by Neil Forkey

About the Book

Neil Forkey makes a significant contribution to the growing body of work on Canadian environmental history. Themes of ethnicity and environment in the Trent Valley are brought into wider perspective with comparisons to other areas of contemporary settlement throughout the British Empire and North America.

Forkey begins by placing his study within the literature of settler societies of Upper Canada and North America. The Trent Valley's geography, prehistory, and Native peoples—the Huron and the Mississauga—are discussed alongside the Anglo-Celtic migrations and "resettlement" of the area. Four distinct case studies of environmental, social, and cultural change are presented. Careful attention is devoted to the life and nature writings of Catherine Parr Traill. Her descriptions of life and environmental changes in the valley point the way to a keener understanding of Canadian attitudes about the natural world during the nineteenth century.

Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier is the story of the Trent Valley during the nineteenth century, one of a settler society and a microcosm for wider human and environmental changes throughout North America.

About the Author

Neil Forkey, PhD, is a visiting professor in the Canadian Studies program at St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York. He specializes in North American social and environmental history.

Contents

Part One: Foundations

Introduction
• Ecological Locale: The Trent Valley as a Living Place
• Human Cultures: The Settlement and Resettlement of Trent Valley
• Nature and National Narrative in Canada

Changes in Mississauga Lands: Ecology and Economy, 1790s–1830s
• Mississagua Lands
• Resistance
• Adaption and Persistance
• Toward Resettlement

Creating New Home Places: Anglo-Celtic Migrants, 1820s–1850s
• Ecological Locales: Ireland
• Human Cultures: Ireland
• Making a Home Place: Ecological Locales and Human Cultures of the Trent Valley

Part Two: Contexts

Damning the Dam: Ecology and Community in Ops Township
• “The largest mill-dam in the world”
• The Natural Setting
• Second Nature: Toward a Home Place
• Second Nature: The Pre-industrial Context
• Second Nature: The Trent Canal, Purdy’s Mill, and Threats to Home Place
• Crafting a Defence of Public Rights
• Nature Responds
• Conclusion

The Road from Bobcaygeon: Lumber and Colonization, 1850s–1870s
• The Natural Setting
• Second Nature: Regional Expansion and the Lumberman’s Vision
• Second Nature: The Settlers’ Reality Occupational Pluralism on the Northern Frontier
• Local Knowledge: Road Construction and the Folly of Settlement
• Postscript: Toward an Era of Conservation
• Conclusion

The Trent Valley Oracle: Catharine Parr Traill
• Natural History: Catharine’s Early Years
• Second Nature: Homing in the Backwoods
• Second Nature: The “Canadian Gilbert White”

Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Orders

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