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HIST 2306A
Environmental History of North America
Department of History, Carleton University
Fall/Winter 2009-2010
Instructor: Joanna Dean
Classes: 2:30-4 PM, Tuesday and Thursday
208 (fall term)/ 210 (winter term) Tory Building
Office: 416 Paterson Hall 520-2600 Ext: 2818
Office hours: Tuesday/Thursday after class (4-5 PM) and by appointment.
Email: [email protected] (do not use WebCT email)
Web site: www.carleton.ca/~jdean
Environmental history is history that takes nature seriously. This course is divided into seven
sections. We will start big, and ask what environmental history can tell us about climate change.
Then we’ll go local: students will use maps, photographs, and textual material to explore the
environmental history of our campus. Then we will cover North American environmental history
in roughly chronological order. We will look at aboriginal understanding of the natural world,
and ask what traditional ecological knowledge is, and why the “ecological Indian” has become
such an influential, and contentious image. We will look at the Columbian exchange of germs,
plants and people with the arrival of Europeans. We will examine the commoditization of nature,
looking passenger pigeons, buffalo, and tourism, and the corresponding movements for
conservation or preservation of natural resources. Then we will think about the power of modern
technology and central planning to rework rivers, decimate cod stocks, and industrialize
agriculture. Finally we will look at environmentalisms since the 1960s, and the course will
conclude with a short history of natural disasters, focusing upon Hurricane Katrina.
Evaluation: Students will write a multiple choice quiz worth 5% after each section is completed;
the best six of seven tests will be used to make up 30% of the grade. There are three 4-5 page
essay assignments, each worth 15%: a discussion of the question of the ecological Indian using
class readings; a book review; and a final research essay. The final exam, worth 25%, will include
multiple choice and essay questions.
Important Notes on Assignments:
All assignments must be completed and submitted in order to pass the course. Please also hand
in a paper copy to the instructor for marking. Be sure to keep a backup copy of every assignment
handed in.See the attached departmental statement on plagiarism. All instances of plagiarism
must be referred to the Associate Dean. Late penalties: 2% per working day.
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Class website:
www.carleton.ca/~jdean/2306A
The class website (note that this is NOT webCT) will be used as the hub for this course.
Lectures, readings, information about assignments will be posted on the site. WebCT will be used
on for the posting of grades.
Class Schedule and Readings
Note that readings may change slightly over the course of the year; see the class website for
updates to the class schedule.
1. September 10 Welcome
Part I
Climate Change
How has climate change altered societies in the past? What does the historical record tell us
about the climate today?
2. September 15
Deep Time: Glaciers and the Champlain Sea
Reading: Donald Worster, “Ice, Worms and Dirt: The Power of Nature in North American
History.”
3. September 17 Reading the Valley
NOTE: Class will be held in Room 2017, Dunton Tower.
4. September 22
Migration Theories
5. September 24 The Little Ice Age
Reading: Thomas H McGovern, “The Demise of Norse Greenland,” in Vikings: The North
Atlantic Saga (2000).
6. September 29. Finding the Evidence
Reading: Liza Piper, "Colloquial Meterology,"
7. October 1
Energy Regimes
8. October 6 Climate Change
Part II
Local History: Reading the Landscape at Carleton
Instead of listening lectures, in this section you will be expected to use material on display in the
map library to understand the environmental history of Carleton’s campus. Find out what
happened to the wetlands and streams that crossed campus; what lies buried under the parking
lots, and what conceptions of nature informed the campus landscape.
9. October 8 The Environmental History of Campus
Multiple choice quiz on Part I Climate Change.
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10. October 13 Historical Sources
A lecture on how to read maps and other historical sources.
11.October 15
Map Library -Group A (last names starting with A-L) Class will be in the
map library, at the back of the main floor of the library. Group B students may use this time to
use online sources to complete the assignment
Reading: Electronic Atlas of a Cultural Landscape: Carleton University and Environs Available
at http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/ic/cdc/e-atlas/default.htm.
12. October 20. Map Library - Group B (last names starting with M-Z) Class will be in the map
library at the back of the main floor of the library. Group A students may use this time to use
online sources to complete the assignment.
13. October 22 Discussion of Campus History.
Part III
Ecological Indian/ Traditional Ecological Knowledge
In this section we will be asking whether people who live on the land, in particular aboriginal
hunters and gatherers, have a special, or traditional, ecological knowledge. Is the image of the
“ecological Indian” fair, or a problematic stereotype? The question is a complex one, without an
easy answer. The readings for this section will be used for the first written assignment, a short 45 page essay on the topic.
14. October 27
Introducing the question.
Readings: Creation Story TBA
Shepard Krech, “Introduction,” Ecological Indian: Myth and History, (1999).
"Myths of the Ecological Whitemen: Histories, Science, and Rights in North American - Native
American Relations." In Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological
Indian, Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis, eds. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
2007. Pp. 52-92.
Multiple choice quiz on Part II: Local History.
15. October 29
The Pleistocene Extinctions
Readings: Shepard Krech, “ Paleoindians and the Great Pleistocene Die-Off” at
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/pleistocene.h “The Yukon
Horse” at http://www.beringia.com/research/horse.ht
16. November 3
Fire
Secondary Reading: Shepard Krech, "Fire" in The Ecological Indian. Available .
