The Memory of Nature in Aboriginal, Canadian and American Contexts
The Memory of Nature in Aboriginal, Canadian and American Contexts

Author: Françoise Besson

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-06-12

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 1443861618

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This volume engages the reader’s interest in the relationship that binds man to nature, a relationship which makes itself manifest through certain literary or visual artefacts produced by Native or non-Native writers and artists. It ranges from the study of literatures (mainly from Canada – including Quebec and Acadia – but also from Britain, the United States of America, France, Turkey, and Australia) to the exploration of films, photographs, paintings and sculptures produced by Aboriginal artists from North America. Thanks to a relational paradigm founded on spatial and temporal enlargement, it re-imagines the critical outlook on indigenous production by instigating a dialogue between endogenous and exogenous scholars, novelists and artists, and by weaving together interdisciplinary approaches spanning anthropology, geology, ecocriticism and the study of myths. From the writings by Scott Momaday to those by Tomson Highway, from Pauline Johnson to Louise Erdrich, or from the photographs by William McFarlane Notman and Edward Burtynsky or the films by Randy Redroad to the paintings by Emily Carr, it explores art as the sedimentation of nature. It simultaneously interrogates the representation of nature and the nature of representation as a geological and generic process inscribed in the history of mankind. Without eclipsing differences and imposing a reified Eurocentric critical discourse upon indigenous productions, this volume does not colonize indigenous texts or indulge in cultural appropriation of works of art, but looks for historical, mythological or geological traces of the past; a past characterized by the intimacy between man and animal, man and rock, or man and plant, a past which is allowed to resurface through the creative and critical outlooks that are bestowed upon its subjacent or subterranean existence. It resurfaces, not as nostalgic memory but as an interactive fertilization giving the present a new life in which the non-human provides a key to the understanding of the human bond to nature.

Innate Terrain
Innate Terrain

Author: Alissa North

Publisher:

Published: 2022-05-15

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 9781487527211

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Innate Terrain surveys landscape architecture from across Canada, documenting the inspiring breadth of contemporary projects.

Nature in Translation
Nature in Translation

Author: Shiho Satsuka

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2015-08-13

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 0822375605

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Nature in Translation is an ethnographic exploration in the cultural politics of the translation of knowledge about nature. Shiho Satsuka follows the Japanese tour guides who lead hikes, nature walks, and sightseeing bus tours for Japanese tourists in Canada's Banff National Park and illustrates how they aspired to become local "nature interpreters" by learning the ecological knowledge authorized by the National Park. The guides assumed the universal appeal of Canada’s magnificent nature, but their struggle in translating nature reveals that our understanding of nature—including scientific knowledge—is always shaped by the specific socio-cultural concerns of the particular historical context. These include the changing meanings of work in a neoliberal economy, as well as culturally-specific dreams of finding freedom and self-actualization in Canada's vast nature. Drawing on nearly two years of fieldwork in Banff and a decade of conversations with the guides, Satsuka argues that knowing nature is an unending process of cultural translation, full of tensions, contradictions, and frictions. Ultimately, the translation of nature concerns what counts as human, what kind of society is envisioned, and who is included and excluded in the society as a legitimate subject.

The Will of the Land
The Will of the Land

Author: Peter Dettling

Publisher: Rocky Mountain Books Ltd

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1926855906

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Peter Dettling first visited Canada’s internationally renowned Rocky Mountains national parks as a Swiss tourist in 1993. Immediately, he fell in love with the untouched wilderness, breathtaking landscapes, diverse flora and abundant animal life, all seemingly free from human intervention and manipulation. With wide-eyed exuberance, Dettling moved to the heart of the Canadian Rockies in 2003, working as an artist and nature photographer. For years he documented the beauty and splendour of life in the mountains of western Canada, selling his art and photography to countless tourists and locals. In time, however, he gained insight into the realities of nature’s growing struggle against developing tourism, ill-conceived transportation routes and questionable wildlife management practices. Through Dettling’s stunning photography and passionate narrative, The Will of the Land serves as an incredible artistic testament to the beauty of the natural world and the sometimes painful truth of hyperdevelopment in majestic landscapes, offering the reader a dynamic and broad vision of what national parks should stand for in our ever-changing world.

Canoe Nation
Canoe Nation

Author: Bruce Erickson

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2013-06-15

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0774822503

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More than an ancient means of transportation and trade, the canoe has come to be a symbol of Canada itself. In Canoe Nation, Bruce Erickson argues that the canoe’s sentimental power has come about through a set of narratives that attempt to legitimize a particular vision of Canada that overvalues the nation’s connection to nature. From Alexander Mackenzie to Grey Owl to Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the canoe authenticates Canada’s reputation as a tolerant, environmentalist nation, even when there is abundant evidence to the contrary. Ultimately, the stories we tell about the canoe need to be understood as moments in the ever-contested field of cultural politics.

