J.B. Harkin: Father of Canada’s National Parks (review)

From 1911 until 1936, James Bernard Harkin was the first commissioner of the Dominion Parks Branch of the Department of the Interior, the federal office that was formed to manage Canada’s national parks, the organization that became the present-day Parks Canada Agency. Within this period, the national parks organization began extending the national parks system across the country and took on other responsibilities such as wildlife and migratory birds so that it emerged as the premier conservation body of the country. Within this larger organization were divisions that were important in their own right, such as Wildlife, Engineering, Architecture and Town Planning, Tourism, and Historic Sites. Many see J.B. Harkin as a key force in this dynamic manifestation of the national park service.

As former archivist and then director of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, as well as the author of several other books including the two-volume history of Banff National Park, Ted Hart is well qualified to take on the monumental task of telling Harkin’s story. While Harkin left no personal diaries and few personal accounts, much of his career is reflected in the vast correspondence now held in the Library and Archives Canada, and Hart has researched much of this vast repository. As well, Hart tapped the rich Banff sources at the Whyte Museum, including correspondence between Harkin and historian Robin Winks from the 1950s.

Given the focus of the sources and the legacy of Harkin with national parks, it is natural that this biography would be focused on the history of the agency between 1911 and 1936. We learn little about his life before and after this period and less about his personal affairs. What we do learn about is the business of public administration in the mighty Department of the Interior. Harkin’s task was challenging in its complexity and magnitude. The 1911 legislation that created his agency had linked national parks to forest reserves, which were controlled by a rival Forestry Branch. Early efforts concentrated on separating the two programs. Later, the Irrigation Branch of the department caused difficulty, aided by special interests wanting to tap into the hydroelectric and irrigation potential of the river systems protected in the Rocky Mountain national parks. And, by the late 1920s, the province of Alberta looked jealously at the natural resources in the national parks as it began negotiations to have responsibility for natural resources transferred from the federal government to its jurisdiction. Provincial concerns over natural resources hindered Harkin’s endeavours to expand national parks across the prairies into Saskatchewan and Manitoba as well as west of the Rockies into British Columbia. Rival agencies arguing for capital resources to develop new parks and staff positions was a continuing challenge. Yet, despite these myriad difficulties, Harkin persevered to build a first-rate organization, to establish new parks not only across the west but in Ontario, and, in perhaps his crowning achievement, to ensure passage of the National Parks Act of 1930.

Despite the breadth of research and the attractiveness of the subject matter, the book poses difficulties for both the specialist and the general reader. The specialist will want more on the organization of the department and the issues that confronted Commissioner Harkin. In some instances, there is too much emphasis placed on Harkin, the great man, and not enough critical appraisal. Hart’s evaluation of Harkin’s approach to wildlife management, for example, seems overly sanguine when he writes, ‘If Harkin had wavered in support of the role of science and research under Parks administration, the whole subsequent story of Canadian wildlife conservation might well have been different.’ Yet Harkin did waver, and problems of wildlife conservation in the national parks remained critical long after he had retired. The general reader will soon get bogged down in the myriad of detail and search vainly for organizing threads. In many instances, important ideas are buried in paragraphs that spray...