The only child of farmers Will Birney and Martha Robertson, Earle Birney was born May 13, 1904, in Calgary, located in the foothills of Alberta, when it was a part of the Northwest Territories. Birney spent much of his childhood hiking and camping, and learning first hand about the natural world in theKootenay Valley of eastern British Columbia. These experiences served him well when he later worked as an axe man and a rod man on survey crews. In 1922 Birney enrolled at the University ofBritish Columbia, first intending to be a chemical engineer, and then a geologist, but wound up taking a degree in English. Birney's political awakening came shortly afterwards, while he was a graduate student at the University ofToronto. In Toronto, Birney steeped himself in political philosophy, particularly the writings of Marx and Trotsky, and by the time he graduated was a self-proclaimed socialist. He practiced...