Might Nature Be Canadian?
Might Nature Be Canadian?

Author: William A. Macdonald

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2020-03-05

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0228001471

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Mutual accommodation is about co-operation, compromise, and inclusion. It's a big idea, equal to freedom, science, and compassion. The postwar global economic order led by the United States is one of the greatest historic achievements of mutual accommodation, yet it is now at risk from the centrifugal forces that have led to populism. Today, to many nations and people, Canada is the model country driven by successful mutual accommodation. In Might Nature Be Canadian? William Macdonald explores the theme of mutual accommodation with a close lens on the Canadian experience. Canada has a drive toward mutual accommodation. The United States has a strong drive toward division. There has always been a divergence of ideologies between the two countries. The United States now appears to view the world as a never-ending struggle, which has become greater since 2000, between good and evil, while Canada, by contrast, leans toward the idea that there is an underlying order at the heart of things. Canada has always faced strong limits in creatively overcoming a challenging geography and French/English language differences within its own borders; on the other hand the United States sees itself as a country with virtually no limits. Throughout its history Canada's drive toward mutual accommodation, stronger than that of any other country, has allowed its increasingly diverse citizens to live together peacefully and successfully, even as they retain their own culture, language, and religion. Nature can be described as simultaneously either/or and both/and. Is there something fundamentally Canadian about this? Taking inspiration from British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who said that "civilization is the triumph of persuasion over force," Macdonald argues that the urgent spread of mutual accommodation, a charge led by Canada, is central to achieving a bearable world for everyone.

Canadian Natural Resource and Environmental Policy
Canadian Natural Resource and Environmental Policy

Author: Melody Hessing

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 9780774806145

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This book examines policy-making in one of the most significant areasof activity in the Canadian economy -- natural resources and theenvironment. It discusses the evolution of resource policies from theearly era of exploitation to the present era of resource andenvironmental management. Using an integrated political economy andpolicy perspective, the book provides an analytic framework from whichthe foundation of ideological perspectives, administrative structures,and substantive issues are explored. The integration of social scienceperspectives and the combination of theoretical and empirical work makethis innovative book one of the most comprehensive analyses of Canadiannatural resource and environmental policy to date.

Fashioning the Canadian Landscape
Fashioning the Canadian Landscape

Author: John Irvine Little

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2018-04-13

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1487510438

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Interpretations of Canada's emerging identity have been largely based on a relatively small corpus of literary writing and landscape paintings, overlooking the influence of the British and American travel writers who published hundreds of books and articles that did much to fix the image of Canada in the popular imagination. In Fashioning the Canadian Landscape, J.I. Little examines how Canada, much like the United States, came to be identified with its natural landscape. Little argues that in contrast to the American identification with the wilderness sublime, however, Canada’s image was strongly influenced by the picturesque convention favoured by British travel writers. This amply illustrated volume includes chapters ranging from Labrador to British Columbia, some of which focus on such notable British authors as Rupert Brooke and Rudyard Kipling, and others on talented American writers such as Charles Dudley Warner. Based not only on the views of the landscape but on the racist descriptions of the Indigenous peoples and the romanticization of the Canadian ‘folk’, Little argues that the national image that emerged was colonialist as well as colonial in nature.

States of Nature
States of Nature

Author: Tina Loo

Publisher: UBC Press

Published: 2011-11-01

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0774840765

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States of Nature is one of the first books to trace the development of Canadian wildlife conservation from its social, political, and historical roots. While noting the influence of celebrity conservationists such as Jack Miner and Grey Owl, Tina Loo emphasizes the impact of ordinary people on the evolution of wildlife management in Canada. She also explores the elements leading up to the emergence of the modern environmental movement, ranging from the reliance on and practical knowledge of wildlife demonstrated by rural people to the more aloof and scientific approach of state-sponsored environmentalism.

Mapping Nature across the Americas
Mapping Nature across the Americas

Author: Kathleen A. Brosnan

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-10-19

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780226696430

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Maps are inherently unnatural. Projecting three-dimensional realities onto two-dimensional surfaces, they are abstractions that capture someone’s idea of what matters within a particular place; they require selections and omissions. These very characteristics, however, give maps their importance for understanding how humans have interacted with the natural world, and give historical maps, especially, the power to provide rich insights into the relationship between humans and nature over time. That is just what is achieved in Mapping Nature across the Americas. Illustrated throughout, the essays in this book argue for greater analysis of historical maps in the field of environmental history, and for greater attention within the field of the history of cartography to the cultural constructions of nature contained within maps. This volume thus provides the first in-depth and interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between maps and environmental knowledge in the Americas—including, for example, stories of indigenous cartography in Mexico, the allegorical presence of palm trees in maps of Argentina, the systemic mapping of US forests, and the scientific platting of Canada’s remote lands.