Cultivating tech in Saskatchewan

WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 7178 [post_author] => 12 [post_date] => 2023-06-09 11:23:34 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-06-09 17:23:34 [post_content] =>

The George F. Ledingham Herbarium and its collection of specimens-some 70,000 dried plants, flowers, mosses and lichen-has been a gem of the University's biology department for decades, but regrettably it remains relatively unknown to the outside world. That is about to change.

Mel Hart, associate dean of Science: Student experience and engagement, is happy it won't remain a secret for much longer. She is spearheading a project to digitize the entire collection over the next five to ten years, making the data from each specimen available on the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), a free and open global online database.

"There's a lot of historical importance in here," says Hart about the herbarium. "It's not just plants that have been pressed and dried. There's just so much in the collection that connects to the Saskatchewan landscape."

Former U of R biology professor George Ledingham.

The Ledingham legacy

Behind that connection is one man, who dedicated his life to the collection and study of Saskatchewan's plant life. George F. Ledingham, born on his family's farm in 1911 near Boharm, Saskatchewan, attained his undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate degrees in science during the Great Depression in Saskatoon and Wisconsin. He worked his way up in the Biology department at Regina College from assistant professor in 1946 to chair of the department in 1969, when it was known as the Regina Campus of the University of Saskatchewan. Retiring in 1978, four years after the University became an independent degree-granting institution, Ledingham taught until 1983.

Throughout his career, this Indiana Jones of biology gathered specimens from all over Saskatchewan and around the world. In 1965, he discovered a new species in Iran which was subsequently named after him as Astragalus ledinghamii.

"Although he retired in 1978, George continued working in the herbarium, coming into the University several times a week right up until a few months before his death in 2006," says Hart.

For a man who spent so much time in the herbarium, which was named after him in 1990, one needs to hunt for signs of Ledingham's presence. But on one wall hang awards from Environment Canada and the Canadian Parks Service for great acts of service, next to the grey fedora he wore gathering specimens. Tucked into the frame of one certificate a photo shows George wearing the hat tromping through waist-high grass, a plant press hanging from a strap in his right hand.

"Although he retired in 1978, George continued working in the herbarium, coming into the University several times a week right up until a few months before his death in 2006," says Hart.  His dedication to the work he did is just one part of why the Ledingham Herbarium is such a special place.

While the plants are dried and laid out on acid-free paper, the moss and lichen collections are contained in small envelopes in cardboard boxes that once held Hush Puppies, Italian-made shoes, rice cakes, and biscuits. Pulling out the specimens and reading the immaculate cursive of the labels makes one feel they've gone back in time.

Helping with the digitalization project is (left to right) Bazil Rehman BSc '23, Ellaissa Andrade BSc '22, and Mariko Sawa BA'19.

A new generation of botanists

At a table in the front of the herbarium sit biology students, Ellaissa Andrade BSc '22 and Bazil Rehman BSc '23. Tasked with transcribing the written information found on each of these labels into digital files. They are also getting ready to create images of each specimen with a new high-resolution scanner the faculty received earlier this spring.

The legacy of Ledingham's work isn't lost on the two young scientists, who were born nearly 90 years after Ledingham, and 55 years after he created the herbarium in 1945.

"There's so much documentation that he has from over the course of his lifetime that really makes for a richer story," she says.

"It's interesting to see how he spent his life," says Rehman. "He started this when he was really young, he was our age he was already collecting specimens. Then he kept doing this for another 70 years. It's really impressive to see how dedicated he was."

The herbarium holds other records of Ledingham's work, including numerous journals in which he notated his findings and daily work, boxes of slides that document his research travels, and three filing cabinets packed with documents that range from his teaching notes to his efforts to establish conservation areas in the province.

Hart sees it all as vital information for the University to preserve and make accessible.

"He was a very detail-oriented man," laughs Sawa, who has plans to study library and archival sciences at the graduate level after her internship.

"There's so much documentation that he has from over the course of his lifetime that really makes for a richer story," she says.

A multi-disciplinary approach

Last fall, Hart reached out to Philip Charrier, associate professor of history, who then reached out to Crista Bradley, an archivist at the John Archer Library, to discuss ways to get students involved in preserving Ledingham's work. Charrier recommended history student Mariko Sawa BA'19, to digitize Ledingham's journals and transcribe one of them for the archives for her Arts internship, under Bradley's supervision.

"We looked at the resources that Science, Archer, and Arts can pool together to help the herbarium shine and to bring a valuable archival research opportunity to students and provide them with a rich experiential learning experience," says Bradley.

"The synergy that comes from connecting students in different disciplines is a pretty cool thing to have happening at the undergraduate level," says Bradley. "That's pretty special."

The journals date from the early 1940s to Ledingham's death. Sawa transcribed one from the 1990s, when Ledingham decided to take an inventory of the herbarium. In order to transcribe the details of the journal accurately, she worked with Andrade and Rehman to find the proper scientific names of specimens.

