Last week at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Calgary, I presented some of my research on the regulation of urban livestock husbandry in nineteenth-century Canadian cities. I also spoke about this a month earlier at the 2016 Calgary Institute for the Humanities community forum. Because […]
Urban History
16 posts
If you missed last week’s Canadian History and Environment Summer School at York University, you can live the whole thing over again on Twitter. I have compiled an archive of all of the #CHESS2014 Tweets that captures almost every moment of the event. You will find comments, questions, photos, and […]
It’s book launch month in Toronto and I am very excited to announce the launch event for Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region. This is an anthology published by the Wilson Institute for Canadian History and NiCHE that focuses on various aspects of Toronto’s environmental history. I wrote a […]
Last month, judges for the 2013 City of Vancouver Book Award selected Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History as one of five finalists for this annual prize. The award recognizes books of any genre that “contribute to the appreciation and understanding of Vancouver’s history, unique character, or the achievements of its residents.” Amber […]
Last week, I appeared on The City on CiTR 101.9FM and CJSF 90.1 FM to speak about my new book, Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History. As a UBC alumni, I was very happy to have the chance to speak over the airwaves of the campus radio station. The host, Andy Longhurst, took us […]
Episode 39: The Environmental History of Stanley Park, 30 September 2013 [39:20] In 1888, the City of Vancouver officially opened its first urban park to the public, Stanley Park. The park lies adjacent to downtown Vancouver, encompassing a nearly 1,000-acre peninsula. It is one of the best-known parks in Canada […]
Precisely 125 years ago, the City of Vancouver opened Stanley Park to the public. This past summer in Vancouver, the city celebrated the anniversary about a month early. However, what many people might not know is that Vancouverites began to use Stanley Park as a recreational area months before the […]
[beforeafter][/beforeafter] Stanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia, 1926 & ca. 2004. Sources: City of Vancouver Archives, Photograph Collection, Van Sc P66; Stanley Park Ecology Society, Aerial Photograph of Stanley Park, ca. 2004 Stanley Park has changed quite significantly since it first opened to the public in 1888. In my […]
Writing and publishing a book is a long process that often requires authors and editors to make tough choices, especially during the revisions process. We add new material, alter existing sections, and cut, cut, cut. One of the most difficult parts of the process can be the decisions about images. […]
This fall, I am excited to start teaching HIST 4530 The Development of Toronto. This is a six-credit upper-level research seminar course on the history of Toronto with a maximum enrollment of eighteen students. The course aims to cover a number of different aspects of Toronto’s history, including environmental, political, […]
Animal history will be well-represented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Environmental History this week in Toronto. If you are already interested in attending the Saturday morning panel, “Controlling Animals? Human and Animal Agency in North America” featuring Susan Nance, Jessica Wang, Jennifer Bonnell, and Tina Adcock, […]
This summer I have been busy wading into some very rudimentary historical geography for my current research project on the history of animals in Canadian urban environments. Like all historical geography research, I think, my intent has been to see whether or not spatial patterns emerge when looking at the […]