Primary Reading: Samuel de Champlain, The Voyages and Explorations of Samuel de Champlain
(1604 -1616) Volumes 1 and 2 (Toronto: Courier Press, 1911).
17. November 5
Salmon Fishing
Primary Reading: “The Maiden and Salmon,” in Archie Phinney, Nez Percé Texts , Columbia
University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 25 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1934), 205-227.
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18. November 10 Hunting
Secondary Reading: Harvey Feit, “Hunting and the Quest for Power” : at
http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/Cree/Feit1/feit1.html.
Primary Reading: Nicolas Denys, Account of the Mi'kmaq (1672)
<http://www.parl.ns.ca/nicolasdenys/default.asp>. .
19. November 12
Animal Wars in Early America
20. November 17 Traditional Ecological Knowledge Today
Secondary Reading: Lyle Dick, "People and Animals in the Arctic: Mediating between
Indigenous and Western Knowledge."
Part IV
The Columbian Exchange
We will look at the movement of germs, plants and animals to North America, and back to
Europe, from the 16th century to today.
21. November 19 The Ecological Portmanteau
Readings: Alfred Crosby, “The Columbian Exchange,” at
http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/nattrans/ntecoindian/essays/columbian.htm.
Multiple choice quiz on Part III: Traditional Ecological Knowledge
22. November 24 Small pox and other epidemics
First short paper due.
Take time today to choose and order the book for the book review assignment. The books must be
purchased online, and it can take up to a month for delivery.
23. November 26
Weeds and the Question of Invasive Species
24. December 1
Natural History: Linnaeus to Darwin to Ecology
25. December 3 Tour of Arboretum and Central Experimental Farm
Winter Term
Part V
Commodities and Conservation
In this section we will look at how the natural world became reduced to a set of commodities with
industrialization, and ask whether the movements for conservation and preservation offered
solutions.
26. January 5 Introducing Commodities: Forests and Forest Reserves
Multiple choice quiz for Part IV: Columbian Exchange
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27. January 7 Passenger Pigeons
Primary reading: James Audubon on passenger pigeons, at
http://www.audubon.org/bird/boa/F29_G3a.html
Secondary Reading: Jennifer Price, “Passenger Pigeons,” in Flight Maps.
28. January 12 The Decline of the Buffalo and the Failure of Buffalo National Park
Book Review Essay due 15%
29. January 14 Feathers and the Audubon Society
Website: “The Feather Trade and the American Conservation Movement” at
http://americanhistory.si.edu/feather/.
30. January 19 Wildlife and Game Management
Aldo Leopold,“Thinking Like a Mountain” Available at http://www.ecoaction.org/dt/thinking.html.
31. January 21 Tourism and National Parks
32. January 26 Conservation vs Preservation
Film: The Wilderness Idea: John Muir, Gifford Pinchot and the First Great Battle for
Wilderness
Part VI
In this section we will look at the power of technology to alter the environment in the twentieth
century.
33. January 28 Industrial Agriculture
Film: The Plow that Broke the Plains , Director Pare Lorentz (1936)
Multiple choice quiz for Part V Commodities and Conservation
34. February 2 Techno-Chickens
Film: Chicken of Tomorrow Contest (1946)
Reading: Roger Horowitz, “Making the Chicken of Tomorrow: Reworking Poultry as
Commodities and as Creatures, 1945-1960,” in Industrializing Organisms.
35. February 4 Industrial Fishing
Podcast: Dean Bavington on CBC Ideas on science and the collapse of the cod.
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/features/science/index.html
36. February 9 Megadams and Hydropower
37. February 11 Seeing Like a State
Reading: James Scott, Thinking Like a State, excerpts .
February 15-19 Reading Week
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Part VII
Environmentalisms
An introduction to the many shapes that environmentalism took after the Second World War.
38. February 23 Nuclear Fallout
Film: “How to Survive: Life in a Fallout Shelter,” at http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-71274/conflict_war/cold_war/
Multiple choice quiz on Part VI Seeing Like a State
39. February 25 DDT
Film: THEM ! (1954)
40. March 2
Silent Spring
Film: CBS Reports Interview with Rachel Carson
Readings: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring , Chapter 1. Available at
http://www.penguin.co.uk/UKExtract/0,,NjgyODowOlNpbGVudCBTcHJpbmc=,00.html
41. March 4 Back to the Land
Alan MacEachern, “Back to the Island,” at http://niche-canada.org/memberprojects/backtotheisland/narrative2.html. Try to listen to at least one of the interviews.
42. March 9 Greenpeace and Pollution Probe
Reading: Frank Zelko, "Making Greenpeace: The Development of Direct Action
Environmentalism in British Columbia," BC Studies (2004): 197-239. On electronic reserve.
43. March 11 Green Technology: The Whole Earth Catalogue
Research Essay
due
44. March 16 Wilderness Movements, Earth First!, and Clayoquot Sound
Reading: Edward Abbey, “Polemic: Industrial Tourism and the National Parks,” from Desert
Solitaire. Edited excerpt available at
http://www.solstice.us/abbey/industrial_tourism.html.
45. March 18
Environmental Justice
Coda: Natural Disasters
(No readings for this section)
46 March 23 Natural Disasters
Multiple choice quiz on Part VI Environmentalism.
47. March 25
New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina
48. March 30
Map Library
49. April 1
So where do we go from here?
April 7 Last day to hand in a late assignment (Senate regulation)
Final examination: See exam schedule for time and place.
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