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
Nelson, BC
February 10, 2022 By: Benjamin Carson
**This photo is not my house but I chose it because highlights the sort of dense living arrangements that are common. This is a duplex, with two additional legal suites. People often live on top of each other here and new construction tailors to this. As similar duplexes continue to be built the population is rising on my street.** I live in the Rosemont neighbourhood in Nelson, BC, on a new street called Perrier Lane. It is tucked behind Selkirk College’s Silverking campus with no through road between the highway and the rest of the neighbourhood. The first houses on…
Local Environmental History
February 7, 2022 By: Yimeng Chen
I live in Kerrisdale in Vancouver, British Columbia. My neighborhood is on the west side of Vancouver and consists mainly of old bungalows and newer houses, various condo apartments, and low and mid-range rentals. Kerrisdale’s population comprises mainly migrant Asians and native and indigenous Caucasian Canadians. West 41st Avenue has a shopping district that is a significant social sector of this region. The southwestern part of Kerrisdale rests on a floodplain of the Fraser River and is characterized by a rural feel with many horse stables, agricultural farms, and ranches. Majury identifies that the first inhabitants of the city of…
Exercise #1
February 3, 2022 By: Wanyue Li
I live in Kamloops, Vancouver, Canada. I have known that Vancouver has experienced considerable change since I moved there with my parents. Previously, there was less focus on environmental conservation, although various efforts have been to this effect. Since the ice age that resulted from the falling glaciers, there has been a notable change in Canadian history. In Vancouver, the change can be evidenced by the many features that can be seen geographically. The features include trade routes, Aboriginal people, and the growth of major cities. The objects are critical in depicting people’s interaction with the Canadian environment, contributing greatly…
White Lake, BC
February 1, 2022 By: True St.Denis
The area I live in is White Lake, BC, and is based in the traditional and unceded territory within Secwépemc’ulucw, the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc. Before contact with Europeans, the Secwepemc people had an economy based on their relationship with nature. The region now known as White Lake was settled by Finnish miners in 1910 when a land agent in Kamloops directed them to move to this region[1]. The addition of the CP rail to the Shuswap valley attracted many more settlers to the region[2]. Several Japanese families took refuge in the Tappen Valley near White Lake…
Local Environmental History
January 30, 2022 By: wei zhang
The last few millennia have seen the landscape in Vancouver, Canada, change quite significantly. From the period when glaciers retreated, ending the ice age, the geography left behind made a huge impact on Canadian history. Since I live in Vancouver, I can pinpoint geographical features that can only be understood by examining Canada’s environmental history. Some of the well-known subjects that can portray a clear picture of Canada’s environmental history include the Aboriginal people, their first contact with Europeans, the settling of the land, the fur trade, the creation of transportation routes and infrastructure, and the growth of various cities…