Island Lectures Series features Kate MacQuarrie on November 18

Award-winning botanist, naturalist, and author Kate MacQuarrie will give a talk titled “The Wild Side of PEI” on November 18, 2025, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge (Room 201), SDU Main Building, UPEI.

MacQuarrie’s talk is part of the Institute of Institute’s 2025 Island Lecture Series. The lecture is free, and all are welcome.

Prince Edward Island is known as the “million-acre farm” and “Canada’s food island,” but there is so much more to the province than farming and fishing! In this illustrated presentation, MacQuarrie will take the audience on a tour of some of PEI’s best remaining natural landscapes—from iconic coastal sand dunes and red sandstone cliffs to wetlands, ancient peat bogs, and old growth forests.

MacQuarrie has more than 30 years of experience working with the plants, wildlife, and natural history of PEI. In addition to her role as director of PEI’s Forests, Fish, and Wildlife division, she runs PEI Untamed, a business dedicated to helping people learn, explore, and reconnect with the natural world around them. She has conducted research in the province’s upland hardwood forests and coastal sand dunes, found plants not previously known to exist on the Island, published papers in national and international peer-reviewed journals, and has just published her first book, Wild Foods of Prince Edward Island, with Acorn Press. She is currently working on another book due to be published in the fall of 2026.

For more information, contact Bren Simmers at 902-566-0386 or ispstaff@upei.ca.