Fragile Inheritance
Understanding
ecological change
in Canada
mission cray fish
Mission: Fragile Inheritance promotes and supports the long term study of species and habitats, human & environmental effects on them, and the conservation of biodiversity, based on the lifetime work of Fred Schueler & Aleta Karstad.

"Fragile Inheritance is exciting and meaningful--both in terms of providing an increased understanding of changes to habitat and species over a relevant span of time, but also in being a logical progression in the path that you've been following for so many years."

Fragile Inheritance
6 St-Lawrence St
Bishops Mills Oxford Station
Ontario, Canada KOG 1T0
(613) 299-3107
info@fragileinheritance.ca

Background

Fragile Inheritance the organization is named after the book Fragile Inheritance: a painter's ecology of glaciated North America, begun by Aleta Karstad and Frederick W. Schueler in 1985 for Methuen Books.

Written and illustrated over the course of two trans-Canada trips, ambitious and lavishly illustrated with paintings and drawings, the book was passed between publishers in the design stage, and unfortunately remained unpublished. Through three decades since, Fred and Aleta have continued with the same work, the long term monitoring of nature in Canada.

Keeping track of species and ecosystems as they change in many ways, mostly unaccounted for, is an overwhelming task. In the absence of any organized support for the field work, archiving, databasing, analysis, and communication that this entails, Fred and Aleta and their colleagues have dreamed for years of a non-profit organization to support and broaden the scope of this work in a national sense. The time has come for Fragile Inheritance the organization.


What can we do to increase awareness of habitat loss, invasive species, and human impact on nature?

There is no other independent organized group in Canada which is dedicated to promoting long term monitoring. This is your chance to support the work of Fragile Inheritance.

About the book...
FRAGILE INHERITANCE:
a painter's ecology of glaciated North America

lavishly illustrated with watercolours and
descriptive prose from sea to sea
drawing the baseline for
a legacy of beauty and
change - Aleta Karstad
and Frederick W .
Schueler's life work