Event Date: Sep 19 2011 – Apr 16 2012
Venue: Green College, UBC and The Robarts Centre, York University
City: Vancouver and Toronto
Country: Canada
Primary Contact Name: Graeme Wynn and Colin Coates

One Series, Two Cities
Two NiCHE Executive Members, Graeme Wynn and Colin Coates, are hosting a series of environmental history lectures over the next eight months at UBC’s Green College and York University’s Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies.

Reflecting the harsh climate, thin soils and generally forbidding character of the vast northern territory that is Canada, it has often been said that the history of this country is inescapably environmental. This lecture series engages the great drama of human interaction with this challenging realm, reflecting on the transformation of the northern half of the continent through time as a foundation for sensible engagement with the environmental challenges facing Canadian society in the twenty-first century.

Each lecture will address one of three central themes – human activities and Canadian nature; nature’s influence on the nature of Canada; and ideas and nature in Canada – and reflect upon how the subject of the lecture has affected/changed “the nature of Canada”.

UBC: Round-table discussion of the project
Featuring UBC participants: Graeme Wynn (Migrations; Environmentalism); Tina Loo, (High Modernism); Matthew Evenden (War); Julie Cruickshank (Indigenous Ecological Knowledge)
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Sept. 19, 2011

York: “Of muskrats and minerals: The Second World War and the Canadian environment”
Matthew Evenden, Geography, University of British Columbia
Monday October 3, 2011; 11-1 pm, 305 York Lanes

UBC: Disease and the Nature of Canada
Paul Hackett, University of Saskatchewan
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Oct. 17, 2011

York: Residual landscapes: The nature of the Canadian mining industry
Arn Keeling, Geography, and John Sandlos, History, Memorial University
Thursday October 27, 2011, 2 -4 pm, 305 York Lanes

UBC: Farming and the Nature of Canada
Colin Coates, Director, Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Nov. 7, 2011
Geography building, room 130

UBC: Managerialsm and the Nature of Canada
Dean Bavington, Department of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Nov. 14, 2011

UBC: Energy and the Nature of Canada
Steve Penfold, Department of History, University of Toronto
5-6:30 pm, Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Geography building, room 130

York: “Migration and the nature of Canada”
Graeme Wynn, Geography, University of British Columbia
Monday December 5, 2011, 2 -4 pm, 305 York Lanes

UBC: Size and the Nature of Canada
Alan MacEachern, Department of History, University of Western Ontario
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Jan. 16, 2012

UBC: Gender and the Nature of Canada
Joanna Dean, Department of History, Carleton University
5-6:30 pm, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2011
Geography building, room 130

UBC: Wilderness Culture and the Nature of Canada
Claire Campbell, Department of History, Dalhousie University
5-6:30 pm, Monday, Feb. 13, 2012

UBC: Communications and the Nature of Canada
Ken Cruikshank, Department of History, McMaster University
5-6:30 pm, Wednesday, Feb. 29, 2012
Geography building, room 130

York: High Modernism and the Nature of Canada
Tina Loo, History, University of British Columbia
Monday March 5, 2012, 1-3 pm, 305 York Lanes

UBC: Cities and the Nature of Canada
Michelle Dagenais, Département d’histoire, Université de Montréal
5-6:30 pm, Monday, March 12, 2012

York: Indigenous knowledge and its transformations: An environmental narrative
Julie Cruikshank, Anthropology, University of British Columbia
Monday March 12, 2012, 2-4 pm, 305 York Lanes

UBC: Fish and Fur and the Nature of Canada
Stephen Hornsby, Director, Canadian Studies Center University of Maine, Orono
5-6:30 pm, Monday, March 19, 2012
Geography building, room 130

UBC: Climate [Change] and the Nature of Canada
Liza Piper, Department of History and Classics, University of Alberta
5-6:30 pm, Monday, April 16, 2012

The Green College Interdisciplinary Series receives additional support from NiCHE (Network in Canadian History and Environment); Brenda and David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies (UBC); Canadian Studies Program (UBC); Dean of Arts (UBC); Departments of History and Geography (UBC). The York series is run in conjunction with a series at Green College, UBC. Additional support for this series comes from NiCHE (Network in Canadian Studies and the Environment) and the UBC Canadian Studies Programme.