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magazine / apr11
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April 2011 issue |
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BOOK REVIEWS
Ahead of his time
BIOGRAPHY
J. B. HARKIN
Father of Canada’s National Parks
By E. J. (Ted) Hart
University of Alberta Press
592 pp.,
$34.95
softcover
In the wake of Parks Canada’s recent
decision to allow a new slate of
recreational activities, such as “via
ferrata” and “ziplining,” in national
parks, one wonders how James B. Harkin,
the father of Canada’s national park
system, would react if he were alive
today. “Via ferrata” is Italian for “iron
way” — a system of bolted ladders and
cables designed by the Italian military to
move troops quickly through the mountains
during the First World War. Since
then, climbers who might not otherwise
ascend rock faces have
adopted the technique.
Few could argue that this
system does not deface a
mountain slope.
Ted Hart is no stranger
to mountain slopes or
national parks. The former
executive director of
Banff ’s Whyte Museum of the Canadian
Rockies has been an archivist, a historian
and a proponent of national park history
for nearly four decades. Reading his
remarkably well-researched biography of
Canada’s first commissioner of national
parks, one could easily imagine Harkin’s
reaction to these recent developments.
Throughout his career, Harkin worried
about the “increased demands for more
and more roads, cheaper forms of amusement
and commercial exploitation” in
national parks. “Man can maim, disfigure
and weaken Nature,” he wrote, “but once
he has destroyed original conditions, he
can never replace them. Each citizen of
Canada is the owner of one share of stock
in [our] national parks. Our part is to see
that the value of their holdings is kept up.”
Harkin was born in 1875 in the eastern
Ontario town of Vankleek Hill, growing
up in relative affluence before his physician
father died of a heart attack. Harkin
became a journalist before entering the civil service, working, as luck would have
it, first for Clifford Sifton, the powerful
Minister of the Interior, then for Frank
Oliver, his successor. When the ministry
established a distinct parks branch in
1911 — the precursor of today’s Parks
Canada — Harkin became its first
commissioner.
Over the ensuing 25 years, Harkin
was intimately involved in the creation
of 13 parks across Canada and had plans
for many more when he retired. To make
sure the job was done right, he recruited
high-profile advisers,
such as naturalist Ernest
Thompson Seton.
Harkin was, in many
ways, ahead of his time.
He firmly believed that
national parks were just
as important for preserving
wildlife as they were
for enjoying Canada’s natural wonders.
He was also savvy enough to recognize
that the battle to protect parks from commercial
interests would be never-ending.
“Future generations may wonder at
our blindness if we neglect to set [parks]
aside before civilization invades them,” he
wrote. “What is needed in Canada today
is an informed public opinion which will
voice an indignant protest against any
vulgarization of the beauty of our national
parks or any invasion of their sanctity.”
So why, as Hart laments, is Harkin’s
name so seldom invoked by today’s conservationists,
who have fought, often in
vain, against such things as the twinning
of the highway through Banff, the slaughter
of grizzlies and other wildlife on roads
and rail lines that pass through the Rocky
Mountain parks and the increasing
demand for new activities that “vulgarize”
the sanctity of the parks? And why do
many historians, as Hart also points out,
have such a “low opinion” of the man?
Hart’s answer is that Harkin was not
a visionary like Henry David Thoreau
or John Muir. Rather, he was “an art of
the possible” conservationist who made
important strides “in the face of the
restrictive attitudes and conventions
of his time.” And even though Hart
believes that Harkin was much more
than a successful bureaucrat, Harkin left
behind so few personal records that by
book’s end, he remains an enigma,
despite Hart’s valiant effort to portray
him as a man in full.
Like many biographers who strive
to make their subject worthy, Hart also
glosses over some of the troublesome
aspects of Harkin’s tenure. The forcible
exile of Métis and First Nations people
from Jasper and Riding Mountain
national parks is a case in point. There is,
however, much more here to praise than
to criticize. The wealth of information,
the illustrations that accompany it and
the thoughtful manner in which the book
is written make it a very worthwhile read.
