Avian science at the University of Western Ontario will gain an endowed post after Margaret Atwood gave C$1m to create the Graeme Gibson chair in avian biology, the university announced on Friday. The position is tasked with investigating the processes that govern bird navigation, physiology and behaviour as environments change.
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The gift honours Atwood’s late partner, Graeme Gibson, and builds on a project the couple began together on Pelee Island. The island, Canada’s southernmost community, lies roughly 20 miles off the Ontario mainland and is a major stopover on two migration routes, attracting hundreds of species each season.
Atwood spoke about birds during the announcement and said she would choose to be a raven if she could become any bird, adding, "They’re very smart. They’re social, playful and just a very successful bird," and, "They’re quite an intelligent problem solver." She and Gibson once dressed as Odin’s ravens, Thought and Memory, for a party.
Gibson died in 2019. In later years, vascular dementia ended his habit of keeping journals about birds, though he continued to watch them daily. In a foreword to Gibson’s book The Bedside Book of Birds, Atwood recalled him saying, "I no longer know their names," he told a friend of ours. "But then, they don't know my name either."
The chair comes with a clear research remit, and Western’s avian teams already run specialised facilities aimed at studying flying birds. The university describes one facility as the world’s first hypobaric climatic wind tunnel for bird flight, and researchers there have contributed work on how migratory species fuel, travel and survive long journeys.
Chris Guglielmo, co-director of the advanced facility for avian research at Western University, framed the endowment as a way to tackle persistent unknowns. "Look at navigation," he said. "We have a lot of descriptive understanding of what happens when we manipulate the magnetic fields, for example, the bird changes its orientation. We know they have these senses. But how they actually work is still a big mystery, and very exciting for people to try to study." He said the donation felt like validation of the laboratory’s work and of its reach beyond academia.
For Atwood, environmental protection has been a consistent focus alongside other causes she supports. She said pragmatically, "I have what they call a platform," and, "And I also had what they call extra money." The endowed chair will channel that support into focused avian research at Western, linking field observations around migration routes with controlled laboratory studies.
