Peter Knudtson is a Victoria-BC-based nature writer who has written on topics ranging from molecular genetics and natural history to anthropology, ecology, and ethics.
Born and educated in the US, he holds a master's degree in biology from California State University, where he carried out field studies on the behavior and ecology of seals. He has a B.A. in premedical zoology from the University of California and carried out graduate studies at the University of North Carolina and the Graduate School of Journalism-Berkeley.
After stints as a wildlife biologist and teacher in Alaska, Knudtson immigrated to Vancouver, BC in 1983. There, teaming up with renowned science broadcaster David Suzuki, he later researched and wrote two Canadian non-fiction best sellers. Genethics (1989)—a “recombinant” term he coined while living in Alaska--examines ethical issues arising from new recombinant-DNA technologies and is one of a handful of books that Harvard University Press has honored as one of its “Classics in Science and Philosophy.” Wisdom of the Elders (1992) explores parallels between scientific and Native views on nature and appears regularly on reading lists for courses in Comparative Religion, Environmental Philosophy, and Native Studies around the world.
His other works include The Wintun Indians of California (1977), A Mirror to Nature (1991), Orca (1996), and The World of the Walrus (1998).
He has won numerous writing grants and awards over the years—most recently the Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (2006), a major national arts award for “outstanding achievement in literature”—based on his entire body of work.
