Finding Home at the Harbour: Barbara Palmer Rousseau

In this book launch and lecture, author Barbara Palmer Rousseau talks about inspiration for her book, Finding Home at the Harbour. A frequent summer visitor to PEI, Barbara Palmer Rousseau experienced its true beauty when she moved from Ontario to the Island. At her cottage in St. Peters Harbour on the northeast shore, she learned the seasonal rhythms of spring peepers and barefoot beach walks, fall hurricanes and winter freeze-up. Her creativity returned as she began to sketch her fox family neighbours, the nearby dunes and the sand-locked lighthouse. Weaving natural history with her own story and illustrations, Rousseau highlights the resilience of the Island and its inhabitants to ongoing environmental change. Her essays reflect on the fluid nature of the shore and tell a story of adaptation and hope.
Barbara Palmer Rousseau moved to Prince Edward Island in 2020 to return to school after a thirty-year career in Ottawa’s software development industry. She is currently completing a Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) at UPEI, studying the environmental history of the north shore dunes and the resulting implications for the future of the Island.