Exercise #1: Local Environmental History
Instructions
For Exercise #1, you will bring environmental concepts home by looking at your neighbourhood’s environmental history.
- Using the submission form, post a photo of your area (Google Street View if you do not want to show your home) on this interactive map and explain the ecological history of this space, as per this example.
- Write a 700 to 1100 word of the ecological history of this physical environment, including where applicable: pre-contact use and settlement; wildlife past and present; early settlement and resource extraction; invasive species; urban development; stewardship actions (urban stormwater retention systems; community gardens; composting facilities).
- You must show where you found your information, either through footnote citations or with links embedded in the text, or a combination of both.
- The writing can be informal, as per the Exercise 1 Sample (you may even use first person, which definitely will not fly with your historiography and major essay projects!) but correct spelling and grammar are expected.
- In most cases, given the readily available information online, this exercise need not take more than 6–8 hours to complete. It is meant to help you think historically about your environment—to read it through an ecological lens. If you live in a rural area or small town, you may think that there is less to say than what you read in the sample based on a Vancouver neighbourhood, but this is not the case. The environmental history will be very different, and you might focus far more on, say, the settlement period of the late nineteenth century, or the implications of the introduction of cattle or irrigation and less on events of the 1960s and 70s.
- Please note, you should write and edit your submission in a separate file then copy and paste it into the submission box. Once submitted to the HIST 3991 trubox site, you will not be able to edit your post.
Are you a student of HIST 3991? Click here to add a submission to this assignment.
Submissions
Latest Posts
Fairfield Island, Chilliwack, BC
April 17, 2026 By: Alexander Charlton
I live on Fairfield Island, near Island 22 Regional Park that rests along the banks of the Fraser River. As of today, when adventuring around this small island, it feels like a mix of suburbs, farmland, with lots of recreation along the riverside. The environmental history revealed the transformation that occurred from Indigenous land use, river dynamics, colonial agriculture, and an engineered dike system. Long before the Europeans settled in this region, it was part of the Stó:lō Nation territory. This group’s identity is deeply connected to the Fraser River….
Lafarge Lake in Coquitlam
April 15, 2026 By: An Chen
Lafarge Lake is a man-made lake in central Coquitlam’s Town Centre Park. The story of this land is one of dramatic change: from Indigenous stewardship, to industrial extraction, to the urban oasis we see today. Over 10,000 years, the area now called Coquitlam was the homeland of the Kwikwetlem people. Archaeological sites at Coquitlam Lake are among the oldest in the Lower Mainland, showing First Peoples arrived more than 10,000 years ago. The Kwikwetlem moved seasonally across the land, following plant and animal cycles. They got all their food, medicine, and materials for tools and shelter from the natural world…
Fort McMurray, AB
April 13, 2026 By: Autumn Rehbein
The are around Fort McMurray is part of Alberta’s boreal forest, an ecosystem historically shaped by wetlands, spruce forests, wildlife migration, and the Athabasca River watershed. Before European settlement, this land was used by Cree, Dene, and Métis peoples for hunting, fishing, trapping, and seasonal travel, with the Athabasca River serving as a major transportation route. Indigenous communities sustainably managed local resources such as moose, beaver, fish and waterfowl for generations. In the late nineteenth century, European settlement introduced fur trading posts and later industrial resource extraction. By the twentieth century, Fort McMurray became central to oil sand development, which…
Pemberton Valley
March 30, 2026 By: Elkie Webb
The environmental history of the Pemberton Valley demonstrates that humans function as a keystone species, capable of sustaining or destabilizing ecosystems depending on how they engage with the land. Long before agricultural development, the valley was shaped by the dynamic movement of the Lillooet River, which braided across a glacial floodplain, depositing sediment and creating fertile yet unstable soils. This landscape consisted of wetlands, oxbows, and dense floodplain vegetation, continually reshaped by seasonal flooding and ecological processes. Within this environment, the Lil’wat Nation developed a reciprocal relationship with the land, guided by ecological rhythms such as salmon runs, animal behaviour,…
McQueen Slough – Near Dawson Creek, BC
March 17, 2026 By: Daphnee Cairns
When I walk along the boardwalk at McQueen Slough near my home in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, it feels like I’ve stepped out of the city and into something much quieter and natural. Just a few minutes from town, the noise disappears, and all that is left is the sound of wind moving through the grasses and the calls of the birds. At first glance, it feels like a natural, untouched space, but upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that this landscape has a long, complex environmental history shaped by both natural processes and human activity. Before European settlement, this…