— Ed Struzik
Ed Struzik is an Edmonton-based author
and journalist. His latest book is The Big
Thaw, published by John Wiley & Sons,
and he has been writing for Canadian
Geographic for more than 30 years.
HISTORY
CULTURING WILDERNESS IN JASPER NATIONAL PARK
Studies in Two Centuries of
Human History in the Upper
Athabasca River Watershed
Edited by I. S. MacLaren
University of Alberta Press
400 pp.,
$45
softcover
If some countries have too much history, we have too much geography.” So said Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in a 1936 speech to the
House of Commons. It should come as no surprise, then, that recent decades have seen Canadian academics explore more deeply the ideas that constitute the
human history of our geography. From Bruce Willems-Braun’s look at differing ideas of nature in British Columbia’s
“war in the woods” in The Intemperate Rainforest to the David Freeland Duke-edited collection Canadian
Environmental History, which features work by some of Canada’s top historians, researchers have come to argue that ideas
of nature and wilderness are historically and culturally specific. I. S. MacLaren’s Culturing Wilderness emerges from this
concept, exploring the ways in which our history has shaped the geography of one of our most famous national parks.
MacLaren, a University of Alberta history
and English professor, has selected
nine thoroughly researched essays on
subjects ranging from the intrepid 19thcentury
backcountry explorations of
wealthy American urbanite Mary Schäffer
to a textual study of Jasper’s tourism
posters. Collectively, they make for an
eclectic history of what is today Jasper
National Park over a period of two centuries, tracing the area’s evolution
from an easily overlooked stopover on
a transcontinental fur-trade route to a
world-renowned tourist attraction.
The essays, arranged in chronological
order, speak not as a single cohesive history
but as an exploration of interrelated
subjects that contributed culture to
wilderness in one way or another, often
subtly. As a cover-to-cover read, it will
enthrall only the most serious Jasper
enthusiast, but if you’ve ever pondered
the specifics of how the park’s campgrounds
came to look as they do or how
the park was promoted to early tourists
as a travel destination, the book will hold
your interest.
HISTORY
MAPPER OF MOUNTAINS
M. P. Bridgland in the Canadian
Rockies, 1902-1930
By I. S. MacLaren with Eric Higgs and Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux
University of Alberta Press
312 pp.,
$39.95
softcover
Mapper of Mountains, a related offering
from MacLaren, delves into far greater
detail than any of the essays, exploring the
life and work of M. P. Bridgland, an early-
20th-century surveyor of the Canadian
Rockies. While using photogrammetric
techniques to create topographical maps,
Bridgman bagged first ascents of numerous
prominent peaks and did much to
advance alpinism as a sport in Canada.
The reading is lighter this time around,
with pages peppered with black and white
photographs taken by Bridgland and by
the Rocky Mountain Repeat Photography
Project, which revisited the 735 images
Bridgland made during his survey of
Jasper to observe environmental changes.
Still, the book’s audience is likely to be
those whose fascination with Jasper
borders on obsession. But with scenery
like this, they are many.
— Tyrone Burke
Tyrone Burke has a master’s degree in geography
from York University in Toronto.
ESSENTIAL NATIONAL PARKS READING
AMONG THE CANADIAN ALPS
By Lawrence J. Burpee
JOHN LANE COMPANY, 1914
Canadian Geographic’s founding editor, Lawrence J. Burpee, captures the history, charm and adventure of the Rocky
Mountain parks in this classic. Includes excellent black-and-white photographs.
TALES OF AN EMPTY CABIN
By Grey Owl
MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, 1936
Arguably Canada’s greatest nature writer,
the enigmatic Grey Owl (Archibald
Belaney) penned this unforgettable
collection of short stories at his isolated
cabin in Saskatchewan’s Prince Albert
National Park.
MEN FOR THE MOUNTAINS
By Sid Marty
MCCLELLAND & STEWART, 1978
Reading through this engrossing book, it is easy to imagine oneself seated around a flickering campfire somewhere up
in the high country, listening to Sid Marty’s stories of life as a park warden in the Rockies.
