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Book Review
| Shaped by the West Wind: Nature and History in Georgian Bay. By Claire Elizabeth Campbell. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press, 2005. xx + 282 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $85.00, paper $29.95.
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| In Shaped by the West Wind: Nature and History in Georgian Bay, historian Claire Elizabeth Campbell (Dalhousie University) offers a reflective account of the interactions between human and nonhuman forces along the Thirty Thousand Islands, a rocky archipelago that forms the east shore of Georgian Bay. Extending north from Lake Huron, the Bay is big enough to qualify as a sixth great lake, though it has not been accepted as such. Campbell makes a parallel argument for the history of the region: this is a place of unrecognized significance, one possessed of a history that is important not only in itself, but also for how it sheds light on broader issues, such as the considerable challenge of managing human usage of so-called wilderness and the enduring question of how nature has figured in what Campbell terms "the Canadian experience." |
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The work consists of an introduction and conclusion in addition to six substantive chapters, each of which is focused on a particular type of encounter between people and place. From early surveyors through resource users to contemporary cottagers, Campbell fleshes out the various cultural contexts necessary to make sense of how these and other groups perceived and used the Bay. Her arguments rely on maps, images, and artistic works, many of which are reproduced. Considering also her skilled use of oral history, the work is a compelling argument for an inclusive view of what constitute historical sources. Campbell is a remarkably gifted writer, and her talents are most on display in her compelling descriptions of her own relationship to the landscape. She succeeds in generating an appreciation for the area that is perhaps not entirely dissimilar from the sense of place she argues is possessed by many who have spent time on the Bay. |
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In this work, time is less solid than geography. Campbell herself notes how the thematic organization means that the book loops back on itself at points, sensitizing readers to an arrangement that may be off-putting to some. There are of course other ways the book might have been organized, but the chosen structure succeeds in underlining one of Campbell's major arguments: the ways of encountering the landscape are multiple and changeable. Ultimately, it is Georgian Bay itself that provides the link that holds the book together, with the seeming constancy of water, rock, and wind throwing into relief the varied ways that different groups have encountered the landscape. |
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Shaped by the West Wind is the inaugural publication in the Nature/ History/ Society series, put out by UBC Press under the editorship of historical geographer Graeme Wynn. The book is a compelling meditation on a landscape of unrecognized significance, a distinctly Canadian contribution to key debates in the international field of environmental history, and an auspicious beginning for a book series that promises to provide an important outlet for works in environmental history, historical geography, and allied fields. |
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Shannon Stunden Bower is Grant Notley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. She is currently researching mid-twentieth century agricultural policy in Canada, with a particular focus on the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. |
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