The other day I was flipping through the Fall 2007 catalogue from UBC Press. I was pleased as punch to note the release of John Sandlos’ Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories. As a predecessor movement to modern-day environmentalism, conservationism is a topic of significant interest to me. So hoorah to UBC Press and John Sandlos.
Of course, this all got me thinking. While the history of conservationism and its preservationist offshoot is well-developed in the United States, in Canada this subject remains shrouded in mystery. In 1968 Roderick Nash proclaimed that there was no conservation movement to speak of in Canada's past. The reason for this, he argued, was that the presence of the undeveloped Canadian northlands prevented the country’s population from developing a concern over the disappearance of "nature" - a factor widely recognized with kick-starting the movement in the United States. An influential figure, recognized for his important role in the emergence of environmental history, Nash's assessment was taken as the final word on this topic.
That is, until 1978 when Janet Foster released Working for Wildlife: The Beginning of Preservation in Canada. Foster argued that in “the absence of a strong public movement in Canada, it was left to the federal government to develop an awareness of the need for wildlife conservation.” (p. 4) Focusing on the period between the 1880s and 1920s, Foster demonstrated how a small group of civil servants forwarded their agenda from within the government, resulting in such measures as the Migratory Birds Convention Act, as well as the creation of the National Parks Branch and the Commission of Conservation. As Alan MacEachern notes in his “Voices Crying in the Wilderness” review essay, “This is a distinctly Canadian tale: bureaucrat as hero.” (Acadiensis, Spring 2002, p. 218)
This vision of a bureaucratic-based conservation movement held court, more or less, until Tina Loo’s States of Nature: Conserving Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century was released in 2006. Loo explains that, while state intervention was an important aspect of wildlife conservation, private individuals and organizations were of at least equal importance. Jack Miner, who established a bird sanctuary on his homestead, while also banding tens of thousands of said birds in order to better understand their migratory patterns, as well as Grey Owl, an Englishman incognito who penned a series of bestselling books about nature in the 1930s, are but two examples of the celebrity conservationists that emerged in Canada during the first half of the twentieth century. Popular speakers, and authors of widely read works, these men successfully brought the conservationist message to the forefront of the Canadian public’s mind.
So, you may ask, where does this leave us? I haven’t yet had the opportunity to read Hunters at the Margin. No doubt it will both clarify and further muddle our understanding of the topic. While answers will be provided, many more questions will arise. And that’s a good thing because history wasn’t meant to be simple. If it were, there wouldn’t be a need for historical revision…and a whole lot of people would be out of a job.
