James Wreford Watson is a distinguished cartographer and social geographer. He also writes poetry, short fiction, and critical reviews. His literary work, written under the name of James Wreford, has been included in anthologies--most notably Ronald Hambleton's Unit of Five (1944)--and published in magazines in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. His first collection of verse, Of Time and the Lover, appeared in 1950, and in 1979 his second, Countryside Canada , was published.

Watson, the son of James Watson, a clergyman, and Evelyn Russell Watson, was born on 8 February 1915 in Shensi, China. He studied in China and Scotland, receiving an M.A. from the University of Edinburgh in 1936. Watson married Jessie Black, a professor of education at Edinburgh, in 1939, and the couple moved to Canada the same year. They have two children, Margaret and James. In 1945 Watson received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Since 1954 he has...