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
My Local Environmental History
December 10, 2022 By: Ellen Ross T00611006
See attachment also …. There is a satellite map and researched statistics of the Powell River area. Key points from the second map shows first nations in the past had multiple tribes scattered through out the area and now only 1 is left. We have gone from a self sufficient community with food security, to an area that is now food dependent on goods being shipped here. Our 1 industry town has gone to a town fully dependent on the service industry as our principal source of incomes
Richmond, BC – Local Environmental History
November 23, 2022 By: Yang Ni
I live in Richmond, BC, just around Vancouver YVR airport. Richmond was incorporated as a municipality on November 10, 1879, and designated as a city on December 3, 1990. It is located at the meeting point of the Fraser River and the Pacific Ocean, which puts my city adjacent to some of the most productive ecosystems in the world. Fraser River is responsible for my city’s islands’ outlook and growth. Citing the history of Lulu Island by Thomas Kidd, the outline of the islands evidence the formation of the Greek letter Delta. History has it that the matter carried down by…
Burnaby，British Columbia – Local Environmental History
November 22, 2022 By: Siyuan Ge
I live in Burnaby Mountain, a low forested mountainous area in Vancouver, Canada. The area accommodates Simon Fraser University, a school that is near the area where I live. I discovered on Wikipedia that in November 1995, Simon Fraser University and British Columbia had an agreement that saw 330 hectares of land under the University dedicated to Burnaby City to aid its inclusion in the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area[1]. From a resource guide detailing the history of the Burnaby area, I learned that before its existence, the lands were populated by the ancestors of several indigenous Central Coast Salish Nations….
Toronto, Ontario
November 3, 2022 By: Allegra Solecki
I currently live in the financial district of downtown Toronto, Ontario. The financial district is home to several bank headquarters, legal and accounting services, as well as stockbrokers. Thrown in the mix are high rise condos, one of which I’m fortunate enough to live in. Since this a relatively small area of Toronto, I will focus on the environmental history of the city itself. The name Toronto is derived from the Mohawk word tkaranto, which translates to “where there are trees standing in the water”. As I will explain shortly, Indigenous groups were the first to settle in Toronto, and…
Steveston, British Columbia – Local Environmental History
October 25, 2022 By: Philip Thrum
I live in Steveston BC, a historic fishing village on the southern end of the Fraser River. The town is named after Manoah Steves. Town development in Steveston began in 1880 after the Steves family arrived around 1877-1878. Stevestons location makes it a prime finishing location as it mouths the largest salmon producing river in Canada, the Fraser River. By 1890 there were nearly 25 canneries located in Steveston and trying to rival Vancouver as a fishing port. Along with the Steves family, Japanese Canadians formed most of the original population in Steveston. Tomekichi Homma was one of the…