carriers, with no obvious symptoms, are the deadliest.

There has been well over 100 years of research on EIA, across multiple continents, with no cure and no vaccine. It remains a world-wide scourge of horses, donkeys, and mules.

Horses — and farms — which catch swamp fever go under immediate quarantine, for life, or face euthanasia. It puts a huge burden on farms to keep an infected animal alive, for limited purpose. Yet, the human-animal bond can be strong, and some farmers are willing to isolate and keep their horse, using all necessary precaution, to help it live a decent life.

A rural farm 100 years ago usually didn’t have that luxury.

The Fort McMurray Fire and the Great Fire of 1919

Peeling Back the Bark

In just two short paragraphs, the Edmonton newspaper account captured the destruction and relief felt that all were safe after a wildfire overwhelmed the town:

Swept away in the maelstrom of a raging forest fire which descended upon the place like a furnace blast on Monday afternoon, the little village … is today a mere smouldering mass of ruin and desolation, and its entire population is homeless and bereft of all personal effects, save scant articles of clothing which could be worn through the nerve-wracking struggle the people were forced to make to preserve their lives.

The absence of a death toll in the catastrophe is due to the heroic measures taken by the citizens, who rushed into the waters of the lake and defied suffocating heat and smoke by means of wet blankets. Only such measures saved many of the women and little children, the intensity of the fire being shown by the burning of the very reeds along the shore and…

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Western Development Museum

As the geeky, skinny glasses-wearing kid who thought recess was best spent in a warm corner of the playground with a good book, it will come as no surprise to those who know me that I love museums. I am fascinated by the many ways that a museum can take an object and draw people into its story, find connections, and give a bit of a sense of context, drama, and intrigue.

When I moved to Saskatoon as a teenager, I spent hours at the Western Development Museum site of Boomtown 1910 (now with a funeral home…shiver!!). A lot of my time was concentrated over the three days of Folkfest, when the WDM hosted the old ‘Pioneer’ Pavilion. My Dad’s good friend Llew Bell and his extended family — and his kids, who were my age — would be there every year, playing as ‘The Cottonpickers,’ bringing old time dance music into the wee hours. It was where, in their old bus parked out back, I had my first taste of rye and Pepsi (urgh) and watched hundreds of delighted dancers swinging to the sound of Llew belting out ‘Old Time Rock and Roll.’

But what I love best about the WDM is how it flows and changes over time. While some of the old favourite exhibits retain their enormous staying power, others are built that reflect a keen eye for a broader breadth of Saskatchewan stories. See for example the Fuelled by Innovation  exhibit, or my personal favourite, the story of Saskatchewan’s Cancer Bomb fronted by none other than our own Sylvia Fedoruk. (Yes, I’m biased by the fact that I’m in the middle of co-writing Sylvia’s biography. So what?)

If you haven’t been to the WDM for a while, it’s time to see what’s happening. You’ll be blown away, as I always am, by totally new stories of the place that you thought you knew: Saskatchewan.

The Rules of Adjunctification – or What I learned I had in common with Oliver Twist

NOTE: This post is cross-posted from https://profhistorygeek.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/the-rules-of-adjunctification-or-what-i-learned-i-had-in-common-with-oliver-twist/. All credit goes to the brilliant Clare Dale.

 

This post has been a long time in the making.  A very long time — some 15 years, to be precise.  I started “adjuncting” while still in graduate school and have worked, steadily, at 14 differe…

Source: The Rules of Adjunctification – or What I learned I had in common with Oliver Twist

Not your typical Prairie tale…

I really enjoyed this interview, with Derrick Kunz of the Green and White, University of Saskatchewan newspaper:

http://www.usask.ca/greenandwhite/stories/massie/index.php

Ghost Towns

I was recently asked to list things that I’ve done that show that I am “committed to researching and communicating history that resonates off campus as well as in academia.”

Well, let me share with you one of my favourites: in 2011, I was invited to be the on-camera historian and discussant during a Max Magazine taping of an episode on Saskatchewan’s Ghost Towns. The episode visits several classic west central Saskatchewan ghost towns, and shows me poking about in the flotsam and jetsam of small-town history.

View it here: