Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
An Environmental History of Canada
Throughout history most people have associated northern North America with wilderness, 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 a 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.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: Aboriginal Peoples and Settlers
1 Encountering a New Land
2 Settling the Land and Transforming the “Wilderness”
Part 2: Industrialism, Reform, and Infrastructure
3 Early Cities and Urban Reform
4 The Conservation Movement
5 Mining Resources
6 Cars, Consumerism, and Suburbs
Part 3: Harnessing Nature, Harming Nature
7 Changing Energy Regimes
8 Water
9 The Contested World of Food and Agriculture
Part 4: The Environmental Era
10 The Environmental Movement and Public Policy
11 Parks and Wildlife
12 Coastal Fisheries
13 The North and Climate Change
Conclusion
Index