"He was a very detail-oriented man," laughs Sawa, who has plans to study library and archival sciences at the graduate level after her internship.

U of R faculty members behind the digitization of the Ledingham collection are (left to right) Crista Bradley, an archivist at the John Archer Library, Philip Charrier, associate professor of history, and Mel Hart, associate dean of Science: Student experience and engagement.

The herbarium exhibit

The students' collaboration has continued with a second herbarium-inspired project Sawa is organizing: a curated art exhibit of herbarium specimens in the former University Club space for fall 2023.

"I chose around 20 specimens that Ella and Bazil presented to me and then did research for each one to create title cards and designed those," says Sawa, explaining that high-resolution photographs of the specimens will be taken, mounted, and displayed on the wall as art.

Andrade and Rehman have found it fun to collaborate with Sawa.

Part of what alumna Mariko Sawa BA'19, has been working on in the Ledingham Herbarium is putting together some of the plant samples for an art exhibit that will take place in the Fall.

"I like it a lot because we don't really have a lot of opportunities to study the plants since our work is mostly transcribing," Andrade says. "Learning about the plants and helping Mariko with her exhibition is fulfilling."

Rehman adds, "Any time she's like, 'Do you know what this plant is?', I'll say, 'No, but I'll find it for you in like 10 seconds, just give me the name and I'll go off on a little adventure.'"

In his quest to raise awareness and protect native prairie in Saskatchewan, Ledingham's crowning achievement, some may argue, was the formation of Grasslands National Park in the moist, mixed grasslands of southwestern Saskatchewan in 1981.

For the exhibit, the trio has chosen specimens that have kept their colours nicely over the decades, like Lilium philadelphicum, the Western red lily collected by Ledingham in the Great Sand Hills in 1963. Specimens found by Bernard de Vries, who worked closely with Ledingham to help catalogue the herbarium in the '90s and whose personal collection is part of the herbarium, will also be part of the exhibit. They include Opuntia polyacantha, a small cactus from Big Muddy Lake in 1968, and Hypoxis hirsuta, a grass called starflower found near Rocanville in 1968.

"The synergy that comes from connecting students in different disciplines is a pretty cool thing to have happening at the undergraduate level," says Bradley. "That's pretty special."

Working together

For Charrier, the way in which the herbarium has allowed for cross-disciplinary interactions not only for the students, but also for himself, has been valuable, referencing a recent grant application he and Hart worked on and coordinating with Bradley on internships.

"It's been very meaningful to step into a different world, to realize how much Mel, Crista, and I have in common," he says. "The disciplinary boundaries that seem so significant in an institutional context are really fairly minimal when it comes to actually working together."

Bazil Rehman's BSc '23 time in the herbarium has turned the Faculty of Science graduate into an expert at finding the scientific names of plant samples.

The driving force behind the herbarium, and, it seems, Ledingham's career in botany, is summed up well in a single question he wrote at the end of an entry on Dec. 11, 1995, when he was taking an inventory of the herbarium's entire collection: "We badly need research on Canadian vasculars. How can we protect our heritage if we know so little?"

In his quest to raise awareness and protect native prairie in Saskatchewan, Ledingham's crowning achievement, some may argue, was the formation of Grasslands National Park in the moist, mixed grasslands of southwestern Saskatchewan in 1981. A tribute to Ledingham in The Blue Jay, a journal of Saskatchewan's Natural History Society which he edited for 16 years, details the 20 years he spent organizing and meeting with federal government.

Ellaissa Andrade BSc '22 was one of the students tasked with transcribing the written information found on each of these labels into digital files.

The fact that one could make a career out of studying plants, is something Rehman, Andrade and Sawa have learned to appreciate through their work in the herbarium.

More interested in zoology in the beginning of his studies, Rehman has a new found respect for botany.

"I can really see myself doing plant stuff for the rest of my life and being perfectly happy with it," he says.  "I've started appreciating plants a lot more as a result of this."

While the dried specimens within the herbarium are indications of past life, the ongoing work to preserve Ledingham's legacy is creating new resources and opportunities for students and the wider community.

"Once the collection and the associated materials are available in a digital format on GBIF, that really allows accessibility for anyone anywhere to tap in and see what we have to offer," Hart says.

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Jon Heese - a Saskatchewan expatriate who is now a member of a prefectural legislature in Japan - readily embraces the suggestion that he is an outsider, noting that when he was a child his family moved around a lot, and he became comfortable making new friends all the time.

"I spent some of my younger years at Wymark, a farm community south of Swift Current, where my dad was a Mennonite preacher," says Heese. "Everybody else farmed, so we were the outsiders.

Growing up, Heese was drawn to performing in plays and dramas, and also discovered a love for learning languages. He studied Music Education at the University of Regina with a dream of teaching English abroad. He had already lived and worked in Germany and France for a time, wanted to travel, and since music is the international language, he figured his education equipped him to do that.

