Review of Murton, Canadians and Their Natural Environment: A History

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James Murton, Canadians and Their Natural Environment: A History, Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, 2021. 352 pages. ISBN 9780199025466

Cover of James Murton's book, Canadians and Their Natural Environment, features a painting of a winter scene, with settlers, Indigenous people, dogs, and horses gathered on a frozen river, with various builders perched on the hills above.

 It is no small feat to attempt to write a comprehensive environmental history of the geographical space now referred to as Canada. By the 2000s, and especially after the founding of the Network in Canadian History and Environment in 2004, enough Canadian environmental history was being produced, and supplemented by other disciplines like historical geography when needed, to make such a writing feat possible. Still, only a few skilled historians have made the attempt, including Graeme Wynn, Neil S. Forkey, and Laurel Sefton MacDowell.1 One of the latest to try is James Murton with his book Canadians and Their Natural Environment: A History.

One of the main obstacles to writing an environmental history of Canada is coming up with an all-encompassing conceptual framework. As Murton notes in his introduction, “The field of Canadian environmental history – along with the field of American environmental history, to which it is closely related – has not settled on a set of common concerns or methods of analysis, not to mention common conclusions” (5-6). Murton settles on what he refers to as a “workable solution” to encompass deep time and the range of human-nature interactions in what became Canada: the “subsistence framework.” He argues that “the primary human interest in nature is getting the resources needed to survive – in other words, food and shelter” (7). This sort of framework does not cover all types of human-nature interactions, a fact readily acknowledged by the author, but it does address a lot of them. It comes across as a practical and wise choice.

Colour painting depicts Indigenous men, women, and children within a large wooden room A dog sits before a fire in the foreground, and blankets hang in the background.
Interior of a Salish Longhouse. Edward M. Richardson, 1864. Library and Archives Canada, 2838037, 2898244. Via flickr.

Consisting of 12 chapters, the book can be thought of as having two larger informal sections. The first section, which includes chapters one to five, focuses on the more direct relationships that human societies had with natural environments as they subsisted in what is now Canada prior to 1850. The first chapter provides a deep-time foundation of the ecological processes that shaped the nature that humans encountered after the ice sheets retreated at the end of the last glacial age. This is followed by a solid chapter on the distinct subsistence systems of Indigenous peoples, what Murton broadly refers to as the “Turtle Island System,” with the appropriate caveats about generalizations. The next three chapters detail the worldviews and practices of European colonizers, mainly the French and the English, as they moved into various local environments. Murton is careful to differentiate between Indigenous and European subsistence systems, highlighting the latter’s large-scale exploitation of fish and fur-bearing mammals and particular agricultural methods. And yet, he also notes commonalities, at least in terms of the level of close interactions that humans had with nature.

The second informal section lays out the consequences of humans losing that more direct relationship with natural environments in post-1850 Canada. In chapters six to 12, Murton does a good job describing how Canadian environments became increasingly industrialized and subject to the whims of external market forces from the mid-19th century onward. Canadians also were less likely to have close encounters with nature as they subsisted, relying more and more on the wage economy and choosing to live in urbanized landscapes. The resultant environmental damage from all of this economic activity, such as polluted waterways, clearcut forests, and species decline, prompted many Canadians to question their collective actions by the 20th century, leading to movements like progressive conservationism and modern environmentalism. Murton wraps up this section in his final two chapters with well-rounded discussions of whether sustainable development is possible and the state of the classic debate of environment versus economy in the 21st century.

Painting shows a team of horses pulling logs along a corduroy road that runs alongside a body of water. Stumps, standing trees, and mountains are visible in the background.
A Loggers’ Camp on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, 1880–1890 / Camp de bûcherons sur l’île de Vancouver, en Colombie-Britannique, 1880-1890. E. Sandys, 1880-1900. Library and Archives Canada, C-011040. Via flickr.

This book has many strengths. First, despite the fact that it is on such a wide-ranging topic, Murton deftly navigates a long list of environmental history scholarship and compiles an overall historical narrative with enough specificity to ensure the reader is well informed. It also needs to be noted that this is a very well written text, to the point that I was able to read through it in just a few sittings, even though it was end of the semester, with all of the busyness that comes with that. Finally, I was impressed with Murton’s continued focus on Indigenous peoples throughout the book. They are not just featured in one main chapter, but are a constant presence throughout, a reflection of lived historical realities. A good demonstration of this is the comparison of Indigenous and European modes of food production in the fourth chapter.

Colour painting shows a winter scene in which six figures work in a clearing in a forest, where two large kettles of maple sap hang above a roaring fire. The figures are gathering water, chopping wood, tending the fire, or relaxing before the flames.
Making Maple Sugar, Lower Canada. Philip John Bainbrigge, circa 1837. Library and Archives Canada, 2834638, 2894896. Via flickr.

Of course, a book covering such a large topic also leaves itself open to criticism. Attempting to write a comprehensive environmental history of Canada invariably means that decisions have to be made about what to include and exclude. I will leave it to individual readers to make their own judgements. For me, it seemed like there was some extra focus on the part of Canada that would become Ontario. That could be a reflection of the Canadian environmental history scholarship that has been produced over the years. It could also just be my own idiosyncrasies as a historian of the Atlantic Region.

That said, this is an excellent attempt at a comprehensive environmental history of Canada. Both new and seasoned readers of Canadian environmental history scholarship will find lots here to like. Kudos to Dr. Murton for joining the ranks of skilled historians who have accomplished this feat.

[1] Graeme Wynn, Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History [Nature and Human Societies] (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007), Neil S. Forkey, Canadians and the Natural Environment to the Twenty-First Century (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2012), and Laurel Sefton MacDowell, An Environmental History of Canada (Vancouver, BC: UBC Press, 2012).

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Mark McLaughlin

I am an Assistant Professor of History and Canadian Studies, a cross-appointment with the Department of History and the Canadian-American Center at the University of Maine in Orono. I have research interests in the history of forestry, resource management and science, modern environmentalism, and government comics in Canada.

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