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
Abbotsford
June 12, 2022 By: Brett
I live, work, learn, and play on the traditional and unceded land of the Stó:lō people, which has two Nations in it, the Semá:th First Nation and Mathxwí First Nation. This area has a grand history and has seen much environmental change in the past few centuries, as well as the past few months. The two nations’ land overlapped, that is where my current home is located, but it is more in the area of old Abbotsford and the Semá:th nation so that is what this paper will focus on. The land looks and is used much differently now than…
Local Environmental History
May 31, 2022 By: Tina Ihas
While this is obviously not a photo of my home, this is a photo of my neighbourhood. I live in Columbia Heights, just out of this shot to the right. Most of the homes on the hillside have a beautiful view of the once-mighty Columbia River at the bottom of the valley and downtown, and many also have a view of Teck Metals, formerly Cominco. When you talk about the community of Trail to people from outside the community, three things always come to mind — Italian heritage, sports, and the smelter that looms above everything. The layout of Columbia…
Local Environmental history: Kamloops, BC, Canada
May 25, 2022 By: XUECHUN YAN
I live in Kamloops, a city in south-central BC, Canada. Its distinct ecological history makes it stand out from other regions.[1] In particular, my house is in the Brocklehurst neighborhood, situated in the western part of Kamloops, along Thompson River’s banks and the Batchelor Hills. People have occupied Kamloops for the longest time, presumably since 8,250 years ago.[2] Indigenous people were among the earliest individuals to have lived in what is now Kamloops. Notably, the over 30 bands of Secwepemc (or Shuswap people) who had a semi-nomadic lifestyle along BC’s water bodies stayed in the region many years ago. They…
Saanich’s Rudd Park
May 15, 2022 By: Jenn Wong
I live near a large city park and have researched the changing patterns of land-use. Located on Vancouver Island, Saanich is a municipality in Greater Victoria. The area is the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples represented by the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, and the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.[1] In SENĆOŦE, a Salish dialect, Saanich means “emerging” which refers to the sight of Mt Newton “rising” as flood waters receded.[2] Indigenous legends refer to an Arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) tree anchoring their communities during the Great Flood.[3] The area likely would have been a site of an indigenous managed Garry Oak (Quercus garryana)…
Cordova Bay, Victoria
May 4, 2022 By: Melissa Harding
Cordova Bay is one of the communities of the greater Victoria area on Vancouver Island. This area was covered in ice during the last glaciation which ended 14, 000 years ago1. Vancouver Island was compressed from the weight of the glaciers, which made the surrounding sea level quite high in comparison to other areas around the world. Isostatic rebound after the glaciers melted resulted in significant sea level drop, and an eventual settling near its current level, roughly 4500 years ago. The Coast Salish people had settled in the British Columbia Coastal islands, including Vancouver Island, in great numbers directly…