Perspectives on the Environmental History of Northern Canada
Canadian environmental historians are heading north! Of course, they have always been there: northern Canada has long been of compelling historical interest. But there is a new momentum in the study of the region's environmental history.
Perhaps this is a result of the prominence of the North in current affairs: the challenges of resource development and environmental protection in the region, melting Arctic ice and other signs of climate change, ongoing issues regarding security and sovereignty, and the turbulent and path-breaking evolution of northern indigenous politics.
But specifically historical questions are also attracting more attention. These questions explore, for example, how environmental changes have taken place across distinctive landscapes, often accompanied by political and social transformations; how relations between settler and indigenous societies and economies have shifted; how diverse ways of knowing and valuing the land have intersected; and how the contested identity of the North itself has evolved, in both its national and circumpolar contexts.
This growing momentum became evident at a workshop sponsored by NiCHE on northern environmental history held in Whitehorse, Yukon in June 2009. It was an exciting event. Since then, many of its participants, joined by others with strong interests and experience in the North, have formed a community of scholars engaged in a joint project: an edited collection that presents an array of perspectives on the environmental history of the region. This collection is slated for publication in the University of Calgary Press “Canadian History and Environment” series.
Over the next few months, contributors to the collection will post a series of reflections and research summaries on the NiCHE website, previewing their book chapters. Some of the exciting work that will be discussed explores the environmental, social, and cultural dimensions of abandoned mines; the intellectual landscapes of exploration and empire; the imposition of military and state control over northern territories; the evolving character of northern fisheries; the place of Canada in the circumpolar North; and the environmental health of the North in the face of industrial transformation and global change.
These postings are part of the lead-up to an authors' workshop scheduled for October 28-30 at Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario.
The focus of this northern environmental history project is on the twentieth century, and especially on how the North has been transformed during the postwar era. We're very excited about it, and we look forward to sharing the collection with everyone interested in Canada's environmental history!
See Also:
- Adcock, Christina. "Many tiny traces: Antimodern anxieties and colonial intimacies in the Canadian North"
- Martin, Brad. "Wilderness Politics, State Conservation, and Northern Land Claims"
- Bocking, Stephen. "The environmental history of Arctic contaminants"
An Arcadian Interlude: Counterculture and the Environment Workshop
Hornby Island, BC, July 5-6, 2011
In a sun-dappled maple grove overlooking the Heron Rock beach on Hornby Island a group of students, faculty and local “back to the landers” circled their chairs to discuss the Counterculture and the Environment. The workshop, supported by NiCHE, was organized by Colin Coates, an island cottage owner and Canada Research Chair in Cultural Landscapes at Glendon College, York University, and generously hosted by the Heron Rocks Friendship Centre Society, an island group dedicated to the social justice and environmental ideals of its founder Hilary Brown. Coates will also act as editor for a forthcoming edited volume on the topic.
Margaret Sinclair, the island archivist, prepared an exhibit on the Hornby Island counterculture movement and the visitors submitted thirteen draft papers for discussion. Two full days of conversation on the papers considered original counterculture issues such as the fear of co-option by government and an attempt to define when and how the counterculture evidenced concern about the environment. More contemporary issues of defining the bounds of the counter culture – back to the landers, urban activists, utopians – and the object of their countering – industrialism, modernism, social injustice and war – were also addressed. The attending Hornbyites contributed their queries and offered colourful examples of their own experiences which are written into the island landscape they shared with us.
The workshop was an important and valuable interdisciplinary step in the production of what promises to be a most interesting book.
David Neufeld
Parks Canada
A Century of Parks Canada in the news
The publication of A Century of Parks Canada during the hundredth anniversary of the Dominion Parks Branch (later renamed Parks Canada) provided an opportunity to draw some media attention to Canadian environmental history. The book's editor Claire Campbell and NiCHE director and contributor to the book Alan MacEachern started things off with a PEI CBC Radio interview in February. In early May, a CBC web article on the 100 year celebrations included numerous quotes from Campbell. On May 19, Campbell and MacEachern did another fifteen interviews with CBC radio morning shows across Canada. Local CBC radio and Radio Canada stations also interviewed a few more contributors including Olivier Craig-Dupont in Montreal. University of Calgary's CJSW "Today in Canadian History" radio segment and podcast presented another interview with Campbell.
Some newspapers and websites also profiled the book. The Calgary Herald interviewed Campbell during the week of the anniversary. The Yukon News interviewed David Nuefield and Brad Martin. Dalhousie's Dal News and the Forest History Society promoted the book's publication and Christopher Moore, a leading Canadian history blogger, mentioned the book. Moore also pointed his readers towards the special edition of NiCHE's Nature's Past Podcast, where Sean Kheraj interviewed Campbell, George Colpitts and Gwynn Langemann in front of a live audience at the University of Calgary in April. The Friends of Banff website also posted a podcast recording of Campbell and Lyle Dick's public lecture at the Whyte Museum in Banff.
If you do not have a copy of the book yet, visit your local book seller or visit the University of Calgary website and order a copy or read the free eBook.
If you are interview by a media outlet about your environmental history research please let us know so we can link to the interview from the NiCHE website. Email Jim Clifford: jcliffo9@uwo.ca
Ta-dah!
I am really pleased to announce the publication and simultaneous e-publication of the first book in the new NiCHE / University of Calgary Press "Canadian History & Environment" series: A Century of Parks Canada, 1911-2011, edited by Claire E. Campbell. Congratulations to Claire and to all the chapter contributors.
When University of Calgary Press Director Donna Livingstone and I started talking about a series two years ago, we quickly came to agreement on what could make that series special. How about all edited collections, capturing the energy of the environmental history / historical geography community in Canada? Yes. How about encouraging contributors to get together and workshop the book early in the process? Yes. How about publishing not only a print version but an online version as well – and a free, simultaneous, open-access version at that? Yes!
A Century of Parks Canada, 1911-2011 is the (first) culmination of that conversation. When you visit the book’s site, you’ll find that you can either buy a hard copy or download the eBook in chapters for free.
Either way, you’ll find a great book. Claire Campbell has done a superb job of bringing together academic historians and Parks Canada historians to explore the first century of the first national parks agency in the world. She has set the bar high for future books in the series. If you’re interested in developing a book for the series, here is the “Guide for the Preparation of a Prospectus.”