{"id":20906,"date":"2015-08-01T12:08:58","date_gmt":"2015-08-01T15:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/?p=20906"},"modified":"2022-05-01T14:19:03","modified_gmt":"2022-05-01T17:19:03","slug":"two-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/two-women\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Saltscapes Magazine, Jul\/Aug 2015)<\/em><\/p>\n

New Brunswick has been well served by two dynamic women who worked tirelessly for environmental justice.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1962, Rachel Carson\u2019s seminal book, Silent Spring, which explored the links between pesticide use, wildlife mortality, and human cancer, sparked what became a global environmental movement. Educated as a marine biologist, Carson was a reluctant activist compelled by her sense of justice. She wrote to a friend, \u201cKnowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent.\u201d\u00a0 Carson died of cancer just two years following the book\u2019s publication. Although subjected to vicious attacks by the chemical industry and policy makers before her death, her conviction and work changed history and inspired generations of environmental voices.<\/p>\n

New Brunswick\u2019s Dr. Mary Majka and Inka Milewski are two of those voices.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mary<\/strong><\/h4>\n

On June 14, 2014, a crowd gathered in a rural hall not far from Mary\u2019s Point, NB to celebrate the life and legacy of naturalist, Dr. Mary Majka, who had passed away the previous February at the age of 90.<\/p>\n

\"\"Mary was a pioneer in the fledgling environmental movement in New Brunswick. Although widely-recognized for her 1967-74 children\u2019s television show, \u2018Have you Seen?\u2019, and for her life\u2019s work protecting fragile habitats like the Mary\u2019s Point Shorebird Reserve, Mary also contributed to the first environmental organizations, advocated for better environmental legislation, and undertook projects to safeguard the cultural and natural heritage of her adopted country.<\/p>\n

Her accomplishments are as lengthy as the awards she received (including the Order of Canada and the Order of New Brunswick), but on this day, what lingered in the minds of those present, were the ways that her enthusiasm for life had inspired others to action. She was an authentic and impassioned voice for nature.<\/p>\n

Inka<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"\"On her farm near the outflow of the Miramichi River, 60-year-old marine biologist Inka Milewski watches for bobolinks and barn swallows above the emerald fields and tidy rows of raspberry bushes. Her own watercolours of birches hang on the walls of the bright and airy home. Their spare, lean lines, striking in black and white and shades of grey, seem apropos of the slender woman seated at the table.<\/p>\n

She places her hand upon the stack of reports on coastal habitat destruction and cancer rates in New Brunswick communities that represent much of her recent labours as Science Advisor with the Conservation Council of New Brunswick. \u201cThese are more than reports for me,\u201d says Inka. \u201cThese are hope. These represent work at a community level after citizens came forward to say there is something wrong. This is citizen science.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is determined to be a voice for those citizens. And for justice.<\/p>\n

Being \u2018Other\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As the daughter of an affluent Polish high school principal and an Austrian countess, Mary possessed both her father\u2019s respect for nature and heritage, and her mother\u2019s altruism. Nannies, custom clothes, spa vacations, and summers by the Baltic sea were the norm, but when Mary was 12, her father committed suicide, plunging the family in financial ruin. During this time, Mary sought solace in nature.<\/p>\n

Four years later, Hitler invaded Poland. While her mother and brother fled safely to Austria, Mary spent the war years incarcerated in concentration and work camps, then later as a captive farm labourer in the mountains of Austria. She met her husband Mieczyslaw in a Displaced Person (DP) camp after the war and they immigrated to Canada, landing at Halifax\u2019s Pier 21 in 1951.<\/p>\n

Like so many others, they carried the invisible scars of war, but also hope and optimism, and a love of wide-open spaces. They travelled by train to the industrial landscape of Hamilton, Ontario, where Mary found work as domestic help, learning English from radio and Reader\u2019s Digest.<\/p>\n

She quickly discovered that while DP was a label worthy of pride in post-war Europe, it invited scorn and insults in immigrant-weary Canada. \u201cYou had to be strong not to get discouraged,\u201d she said. \u201cBut in a way, that produced a great resolve to show that I was as good, if not better. Perhaps this is what drove me…I had been shunned and treated as a second-class citizen, but I determined I would not feel like one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Inka Milewski’s parents had arrived the previous year as indentured labour. While Hania worked in a school for the deaf, Tadeusz found employment in an Ontario gold mine, then later in the uranium mines at Elliot Lake. Billed as the Uranium Capital of the World, Elliot Lake had 11 operating mines when the Milewski\u2019s moved there.<\/p>\n

Growing up, Inka also felt the sting of being an \u2018Other\u2019. She met the taunts of children who could not pronounce her name, or called her Dumb Polack, with defiance. \u201cI thought of myself as the same as everyone else, so didn\u2019t understand why they would call us names. I didn\u2019t have the language to put to it, but I felt it unfair and unjust. I had a sense it was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her parents advised her to remain silent; to be invisible. \u201cI didn\u2019t like that kind of advice. If something was wrong, I would say so. It was in my nature to challenge authority and arbitrary decisions. And if I was pushed, I would push back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read the rest: Saltscapes Magazine, July\/August 2015<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Saltscapes Magazine, Jul\/Aug 2015) New Brunswick has been well served by two dynamic women who worked tirelessly for environmental justice. In 1962, Rachel Carson\u2019s seminal book, Silent Spring, which explored the links between pesticide use, wildlife mortality, and human cancer, sparked what became a global environmental movement. Educated as a marine biologist, Carson was a reluctant activist compelled by her sense of justice. She wrote to a friend, \u201cKnowing what I do, there would be no future peace for me if I kept silent.\u201d\u00a0 Carson died of cancer just two…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20925,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,4,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20906"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21444,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20906\/revisions\/21444"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev3.deborahcarr.ca\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}