Throughout history most people have associated northern North America with wilderness – with abundant fish and game, snow-capped mountains, and endless forest and prairie. Canada’s contemporary picture gallery, however, contains more disturbing images – deforested mountains, empty fisheries, and melting ice caps. Adopting both a chronological and thematic approach, Laurel MacDowell examines human interactions with the land, and the origins of our current environmental crisis, from first peoples to the Kyoto Protocol. This richly illustrated exploration of the past from an environmental perspective will change the way Canadians and others around the world think about – and look at – Canada.

A timely work, this book showcases articles by leading Canadian and international historians interested in environmental action and policy, including Colin M. Coates, Ramsay Cooke, Ken Cruikshank, and Donald Worster.

"The book has two aims. First, it demonstrates the common ground between the fast-growing fields of environmental history and mobility studies in terms of subject matter, theoretical approaches, and methodology. Second, it shows how mobility--the movements of people, things, and ideas, as well as their associated cultural meanings--has been a key factor in shaping Canadians' perceptions of and interactions with their country. Approaching the burgeoning field of environmental history in Canada through the lens of mobility reveals some of the distinctive ways in which Canadians have come to terms with the country's climate and landscape. The collection seeks to accomplish these aims with a broad scope: a series of case studies that span Canada's diverse regions, from the closing of the age of sail in the late nineteenth century to post-World War II automobile culture. Chapters examine a wide range of topics, from the impact of seasonal climactic conditions on different transportation modes, to the environmental consequences of building mobility corridors and pathways, and the relationship between changing forms of mobility with tourism and other recreational activities. The contributors employ a number of methodologies, including the use of traditional archival sources (correspondence, government reports, business ledgers, publicity materials) as well as historical geographic information systems (HGIS), qualitative and quantitative analysis, and critical theory."--

One of the oldest metropolitan areas in North America, Montreal has evolved from a remote fur-trading post in New France into an international center for services and technology. A city and an island located at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers, it is uniquely situated to serve as an international port while also providing rail access to the Canadian interior. The historic capital of the Province of Canada, once Canada's foremost metropolis, Montreal has a multifaceted cultural heritage drawn from European and North American influences. Thanks to its rich past, the city offers an ideal setting for the study of an evolving urban environment. Metropolitan Natures presents original histories of the diverse environments that constitute Montreal and it region. It explores the agricultural and industrial transformation of the metropolitan area, the interaction of city and hinterland, and the interplay of humans and nature. The fourteen chapters cover a wide range of issues, from landscape representations during the colonial era to urban encroachments on the Kahnawake Mohawk reservation on the south shore of the island, from the 1918-1920 Spanish flu epidemic and its ensuing human environmental modifications to the urban sprawl characteristic of North America during the postwar period. Situations that politicize the environment are discussed as well, including the economic and class dynamics of flood relief, highways built to facilitate recreational access for the middle class, power-generating facilities that invade pristine rural areas, and the elitist environmental hegemony of fox hunting. Additional chapters examine human attempts to control the urban environment through street planning, waterway construction, water supply, and sewerage.

"In Canadian historiography, there has been an increasing attention on the 1960s. Studies have focused mainly on the radical politics of the period but tended to downplay the extent to which much of the intellectual and social ferment continued into the 1970s and 1980s. This present collection, Canadian Countercultures and the Environment, makes an important contribution to a number of fields. As most of the papers deal with the 1970s and 1980s, they will add to our knowledge of this understudied period. Furthermore, the phenomenon of the counterculture has been the subject of very little academic focus to date. Most importantly, this collection will contribute a sustained analysis of the beginning of key environment debates in the 1970s and 1980s. Papers examine a range of issues related to broad environmental concerns, topics which emerged as key concerns in the context of Cold War military investments and experiments, the oil crisis of the 1970s, debates over gendered roles, and the increasing attention to urban pollution and pesticide use. No other publication dealing with this time period covers the range of environmental topics (activism, midwifery, organic farming, recycling, urban cycling, and communal living) included in this collection. Geographically, this collection covers a range of case studies from the Yukon to Atlantic Canada--it includes two urban examples, and, not surprisingly, places a good deal of emphasis on activities in British Columbia. From the most cursory glance at the history of those who moved "back-to-the-land, " it is clear that they engaged with environmental issues in ways that have had a long-term impact on Canadian society."--

This book tells the story of Canadians and nature over the last 20,000 years, from the Ice Age to Greenpeace to Parks Canada, from Catherine Parr Traill to Farley Mowat to Umeek (Richard Atleo). More than that, it explains why Canadians have in the last two hundred years or so done such damage to the environment, and why they have found it hard to stop.

Cover -- Series Page -- Full Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Introduction -- 1: Navigating Northern Environmental History -- Part 1: Forming Northern Colonial Environments -- 2: Moving through the Margins:The "All-Canadian" Route tothe Klondike and the StrangeExperience of the Teslin Trail -- 3: The Experimental State of Nature: Science and the Canadian Reindeer Project in the Interwar North -- 4: Shaped by the Land: An Envirotechnical History of a Canadian Bush Plane -- 5: Many Tiny Traces: Antimodernism and Northern Exploration Between the Wars -- Part 2: Transformations and the Modern North -- 6: From Subsistence to Nutrition: The Canadian State's Involvement in Food and Diet in the North,1900-1970 -- 7: Hope in the Barrenlands: Northern Development and Sustainability's Canadian History -- 8: Western Electric Turns North: Technicians and the Transformation of the Cold War Arctic -- Part 3: Environmental History and the Contemporary North -- 9: "That's the Place Where I Was Born": History, Narrative Ecology, and Politics in Canada's North -- 10: Imposing Territoriality: First Nation Land Claims and the Transformation of Human-Environment Relations in the Yukon -- 11: Ghost Towns and Zombie Mines: The Historical Dimensions of Mine Abandonment, Reclamation, and Redevelopment in the Canadian North -- 12: Toxic Surprises: Contaminants and Knowledgein the Northern Environment -- 13: Climate Anti-Politics: Scale, Locality, and Arctic Climate Change -- Conclusion -- 14: Encounters in Northern Environmental History -- Contributors -- Index

This visually dynamic historical atlas chronologically covers American environmental history through the use of four-color maps, photos, and diagrams, and in written entries from well known scholars.Organized into seven categories, each chapter covers: agriculture * wildlife and forestry * land use and management * technology and industry * polluti