Joyce McCart

Background

Joyce McCart was born on May 24, 1936, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She was the daughter of Stan and Gladys Cassidy.

Education

Joyce McCart studied at Simon Fraser University where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in analytic philosophy in 1970. In 1982 she obtained a Bachelor of Education degree in English from the University of Calgary.

Career

In her early years, Joyce was a teaching assistant at the University of Calgary and an instructor of technical writing at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. By 1973, Joyce McCart and her husband Peter were living on the prairies, where they established a biological consulting firm to assess the effects of industrial development on fish populations. Peter was a scientist and she was a secretary, bookkeeper, librarian, and general factotum. With the help of two teenagers, they raised horses and sheep and a few chickens. In 1973 they founded a biological consulting company Aquatic Environments Limited and were the co-owners during the 1970s and 1980s. Joyce McCart acted as an editorial consultant, general manager, and financial manager for the company. Peter and she owned a variety of rural properties across Western Canada, from Port Coquitlam to Fort Qu'Appelle.

In 1975 they founded Canada's first national sheep magazine. She edited the magazine and wrote most of the copy for two-and-a-half years, then sold it for a dollar and went to Southern Alberta Institute of Technology as a technical writer and editor.

By the late 1990s, Joyce and Peter McCart were semi-retired and they decided their next project had to be a book. Their first notion was a book on fisheries and to that end, they made a trip to visit the scientists stationed at Flathead Lake in Montana. It was there, that they first ran across the path of early nineteenth-century Canadian explorer David Thompson, and for the next three years, they followed his trail. Peter drove thousands of miles, took hundreds of photographs, and analyzed dozens of forestry maps, county maps, and road maps. The interpretation of all the information they gathered was a joint effort, but she wrote most of the text, making use of the techniques of technical writing. The result was the book On the Road with David Thompson (2000).

In their later years, the couple continued exploring and writing. The book On the Road with Captain Palliser, published in 2012, tells of Captain Palliser's 1859 explorations of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. It's also worth noting, that Joyce is remembered as a contributor to periodicals.

Achievements

• Joyce McCart is mostly known and remembered as a co-founder and co-owner of Aquatic Environments Limited and as founder and publisher of Sheep Canada Magazine, Canada's first national sheep magazine. For her efforts, she was named Shepherd of the Year in the mid-1970s.

Works

More photos

• book

  • On the Road with Captain Palliser

    (In a unique combination of history, science, and travelog...)

    2012
  • On the Road with David Thompson

    (On the Road with David Thompson is a unique combination o...)

    2000

Interests

• reading and dog training

Connections

Joyce McCart married Peter McCart on June 30, 1956. The marriage produced a daughter Susan Joyce and a son Peter David.

Father:

Stan Cassidy

Mother:

Gladys Cassidy

husband:

Peter McCart