September 8, 2008

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P. J. Hyde

With a background in Russian language studies and many years of work in the challenging fields of science translation and information analysis, and after wrestling for a decade and a half with prostate cancer and bladder cancer, Peter Hyde considers that he is qualified to write this book.

A native Londoner and former naval pilot, he moved to Ottawa, Canada in 1948. After wintering in Ontario he spent the next two years as an assistant technician at a low-temperature, high-latitude research laboratory near Churchill on the western shore of Hudson's Bay. It was there that he experienced the full meaning of the arctic wind-chill.

An amateur botanist, he unwittingly discovered a hitherto unnamed variety of an arctic plant. Like him, this recumbent member of the Pink family, Draba alpina L. var. hydeana, was doing its best to stay out of the wind.

He enjoys walking, swimming, reading, listening to birds and other melodious sounds, looking at wild flowers, seeking answers to knotty problems, and engaging in amicable, constructive conversation. His home is in Ottawa, where the continental climate causes the tropical summers to be over "almost before you know it," and the winters to be long and severe.