|
|
|
Book Review
| Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society, and Culture in the Trent Valley. By Neil S. Forkey. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2003. 164 pp. Illustrations, maps, bibliography, index. $49.95.Parallel Destinies: Canadian-American Relations West of the Rockies. By John M. Findlay and Ken S. Coates, eds. Seattle: University of Washington Press and Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002. 302 pp. Maps, index. Cloth $50.00, paper $22.95.
|
| Neil Forkey's short monograph on Upper Canada (which inexplicably has a picture of Quebec landscape on its cover) begins hesitantly, affirming his bioregional approach to environmental history, discussing broader historiography in Canadian and environmental history, and the area's landscape. Much has been written about early English settlement in Upper Canada, so his study is a reworking and a synthesis of previous studies. In discussing the transition from aboriginal to pioneer society he utilizes William Cronon's approach successfully. The original aspects of the book begin in Chapter 4 when he discusses a controversial mill project in the swampy area of Scugog Lake and how, over time, and after much controversy, that area became integrated into the larger Trent Canal project that linked the pioneers to larger markets. His analysis reveals much about the approach of administrators to the use of water resources in the growing colony. |
1
|
|
He discusses land transportation changes in a case study of one colonization road developed to attract settlers to northern areas bordering the Canadian Shield. The policy was a failure, as he and others have indicated, but Forkey's analysis of the changing alliances of lumbermen, settlers, and policy makers subtly explains how the northern development policy was implemented, and why it suited different interests at different times. Both case studies of water and land transportation issues reflect the ways in which this pioneer society developed, how its environment was manipulated, and how aboriginal and European peoples adapted to the changes. |
2
|
|
The evolving culture of the region is portrayed through the writings of early naturalist, amateur scientist, and pioneer in many senses, Catharine Parr Traill. A remarkable woman, and an early ecologist, Traill loved her new environment and was sensitive to the physical and cultural changes taking place during her long life of over ninety years in the Trent Valley during the nineteenth century. Forkey places her in the broader context of British and American nature writers. He concludes that while her space was specific, many changes she described were international trends in European colonies—the frontiers for immigrants—that were permanently transformed socially, culturally, and environmentally. |
3
|
|
The second book, Parallel Destinies, contains eleven essays, only two of which are environmental history, written by well-known historians Joseph E. Taylor III and Donald Worster. The book emerges from a conference about the Canadian-American border in the Pacific Northwest, probably funded to celebrate closer Canadian-American ties in the era of globalization. The theme is the porous border in the past, which Ken Coates implies may be less important in the future. Thus the book's premise is already outdated, as heightened border security issues, the war on Iraq, and NAFTA disputes—in which American policy has been "do as we say and not as we do"—have heightened tensions between the United States and its smaller northern neighbor. |
. . . |
There are about 578 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
