Federal Spaces, Local Conflicts: National Parks and the Exclusionary Politics of the Conservation Movement in Ontario, 1900-1935

The historical displacement of indigenous and non-Native people from national parks and nature preserves has often been analyzed as a deliberate imposition of state authority over local people living in rural and hinterland regions. The cases of Point Pelee and Georgian Bay Islands National Parks indicate that local people had considerable influence over the siting and management policies applied to parks and protected areas in the early twentieth century. Although the federal government did attempt to either expel or severely curtail the wildlife harvesting activities of Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals living within the national parks during this period, such policies were often the result of lobbying from local conservation groups intent on saving threatened wildlife populations or business promoters hoping to stimulate the local tourist economy through the creation of a public pleasuring ground. This paper argues that the management frameworks governing Point Pelee and Georgian Bay Islands National Parks were not the product of narrow state interests, but of a much broader policy community composed of local and state actors hoping to shape the park environments to suit their own political priorities.Souvent, le déplacement historique du peuple autochtone et non amérindien des parcs nationaux et des zones de conservation naturelles était analysé comme une imposition délibérée de l’autorité de l’état sur le peuple régionale vivant dans des régions rurales et d’hinterland. Durant le tôt vingtième siècle, les cas du Point Pelée et des parcs nationaux des îles de la baie Géorgienne indiquaient que le peuple régional avait une influence considérable sur les politiques d'emplacement ainsi que la gestion des parcs et des sites protégés. Pendant cette période, le gouvernement fédéral avait essayé d’expulser ou de sévèrement raccourcir la récolte de la faune par les aborigènes et les non aborigènes vivant dans les parcs nationaux. Souvent, ces politiques étaient le résultat d’incitations des groupes locaux de conservation avec l’intention de sauver les populations de faune ou par les promoteurs d’entreprise espérant de stimuler l'économie de tourisme locale par la création d'une terre publique plaisante. Cet article soutient que les cadres de gestion gouvernant le Point Pelée et les parcs nationaux des îles de la baie Géorgienne n'étaient pas le produit d'intérêts étroits de l'état, mais plutôt d'une politique communautaire beaucoup plus large composée des protagonistes locaux et de l’état espérant de former un environnement dans les parcs convenant à leurs propres priorités politiques

Ghost Towns and Zombie Mines: The Historical Dimensions of Mine Abandonment, Reclamation, and Redevelopment in the Canadian North

In the past two decades a new approach to mining history has emerged to ask, in effect, what happens after the gold rush. Authors such as Richard V. Francaviglia, Ben Marsh, William Wyckoff, and more recently David Robertson have all extended their narratives beyond the demise of mining towns to question what they consider to be the “mining imaginary,” the idea that the historical end-point for mining activity is inevitably community collapse and ecological destruction. They provide valuable case studies where communities have survived past the end of mining, diversifying their economies through industrial activity or the development of tourism. Historical memory often provides a sense of continuity for these communities, as mining heritage landscapes and museums become touchstones of tourist activity, and ecological restoration activities reveal a deep sense of attachment to the mining landscape. For this loosely defined community resilience school of mining history, mining is not an ephemeral economic activity but offers communities a long-term sense of deep intimacy with their history of labour within the local landscape

Communicating with Future Generations: Summary of Working Group Discussionson Giant Mine, Yellowknife, NWT

This report documents the work of the Communication with Future Generations (CFG) Working Group formed in Yellowknife. The CFG group is a multi-stakeholder group that is considering how to communicate the long-term arsenic hazard at Giant Mine to future generations. The CFG group is made up of representatives from government, First Nations, Métis, mining heritage advocates, environmental/social justices NGOs, and universities

Toxic Legacies, Slow Violence, and Environmental Injustice at Giant Mine, Northwest Territories

For fifty years (1949–99) the now-abandoned Giant Mine in Yellowknife emitted arsenic air and water pollution into the surrounding environment. Arsenic pollution from Giant Mine had particularly acute health impacts on the nearby Yellowknives Dene First Nation (YKDFN), who were reliant on local lakes, rivers, and streams for their drinking water, in addition to frequent use of local berries, garden produce, and medicine plants. Currently, the Canadian government is undertaking a remediation project at Giant Mine to clean up contaminated soils and tailings on the surface and contain 237,000 tonnes of arsenic dust that are stored underground at the Giant Mine. Using documentary sources and statements of Yellowknives Dene members before various public hearings on the arsenic issue, this paper examines the history of arsenic pollution at Giant Mine as a form of “slow violence,” a concept that reconfigures the arsenic issue not simply as a technical problem, but as a historical agent of colonial dispossession that alienated an Indigenous group from their traditional territory. The long-term storage of arsenic at the former mine site means the effects of this slow violence are not merely historical, but extend to the potentially far distant future

Pollution, Local Activism, and the Politics of Development in the Canadian North

This article addresses the often ignored history of Indigenous responses to environmental pollution. Focusing on resistance to arsenic pollution from Giant Mine in Canada’s Northwest Territories, Sandlos and Keeling explore how Indigenous communities mobilized knowledge around environmental pollution, conducting their own studies when government research minimized or ignored their concerns about the health impacts of pollution, participating in public hearings, and continuing to push for research into the long-term health effects even after the mine closed. The authors show how this resistance to environmental racism is connected to other Indigenous struggles over industrial development and to issues such as land claims, sovereignty, and colonial dispossession

Past Imperfect: Using Historical Ecology and Baseline Data for Contemporary Conservation and Restoration Projects

Conservation and restoration programs usually involve nostalgic claims about the past, along with calls to return to that past or recapture some aspect of it. Knowledge of history is essential for such programs, but the use of history is fraught with challenges. This essay examines the emergence, development, and use of the “ecological baseline” concept for three levels of biological organization. We argue that the baseline concept is problematic for establishing restoration targets. Yet historical knowledge—more broadly conceived to include both social and ecological processes—will remain essential for conservation and restoration

There Is a Monster under the Ground: Commemorating the History of Arsenic Contamination at Giant Mine as a Warning to Future Generations

This paper analyzes a community-based project to communicate toxic dangers to future generations at Giant Mine, an abandoned gold mine near Yellowknife. Since 2013, the authors have worked with community groups, government, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to develop a strategy for communicating the arsenic hazards at Giant Mine to future generations. Our experience suggests that any communication strategy must commemorate the multiple ways different constituents have known the mine. We also argue that any program to commemorate hazards for future generations can be a useful tool to address painful memories of historical environmental injustices associated with mine pollution