Natural Selections: National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935-1970 (review)

Natural Selections is one of the first studies to focus precisely on the history of national parks in Atlantic Canada. Originally completed as a PhD thesis at Queen's University, the work breaks new ground in analysing attitudes toward the environment that helped create four Atlantic Canadian national parks: Cape Breton Highlands (1936), Prince Edward Island (1936), Fundy (1947), and Terra Nova (1957). It is a work of environmental history, an emerging field in Canada, but it is also a cultural study. As Alan MacEachern says, 'We cannot see national parks as natural without understanding that it is our culture that has made them so and declares them so' (4). To that end, the book reveals how national park leaders and policies have helped shape the Atlantic region and the history of mass tourism in Canada.

The author explores the nature-culture dichotomy and how this balance has changed over time. The first western national parks in the 1880s promoted mountains and wilderness untouched by humans. The Atlantic region with its long-settled communities and coastal culture was different from the wilderness of the earlier Rockies parks. For example, the Cape Breton Highlands National Park was developed in 1936 just after the provincial government opened the Cabot Trail, an auto route for the adventure tourist, with spectacular coastal views. People lived and worked in these communities for generations. It was not untouched wilderness. In Part One the author discusses the early ideas about parks and especially the influence of James Harkin, the first Canadian parks commissioner for development. This is followed by clear, thorough case studies of each of the four Atlantic parks. Part Two analyses use of the parks, development of accommodations, subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination, and preservation of wildlife, fish, and vegetation.

The work is important and will be required reading for anyone interested in geography, regional history, environmental history, and tourism. One weakness, from my point of view, is that the author does not delve deeply enough into the attitudes toward national parks held by local residents who are affected by park development in their communities. There is a poignant story early in the book in which the author meets eighty-nine-year-old Ingonish resident Maurice Donovan whose land was expropriated for the ninth and tenth holes of the golf course in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Maurice is animated when he discusses a confrontation with a golf course contractor:

'I came up to the clubhouse one morning and they were all sitting on the patio out front and Bill Stewart saw me and I went up to him. I was polite. But I said, 'It's still my property. I'd like to tell you before you come tomorrow morning not to cross my line or you'll get buckshot in the arse.' Stewart tore off his sweater, and I tore off mine. 'Come on, Come on.'

(xi)

I was expecting to see more discussion of the attitudes expressed by Donovan, because I suspect that these feelings, close to seventy years later, are still close to the surface in families whose lands were taken away for park development. The author does discuss this topic and concludes that 'the expropriations of the first four Atlantic Canadian parks were docile affairs. The Parks branch chose lands it thought appropriate for a park, the provinces expropriated the land, and landowners settled' (19). My sense is that the process was more complex than this, with families disagreeing over what to do and anger and animosity being passed on to later generations. I suspect more oral history work would be needed to understand the dynamics of expropriations more clearly.

Despite this criticism, the work breaks new ground in exploring the environmental and tourism history of the Atlantic region. It will be of interest not only to academics but also to planners, parks personnel, and government policy makers who will be planning future parks.