In daily life I am a retired professor of cultural anthropology and an ethnobiologist. Professionally I am particularly interested in traditional environmental knowledge of northern peoples and my own work has primarily been with Indigenous peoples of northwestern Canada. In the Society for Creative Anachronism I am known as Alyne of Kendal. Aside from professional interests I am a "fibrehead", watercolourist, musician (Early Music and Celtic music primarily), dancer (especially English Country dance and Circle Dance), sometime writer, and random gardner. I retain a fascination for and aesthetic appreciation of the natural world. I also like to eat wild things (plants, fish, and game) and am interested in the preparation of wild plants and meats.