Nipissing professor one of the first selected for Icelandic fellowship

For Dr. Patrick Maher, his entire career has focused on understanding how people use outdoor environments, and how they value or draw meaning from them. A professor of Physical and Health Education at Nipissing University, he was recently named one of the first recipients to receive the Grímsson Fellowship that will take him to Iceland in 2025.

The Grímsson Fellowship was established in November 2022 by the Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson Center to encourage research and writing in an idyllic space close to the Arctic and to promote relations between international and Icelandic communities. The fellowship is open to scientists, researchers, experts, and scholars in the fields of climate change, environment, social sciences, natural sciences, health sciences, oceans, sustainability, clean energy, the Arctic, history and literature.

Selected fellows are required to participate in a seminar or dialogue or give a lecture at the University Centre of the Westfjords or one of the main universities in Iceland. Fellows stay for two to six weeks at the historic House of Grímur (family home of the former President of Iceland), in the town of Ísafjörður, the capital of the Westfjords region in Iceland.

Dr. Maher’s selection as one of 10 Fellows chosen from 251 applications from 60 countries, will allow him to undertake research into Ísafjörður's community interactions with cruise tourism and the management of nearby protected areas. With an increasing number of cruise ships impacting the community and increasing visitation to the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, both are in danger of being “loved to death”.

He shared that understanding the community tensions and environmental realities will allow community leaders and protected area managers to make more informed decisions.

“The impact of tourism on the community is real, particularly in summer months – concerns are being shared, but may not always be heard,” said Dr. Maher. “For management of unique, remote areas, the anecdotal evidence of overuse is clear. This type of external, academic research gives wider examination and analysis.”

Dr. Maher’s interest in this area of research began while completing his undergraduate degrees in Outdoor Recreation and Geography/Northern Studies at Lakehead University and later through his paddling expeditions in the Arctic where he spent 60 consecutive days in Yukon and Alaska as well as another 100 consecutive days in Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. In between he completed his Ph.D. in New Zealand with similar research undertaken in Antarctica.

“It’s just been a long and winding road,” he shared. “A trajectory that’s taken me all over the world, working alongside communities, tour operators, park managers, academic colleagues, etc.”  

In addition to this upcoming fellowship, Dr. Maher was named a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society in 2013, a 3M National Teaching Fellow in 2014 and a Fellow of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in 2020.