Acknowledgements

Thanks to Thompson Rivers University, especially the Research and Graduate Studies Office, for granting me a sabbatical in 2022, during which I completed a good deal of the work for this volume. I am also grateful for its support of my research assistant, Brendan Coulter. Thompson Rivers University is located on the unceded land of the Secwepemc, within Secwepemc’ulucw, the traditional territory of the Secwepemc people.

Much of the labour on both this book and its predecessor, Creative Tourism in Smaller Communities: Place, Culture, and Local Representation (University of Calgary Press, 2021), occurred at my sunny loft flat in Mainz, Germany, in the house owned by my good friend Dr. Stephanie Doetsch. It is such a pleasure to acknowledge the affection and encouragement she regularly extends around my scholarly work and its attendant thrilling details. I am also happy to thank my colleague and friend Dr. Nancy Duxbury for her continuing participation in my scholarly projects. She is usually busy editing her own books, but always makes time to share her expertise in mine.

Twenty-eight authors contributed to this international volume, and all have endured scores of my emails and deadlines in order to co-create this book; not a single one of them has let me down. I am very grateful to them for all their work.

Once again, I want to acknowledge with gratitude my long and strong relationship with the University of Calgary. This is my second book with University of Calgary Press, headed by its director, the inimitable Brian Scrivener. He and his stellar staff, including Helen Hajnoczky, Melina Cusano, and Alison Cobra, work every day to bring peer-reviewed writing to all readers through open access—they are stardust, they are golden. Unsung heroes Ryan Perks and JoAnne Burek once again bring their copy-editing and indexing expertise to this volume. The comments made by both scholarly reviewers were also helpful.

Finally. My son Dana Scherf-Silk has accompanied me on this long academic career; I was still an assistant professor when he was born. Clearly one can never really reflect the full scope of experience a child brings, but I can and do, with love, celebrate Dana by dedicating this book to him.