During this time at the U of R, he recalls, he most enjoyed performing in operas, which were a lot of work, but for him brought music to life. Perhaps in a bit of foreshadowing, he played a lead character, Nanki-poo, in Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado, which is set in Japan.

Hesse in an early family photo with the members of the Hesse clan. (Right to left) Hesse's wife Noriko, youngest son Naoriki, daughter Chisa, and, oldest son Takeru.

In 1991, five months after he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, he was in Tokyo, looking for a teaching position. At that time, English teachers were in such demand that within 10 days he was interviewed, and hired on the spot.

The move to Tsukuba

He first landed in the city of Ushiku, but soon moved to the nearby city of Tsukuba, where most of his teaching took place. Tsukuba is a government-designated science city, a community of about 250,000 that suited Heese because it had more foreigners, many of them studying or working at the science-oriented university, and the more than 50 research institutes located there.

It also had a much livelier nightlife. He describes the lifestyle as a lot of fun, with a great salary, although after a couple of years he noticed that his students were more interested in spending time with a foreigner and learning about his life than learning English. His students had little appetite for homework, and he felt he was more of an entertainer than a teacher. At the same time he was picking up acting gigs on the side, often playing U.S. presidents in Japanese movies and TV shows - he resembled a young Bill Clinton back in the day.

A change of direction

After five years - even with regular lessons in reading and writing Japanese - Heese could barely string together a sentence in conversation, which was frustrating for someone who was fluent in German and partly fluent in Russian and French.

The Hesse family takes a selfie while on vacation in Rome in front of the Trevi Fountain.

Frustrated, he quit his job and opened a bar. It allowed him to be his own boss, gave him a place that felt like an actual business and forced him to speak Japanese with his customers. Within a few years, his conversational abilities had improved immensely, proof that his decision had been the right one, he says.

It was during this time, that he met and married his wife Noriko. She had moved to Tsukuba to study for her master's degree in microbiology. They were introduced by a mutual friend, an Italian studying at the university.

Heese's bar business suffered a serious setback in 2002 when the government changed the laws regarding impaired driving, and began cracking down hard. Almost overnight, business at the bar dropped by 70 per cent. He struggled on for two years, closing the bar in 2004, leaving him with a heap of debt to repay and uncertainty about what to do next.

A move to politics

Prompted by his attempts to keep the bar afloat, in 2004 Heese first thought about running for city council in Tsukuba, which required him to become a Japanese citizen. He did that, and was elected in his first attempt in 2008, aided by an electoral system that, ironically, makes it easier for outsiders, like foreign-born candidates, to be elected.

Early in his career, Hesse did some acting in Japanese TV shows and movies. He often played US presidents. Bill Clinton anyone?

There is no ward system, he explains. Instead, the top 28 candidates are elected to the Tsukuba council, with about 40 candidates participating. Even with this advantage, he notes with pride that he placed second on his first try and topped the polls in the following three elections, becoming only the third foreign-born person with no Japanese heritage to win a seat on a city council in Japan.

He soon learned that officials, not municipal politicians, make most policy decisions and it takes time and effort to bring about gradual change, even for something as minor as the timing of a traffic light at an intersection.

"We are conduits for the citizenry to the real government, the civil service," he says. "Politicians act more like an immune system, shooting down lead balloons that the real government might try to float."

Heese attempted to move to the next level, running for a seat in the Ibaraki prefectural council (similar to a provincial legislature) in 2014, where the top five candidates are elected, but he came up short. He tried again in December 2022, placing fourth out of five, becoming the first foreign-born person in Japanese history to be elected to a prefectural council.

Hesse and his sons Takeru and Naoriki in a Tsukuba marketplace in Japan.

A fellow U of R grad

Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki BA'87 is a fellow political junkie and friend who attributes Heese's success to his honesty, his ability to hold a learned conversation on any topic, his skill in reading the room, and campaigning on a street corner.

She teaches political communications in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Tsukuba, and met Heese in 2016 while she was researching how foreign-born politicians in Japan conduct their campaigns.

Leslie Tkach-Kawasaki BA'87

They found they have a mutual interest in politics, and participate in social events organized by Canadian expats living in Tsukuba. "We play pool, we talk politics, about our kids and about the Canadian Football League," she says.

The future

While Heese feels he is still finding his feet in his new position of prefecture councillor it is a nice job to have, he says, giving him access to people he would otherwise not be able to meet. He plans to give presentations to universities and business groups in Canada - including bringing a delegation to Saskatchewan later this year to visit a potash mine. He is also seeking out people who are interested in making inroads in the Japanese market, as well as finding products that his constituents can export.

Heese always visits the University when he is in Regina, and is amazed at the number of new buildings on the campus, describing the renovations to the College Avenue campus as gorgeous. Wandering the halls, he says, he barely recognizes the place.

[post_title] => A road less travelled [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => open [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => a-road-less-travelled [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-10-17 09:56:29 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-10-17 15:56:29 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://www.degreesmagazine.ca/?p=7195 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw )