Kheraj, Sean. "A Multi-Species Metropolis: Managing Animals in Nineteenth-Century Winnipeg." Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting. 26 May 2009
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Dr. Kheraj is a SSHRC postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of History at the University of British Columbia. He is also the producer and host of a monthly Canadian environmental history podcast called Nature’s Past. This conference paper is based on his current research project on the history of urban animals in Canada. For more information, please visit: http://seankheraj.wordpress.com
This paper uses nineteenth-century Winnipeg as a case study to examine how early city councils managed urban animal populations in Canada. When the former frontier town was incorporated as a city in 1873, Winnipeg’s earliest city councilors created the regulatory architecture for the foundation of what was intended to be a new western metropolis and gateway to the Canadian prairies. Managing the city’s non-human animal population was a vital part of this city-building process. The earliest by-law regulations in Winnipeg demonstrate that the efficient management of urban animals for transportation, labour, energy, and food was a key component of making cities in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, the behaviour and autonomy of non-human animals in the past demonstrated the limits of human control. Stampeding horses, free-roaming cattle, and stray dogs shaped human actions and the making of Winnipeg in its early years.
