Canada: How Many Glaciations?

Editor's note: The first President's Symposium was held during the cag annual meeting at the University of Winnipeg in 1983. The idea was to air some broad and invigorating topic to which invited specialists from across the country could contribute under presidential direction. The inaugural topic selected by the president, Professor D.C. Ford, was ‘Canada: how many glaciations?’ The specialist contributors certainly learned a great deal, and the symposium was well received by the general membership whom the specialists wished to interest. This article consists of a summary of the presentations made by the various contributors and a concluding polemic.     

Book reviews

Henryk Wisner: Zygmunt III Waza [Sigismund III Vasa], Warsaw: Ossolineum, 1991. ISBN 83–04–03693–2. 263 pp., paper, illustrated.

Rolf Tamnes, The United Stales and the Cold War in the High North (Dartmouth Publishing Company, Brookfield, Vermont, 1991), 384 pp. ISBN 1–85521–223–4.

Göran Göransson, Virtus Mililaris. Ojficersideal i Sverige 1560–1718 (Officer Ideal in Sweden 1560–1718). (Bibliotheca Histórica Lundensis 68, Lund, 1990), 200pp. ISBN 91–7966–127–0. English summary.     

In praise of the International Geographical Union

This viewpoint is a highly personal account of what the International Geographical Union (IGU) has meant for a 50‐year career in Canadian geography and is a consideration of the importance of the IGU to geographers world‐wide. The author's earliest experiences of the IGU, the IGU's Commissions, its disciplinary perspective, some political problems experienced by IGU scholars, and the IGU as a global geographical community are the main topics considered.