Connecting Past and Present
August 12, 2026 By: Rhys Parry
Media Item 1: Parks Movement
I found it interesting that Canada and B.C. are increasingly working with First Nations to create and manage protected areas. This seems very different from what Binnema and Niemi describe at Banff, where Indigenous peoples were excluded from the park partly because of conservation, tourism, sport hunting, and assimilation. It also connects to Cronon’s argument that what we think of as untouched “wilderness” is actually shaped by human ideas and history. To me, Indigenous-led protected areas challenge the older idea that protecting nature requires separating people from the land.
Media Item 2: Urbanization
A recent B.C. announcement about expanding housing and public transit made me think about how cities are constantly changing their relationship with the environment. The federal and provincial governments are planning major investments in housing, infrastructure, and transit, including $2.5 billion over ten years for public transit projects. Steinberg shows that earlier urban changes such as sewers and new transportation systems solved certain problems but also created new environmental consequences and separated cities from ecological systems that had previously supported them. It made me think that today’s push toward denser housing and public transit is another stage in that same history, where cities are trying to solve problems created partly by earlier patterns of urban growth.
Your post makes a great connection between modern transit investments and the historical evolution of cities. I agree with your point about how major infrastructure changes tend to shift a city’s relationship with ecological systems. It shows the struggle to balance urban expansion with environmental adaptation is an ongoing historical process rather than just a modern phenomenon.
Your post and article about urbanization are very interesting. I think that before this course and Unit 3 specifically, I never made a connection between the environment and urbanization. However, your post and Steinberg’s work show that cities are reliving similar histories in terms of urbanization and how new infrastructure can better a city yet have environmental harms.
Hi Rhys,
Your post about the parks movement is interesting. I believe that all parks should give the opportunity to be indigenously led. Adding their history and culture is how we learn about the land best, and I think for a long time history wasn’t viewed as environmental but only as what humans did in the past. First Nations conservation treats humans as a helpful part of nature, rather than an enemy to it!