A Century of Parks Canada, 1911-2011

A celebration of a century of Parks Canada, from its founding as the Dominion Parks Branch in 1911 to its place as an internationally renound body managing 200, 000 km of parks and reserves over a dazzling variety of landscapes.

When Canada created a Dominion Parks Branch in 1911, it became the first country in the world to establish an agency devoted to managing its national parks. Over the past century this agency, now Parks Canada, has been at the centre of important debates about the place of nature in Canadian nationhood and relationships between Canada’s diverse ecosystems and its communities.

Today, Parks Canada manages over forty parks and reserves totaling over 200,000 square kilometers and featuring a dazzling variety of landscapes and is recognized as a global leader in the environmental challenges of protected places. Its history is a rich repository of experience, of lessons learned—critical for making informed decisions about how to sustain the environmental and social health of our national parks.

With Contributions By: Ben Bradley, George Colpitts, Oliver Craig-Dupont, Lyle Dick, E. Gwyn Langemann, Alan MacEachern, I.S. MacLaren,  Brad Martin, David Neufeld, Ronald Rudin, John Sandlos, C.J. Taylor, and Bill Waiser

Claire Campbell is an associate professor in the Department of History and the Coordinator of Canadian Studies at Dalhousie University. She is the author of Shaped by the West Wind: Nature and History in Georgian Bayand co-editor of Groundtruthing: Canada and the Environment, a special issue of the Dalhousie Review.

A Century of Parks Canada is published in partnership with NiCHE: The Network in Canadian History and Environmental Studies.

Governing a Kingdom: Parks Canada, 1911–2011

Claire Elizabeth Campbell

M.B. Williams and the Early Years of Parks Canada

Alan MacEachern

Nature’s Playgrounds: The Parks Branch and Tourism Promotion in the National Parks, 1911–1929

John Sandlos

"A Questionable Basis for Establishing a Major Park": Politics, Roads, and the Failure of a National Park in British Columbia’s Big Bend Country

Ben Bradley

"A Case of Special Privilege and Fancied Right": The Shack Tent Controversy in Prince Albert National Park

Bill Waiser

Banff in the 1960s: Divergent Views of the National Park

C.J. Taylor

Films, Tourists, and Bears in the National Parks: Managing Park Use and the Problematic "Highway Bum" Bear in the 1970s

George Colpitts

Hunting, Timber Harvesting, and Precambrian Beauties: The Scientific Reinterpretation of La Mauricie National Park’s Landscape History, 1969–1975

Olivier Craig–Dupont

Kouchibouguac: Representations of a Park in Acadian Popular Culture

Ronald Rudin

Klaune National Park Reserve, 1923–1974: Modernity and Pluralism

David Nuefeld

Negotiating a Partnership of Interests: Inuvialuit Land Claims and the Establishment of Northern Yukon (Ivvavik) National Park

Brad Martin

Archaeology in Rocky Mountain National Parks: Uncovering an 11, 000–Year–Long Story

E. Gwyn Langemann

Rejuvenating Wilderness: The Challenges of Reintegrating Aboriginal People into the "Playground" of Jasper National Park

I.S. MacLaren

Epilogue

Lyle Dick

Appendix A: Canada’s National Parks and National Park Reserves

Appendix B: National Park Zoning System, Parks Canada Agency

Notes on Contributors

Select Bibliography

Index

A diverse and fascinating array of perspectives on the history of Canada’s national parks, illuminating many less well-understood aspects of the evolving place of people in and near these parks.

—Stephen Bocking, Professor and Chair, Environmental and Resource Studies Program, Trent University

The standard of illustrations is exceedingly good throughout, with archival black-and-white and modern colour photos being well chosen for their interest and relevance. The importance and the clarity of maps is often ignored nowadays, but here they are excellent, and are a real bonus.

—Ken Atkinson, British Journal of Canadian Studies