CANADA’S NATIONAL PARKS
By R. D. Lawrence with photographs
by William Curwen and Nick Meers
COLLINS, 1983
Few people could be more qualified to offer an armchair tour of Canada’s national park system than the late great
naturalist, conservationist and prolific writer R. D. Lawrence, who offers an engaging look at the parks as they existed
in 1983.
PASSIONATE VISION: DISCOVERING CANADA’S NATIONAL PARKS
By Roberta Bondar
DOUGLAS & MCINTYRE, 2000
This visually rich tome includes more than 100 out-of-this-world photographs by Canada’s first woman in space.
— Adam Shoalts
Adam Shoalts has a master’s degree in
history from McMaster University in
Hamilton, Ont.
BRIEFLY NOTED
THE WILL OF THE LAND
By Peter Dettling
Rocky Mountain Books
176 pp., $39.95 hardcover
When four bighorn sheep were killed by a truck near Jasper, Alta., Peter Dettling lost his pristine vision of the Canadian wilderness. The Swiss-born photographer had moved to the Rockies to pursue the “Canadian dream” of wide-open spaces and bountiful wildlife. Instead, he found “frustration, sadness and even anger at the fallen state of the Garden of Eden.” The Will of the Land details Dettling’s discontent about human interference in Canada’s mountain “sanctuary” with both words and photos.
The book’s cover photo — a stunning image of a wolf and grizzly bear standing face to face, inches apart — was featured in the December 2010 issue of Canadian Geographic. The most poignant section of the book, however, is an eight-page photo montage of a wolf pack that Dettling had followed for eight years. At first, the animals are in their natural habitat, vivacious and full of life. Then they’re road kill, their bodies mangled by cars, trucks and trains.
Dettling is critical of how Parks Canada manages the Rocky Mountains parks, especially Banff — and his concerns date all the way back to the establishment of Canada’s first national park in 1885. “In the late 19th century,” he writes, “there was no pretense that Banff should be anything but an engine of commerce and profit.” Yet his Utopian goal endures. He’d like to see Banff as natural and pristine as his vision of Canada once was.
— Kelly Greig
SABLE ISLAND
By Bruce Armstrong
Formac Publishing Company
192 pp., $29.95 softcover
Pristine nature coalesces with an infamous past on Nova Scotia’s Sable Island. Bruce Armstrong’s book about this small strip of land, which the federal government believes could some day become a national park, takes readers on a journey to a place where roaming wild horses and rolling sand dunes meet treacherous currents and shoals. Nicknamed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the island has claimed more than 500 ships and countless lives. “Sable wears forever round her throat a necklace of men’s bones,” Armstrong writes, “like the grisly souvenirs of a cannibal.”
Sable Island brings harrowing shipwrecks and rescue attempts to life through evocative language, vibrant photographs and elegant illustrations. The author’s words mingle with islanders’ journal entries to depict myriad hardships, from chronic food shortages to raging storms, with fanciful tales of ghosts woven throughout.
Armstrong, an award-winning writer and poet, crafted the book after visiting the island in the 1970s to produce a CBC radio documentary. Sable Island,an updated version of a 1981 release, would benefit from more recent stats on island flora and fauna, yet it masterfully draws the reader’s imagination and gives hope to the notion that these wild lands might some day be permanently protected as a national park.
— Catherine Labelle
More essential national parks reading
A GRAND AND FABULOUS NOTION: THE FIRST CENTURY OF CANADA’S PARKS
By Sid Marty
NC Press, l985
THE BLACK GRIZZLY OF WHISKEY CREEK
By Sid Marty
McClelland & Stewart, 2008
THE NATIONAL PARKS AND OTHER WILD PLACES OF CANADA
By Blake Maybank and Peter Mertz
Barron’s, 2001
PILGRIMS OF THE WILD
By Grey Owl
Macmillan, 1934
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