Winning woodspeople

Winning woodspeople Mac lumberjacks and lumberjills (yes, that's really what they're called) chopped and sawed their way to glory last month as they beat all comers to seal victory in the Intercollegiate Lumberjacking Association championships in Nova Scotia. The competition was the last in a series of four, and McGill entered the finals with a good lead over teams from Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic provinces and the eastern United States. The Woodsmen and Woodswomen teams credit their win to hard work and great coaching by John Watson, Dip Agr'73, forestry operations manager at the Morgan Arboretum, whose father was the team coach before him.

Big goals for Brace Centre

PHOTO: CLIFF SKARSTEDT

Water. Not a resource we give much thought to in Canada - until a river overflows its banks and drowns thousands of square miles of prairie farmland or falls as freezing rain and turns out the lights in two provinces. But something we can usually take for granted is a treasure beyond price in many parts of the world. Over the last hundred years, water or the lack of it has caused wars, brought down governments and killed millions of people.

The Macdonald Campus recently celebrated the creation of the Brace Centre for Water Resources Management which brings together experts from several faculties to undertake research, teaching, specialized training and advising on all aspects of H2O. The new facility brings together the former Centre for Drainage Studies and the Brace Research Institute under one umbrella, so to speak. While these two organizations have carried out projects and programs around the world for several decades, the Brace Centre will now offer a much wider range of expertise, drawing on thefaculties of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Science, Law and Management.

Headed by Dr. Chandra Madramootoo (pictured left), the centre will deal with issues as varied as flood control, soil quality, water pricing, pollution, irrigation and water-borne diseases. The centre is named in honour of Major James Henry Brace, a civil engineer who devoted much of his career to hydroelectric and waterway projects in the Great Lakes section of the St. Lawrence River. At his death in 1956, Brace left $2,000,000 to McGill to further his dream of bringing water to aid food production in arid regions by changing salt water to fresh. His will stipulated that the benefits of such research were to be "made freely available to the peoples of the world."

Master Librarian

Every five years, the Macdonald community honours one of its own for outstanding contributions to the Macdonald Campus, its programs and student life with the Mastery for Service Award. This year the award went to head Mac librarian Janet Finlayson, BSc(HEc)'59, BLS'65 (shown at the far right), whose constant care and labour have improved the library setting at Macdonald during budget constraints and helped make it a focus for alumni support. "Without her efforts," says Dean of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Deborah Buszard, "the library simply would not have been able to purchase a large part of the book collection acquired over the past 15 years, as well as other resources for student use."

Janet has spent 34 years working with the Macdonald clan and is also a regular participant in alumni activities, hosting tours during Homecoming, pitching in for phonathons, and serving as class president. She "personifies the Macdonald ideal of Mastery for Service," says Buszard, and has been "a quiet, behind-the-scenes ambassador for Macdonald and the University as a whole."

The other Finlaysons present at the award ceremony were brother Peter, BSc(Agr)'63, sister-in-law Eleanor, DipEd'67, and mother Marjorie, BHS'35.