An Environmental History of Canada

Book excerpt: Throughout history most people have associated northern North America with wilderness – with abundant fish and game, snow-capped mountains, and endless forest and prairie. Canada’s contemporary picture gallery, however, contains more disturbing images – deforested mountains, empty fisheries, and melting ice caps. Adopting both a chronological and thematic approach, Laurel MacDowell examines human interactions with the land, and the origins of our current environmental crisis, from first peoples to the Kyoto Protocol. This richly illustrated exploration of the past from an environmental perspective will change the way Canadians and others around the world think about – and look at – Canada.