Having worked as a park naturalist, field ecology researcher, editor and translator, Elena Johnson took the opportunity in 2008 to be the writer-in-residence at a remote ecology research station in the Yukon's Ruby Range muontains. Out of that experience she produced her first collection of poems, Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra (Gaspereau Press 2015). In addition to a range of poetic techniques Johnson incorporates maps, charts and lists in her writing that examine both the mundane (camp life, laundry) and the minute (northern flowers, lichen, geographic contour lines). Her passion for the environment is clear in lines that: recount how caribou silently appear "antlers-first/ from behind a ridge"; describe how the creek "carries the sound of rain even in sunshine"; and how the fox, once encountered, "fits no guidebook description."

Born in New Brunswick, Johnson presently resides in Vancouver. Her poems have been published in Arc, CV2, The Fiddlehead, Lemon Hound and PRISM international. She has been twice shortlisted for the Alfred G. Bailey prize and also been a finalist for the CBC Literary Awards (2010).

BOOKS

Field Notes for the Alpine Tundra (Gaspereau Press 2015)$17.95 978-1-554471454

[BCBW 2016]