Game in the Garden

A Human History of Wildlife in Western Canada to 1940

Table of contents

Illustrations and Tables

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Amerindians, Voyageurs, and the Animal Exchange in the Western Fur Trade

2 The Territorial Period, Game Crisis, and the Western Domestication Movement

3 From Meat to Sport Hunting

4 Boosters, Wildlife, and Western Myths of Superabundance

5 Pioneer Society and Fish and Game Protection Conclusion

Appendix: Independent Conservation Associations in Western Canada

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

Description

The shared use of wild animals has helped to determine social relations between Native peoples and newcomers. In later settlement periods, controversy about subsistence hunting and campaigns of local conservation associations drew lines between groups in communities, particularly Native peoples, immigrants, farmers, and urban dwellers. In addition to examining grassroots conservation activities, Colpitts identifies early slaughter rituals, iconographic traditions, and subsistence strategies that endured well into the interwar years in the twentieth century. Drawing primarily on local and provincial archival sources, he analyzes popular meanings and booster messages discernible in taxidermy work, city nature museums, and promotional photography.

Reviews

Part of the challenge of conserving biological diversity in the 21st century, Colpitts argues, will be to grapple with old, utilitarian understandings of nature and wildlife. [Game in the Garden] is well and clearly written, a solid attempt at developing those very understandings.

- Terry Glavin