Game in the garden : a human history of wildlife in Western Canada to 1940 / George Colpitts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Colpitts, George, 1964-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Animals and civilization--Canada, Western.

Animals and civilization.

Animals--Social aspects--Canada, Western.

Animals.

Wildlife utilization--Canada, Western--History.

Wildlife utilization.

Wildlife conservation--Canada, Western--History.

Wildlife conservation.

Frontier and pioneer life--Canada, Western.

Frontier and pioneer life.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (216 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Vancouver : UBC Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Frontier and pioneer societies provide numerous unexplored avenues of social history. Game in the Garden identifies the imaginative use of wild animals in early western society. In what is now western Canada, humans have long used wildlife in order to survive their surroundings, better understand their natural world, and form aspects of their identity. The shared use of wild animals has helped to determine social relations between Native peoples and newcomers. In later settlement periods, controversy about subsistence hunting and campaigns of local conservation associations drew lines between groups in communities, particularly Native peoples, immigrants, farmers, and urban dwellers. In addition to examining grassroots conservation activities, Colpitts identifies early slaughter rituals, iconographic traditions, and subsistence strategies that endured well into the interwar years in the twentieth century. Drawing primarily on local and provincial archival sources, he analyzes popular meanings and booster messages discernible in taxidermy work, city nature museums, and promotional photography. Environmental historians, Native studies specialists, history students, conservationists, nature enthusiasts, and general readers alike will find fascinating how western attitudes to wild animals changed according to subsistence and economic needs and how wildlife helped to determine the social relations among people in western Canada.

Contents:

Intro; Contents; Illustrations and Tables; Acknowledgments; Game in the Garden; Introduction; 1 Amerindians, Voyageurs, and the Animal Exchange in the Western Fur Trade; 2 The Territorial Period, Game Crisis, and the Western Domestication Movement; 3 From Meat to Sport Hunting; 4 Boosters, Wildlife, and Western Myths of Superabundance; 5 Pioneer Society and Fish and Game Protection; Conclusion; Appendix: Independent Conservation Associations in Western Canada; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613129826

0-7748-5038-8

1-283-12982-5

OCLC:

923440172