Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum (NEAR-EH) 2023 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE

What kind of experience with their natural environment did these two people have? Wm. Notman & Son, Breadalbane Mill Pond and Bridge, Prince Edward Island, c. 1915. Object Number: VIEW-8253. McCord-Stewart Museum.

The Northeast and Atlantic Region Environmental History Forum provides an annual opportunity for scholars to workshop book chapters and article-length papers on the environmental history of northeastern North America.

Each year, the forum is broadly focused on the history of human interaction with nature in the patch of North America from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the New Jersey Shore and inland to the Appalachian Mountains. Projects that meet this criteria are always welcome to be workshopped at this event, but this year the forum will also focus specifically on the environmental history of the “backyard”—that is, local, community-based environmental history. The intention is to create an edited collection with the “backyard” as the focus. A previous volume to come out of NEAR-EH workshopping was The Greater Gulf: The Greater Gulf: Essays on the Environmental History of the Gulf of St. Lawrence (McGill-Queens, 2020).

NEAR-EH 2023 is taking place on 23-25 June 2023 at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. The workshopping will take place on the main campus in Charlottetown, and participants will also explore the new Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation and the Greenwich annex of the National Park in St. Peter’s Bay.

We look forward to welcoming you to Prince Edward Island!

All sessions and the reception will be held on the lower level of the Bill and Denise Andrew Hall 142. See Building #19 on the campus map.

Parking will be free for all participants at the lower level of Parking Lot B. It is an ungated lot close to the campus entrance on Belvedere Ave. There are also limited parking spaces at Andrew Hall for those staying in residence, and anyone staying overnight should keep their vehicle there as there is no overnight parking elsewhere on campus.

Preliminary Schedule:

Friday, 23 June
TimeEventDetailsLocation
6:00-8:00 PMOpening Reception (dinner provided)Andrew Hall 142
Saturday, 24 June
TimeEventLocation
8:00-8:30 AMBreakfastAndrew Hall 142
8:30-9:45 AMSession ONE: Nature in the CityRichard W. Judd, “Boston’s Backyard Nature: From Vacant Lot to Urban Wild”; Claire Campbell, “Tidewater Aligned: Halifax, Nova Scotia”Andrew Hall 142
9:45-10:00 AMRefreshment BreakAndrew Hall 142
10:00-11:15 AMSession TWO: Historical MethodsMatthew McKenzie, “Tapping the Past: Experience and Insight in Environmental History Research”; Sean Cox, Toni MacRae, Sasha Mullally, Yun Zhang, “Lockdowns and Leisure: Aerial Capture of COVID-19 Recreational Spaces in Fredericton, New Brunswick”Andrew Hall 142
11:15 AM-12:15 PMLunch (provided)Andrew Hall 142
12:15 PM – c. 6:00 PMSession THREE: Field TripBus Tour to Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation and Prince Edward Island National Park – GreenwichCanadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation, St. Peter’s Bay, and Greenwich Annex to PEI National Park, Greenwich
6:00 PM onwardOptional Dinner (planned informally)To be determined.
Sunday, 25 June
TimeEventLocation
8:00-8:30 AMBreakfastAndrew Hall 142
8:30-10:00 AMSession FOUR: Space, Time, and Transportation in a BorderlandEmma Schroeder, “The road to – where?”: International Debates Over Highway Construction in Maine in the 1960s and 1970s”; Jack Bouchard, “Terra Nova Incognita: Writing early Canadian history across time and space”; Matthew Hatvany, “Anticosti: The Shaping of a Natural Island”Andrew Hall 142
10:00-10:15 AMRefreshment BreakAndrew Hall 142
10:15-11:30 AMSession FIVE: Born to Be Wild? Nature in the BackyardCaroline Abbott, “The Coyotes of Crowell Road”; Edward MacDonald, “Camping in the Backyard: Nature and Provincial Parks on Prince Edward Island, 1945—2000”Andrew Hall 142
11:30 AM – to curfewSession SIX: Next, Please! The Way ForwardAndrew Hall 142

Community Pasture Program

Recently at the GeoREACH Lab, we have taken an interest in the Community Pasture Program in Atlantic Canada. Its prairie province counterpart is undoubtedly better known for its role in Western Canada’s agricultural recovery after the Great Depression. Still, the initiative was brought to this side of the country as well. In 1962, an Island farmer named Ken MacLean, along with several other community members, founded the Lot 16 Community Pasture. With help from ARDA, and later the LDC, community pastures expanded on PEI beyond Lot 16, and by 1979 the program had over seven thousand acres of land across all three counties.

The program was essential for the implementation of proper pasture management practices on Prince Edward Island. It also provided Island farmers with the chance to pasture their animals for a low price (often less than a dollar per day) and use their lands for hay and silage instead. For much of the 20th century, the main goal of farmers on the Island was to come up with enough fodder to feed the rapidly growing herds. The community pastures helped alleviate some of this demand, which often exceeded what individual farms could meet on their own land and dollar alone.

Using energy analysis tools, we will be exploring the various roles that community pastures have played in the local grazing communities for the past sixty years. Stay tuned for updates!

Sources:

“Community Pasture.” 1976. In Pages from the Past, edited by Violet MacGregor, Eileen Manderson, Jennie Betton and Etta Hutchinson, 51-52: Lot 16 Women’s Institute.

Prince Edward Island Land Development Corporation: Activities and Impact 1970-1977. 1979. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2020/eccc/En73-1-16-eng.pdf

Rogers, David. 1963. Grasslands, Pastures, Silage and Hay: A Major Resource of Prince Edward Island. Charlottetown: UPEI.

Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Province of Prince Edward Island

The Illustrated Historical Atlas of the Province of Prince Edward Island, colloquially known as Meacham’s Atlas of 1880, was one of the first attempts to map PEI in its entirety. A whole host of information can be found within the atlas; from detailed maps of each of the lots on the island – down to the individual houses, to realistic drawings of prominent citizens and their properties. It is a dream resource for any Island historian!

The Meacham’s Atlas maps before mosaicing.

For us at the GeoREACH lab, the atlas represents yet another opportunity to compile data on energy usage on the island during this period. We can see in the atlas the individual lots that compose our island even to today, each with personalized property information. The cartographers went so far as to outline the individual houses, barns, other infrastructure and property owners for each lot.

The Meacham’s Atlas maps after being mosaiced.

An important step in gathering the data from Meacham’s Atlas was to centralize all the available rasters (individual images) to a single resource. As all the lots were created independently, they would have to be stitched together into a single, geographically accurate map in a process formally known as mosaicing. This is why we have made, using GIS, a comprehensive mosaic of all the lots to easier represent this information.

The building points displayed over the entirety of Prince Edward Island.

Beyond that, we also entered data points for the over 16,000 buildings indicated on the map. Though it is still a work in progress, it is now available to be explored. You can adjust the different layers through the content window to look at churches, houses, mills, or schools, or can zoom in to a region you know well to see what it looked like in 1880!

Click here to explore the map.

The Kestrel

“The Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk is about the size of a Robin, and is the only small hawk which has a shade of chestnut-red in its tail feathers. Reed truly says that it has ‘bright colors and odd markings.’ It is so handsome and at the same time so evidently harmless, that it has escaped much of the destruction aimed at its larger companions. Another point in its favor is its ability to adapt itself to its environment: it is equally at home in the pasture lands of the east and the forests of other regions.

“The Kestrel feeds principally on mice, large insects, frogs, and snakes. At times it attacks birds and may kill jays, quail, and other birds as large as itself. It may visit towns where sparrows abound, whence the name ‘Sparrow-hawk.’ Dr. Taverner, however, thinks that a more appropriate name would be “Grasshopper Hawk.” (And he notes that when taken from the nest young, this little falcon is easily tamed.) Scientists have examined 291 stomachs and found that birds were killed and eaten only in the winter when insects are not available. “It is obvious that the Sparrow Hawk is beneficial and should be protected.” 

“Kestrel or Sparrow Hawk. AOU 360. Summer Resident- List, 1916. One observed at Alberton, 1937.

“Adult Male: Head slaty blue, crown rufous; face pattern black and white. Black rufous with or without black spots or bars. Wings blue gray; tail rufous-red with a wide sub-terminal black band and a narrow white tip. Underparts creamy white to buff, a few black spots or none. 

“Female: Head and face like male; black wings and tail rufous, barred black; underparts more or less dark brown and streakedImmature birds resemble adults. Length of adult 10.5 inches.”

Source

“Controversy over Fertilizers”

The following is an excerpt from the Newsy Notes column by Agricola. The article, titled “Controversy over Fertilizers” was published in The Charlottetown Guardian newspaper on January 19th, 1946.

“Agriculture in Britain, given new life under the pressure of war, is engrossing the attention of the public as never before. One evidence of this is the interest taken in the wide-spread controversy between those farmers who favor the use of “artificial” fertilizers, and those who pin their faith on the old standby “muck”, which being translated is manure or dung.

“On the one hand, then, are those connected with “big business”- we have them in Canada too- who maintain that natural manures are not economic, that all farms should be run as factories, and that fences and horses should be scrapped in favor of prairies and tractors. On the other hand there are those who believe with Lord Lymington that “mineral and dung in solution, fused by human sweat,  remain the food of civilized man.” They are also convinced that the use of artificial fertilizers is slowly poisoning the whole population, and have named sulphate of ammonia “Devil’s Dust.”

As far as we know, the 1940s were prior to the real industrialization of farming on Prince Edward Island and through much of Canada. Evidently, though, the debate on the development of large-scale operations was a heated one from the beginning.
Ammonium sulphate is still a fairly widely used fertilizer across Canada today, despite its clearly long history of controversy and early nickname of “Devil’s Dust.” According to The Government of Canada (2020), 11 000 metric tonnes of Ammonium sulphate were in inventory in the September count in Atlantic Canada alone; this is a number that in actuality has increased since 2015.

“The last statement is a serious charge, and can only be proved or disproved by a series of experiments which must necessarily be lengthy. Something of the sort has been done in New Zealand, and the results were published in 1939.The locale of the experiment was the Mount Albert Grammar School hostel, which housed sixty boys and the teaching staff. The dietary of the hostel was far above the customary standard for boarding schools, yet the boys suffered- as was the case in other N.Z. institutions- from colds, catarrh, septic tonsils, influenza, dental caries, and other ailments. (It must be stated here that all New Zealand’s food supplies are grown by means of chemical fertilizers).

Picture of humus

“In 1936 Dr. G. B. Chapman of the Physical and Mental Welfare Society of N.Z. advised that the hostel’s fruit and vegetables be grown on properly prepared humus instead of chemically treated soil: and an acre of black volcanic soil was put under cultivation. No chemicals were used. The report of the matron of the hostel in 1939, said “The first thing to be noted, during the twelve months following the change-over to garden produce grown from our humus-treated soil, was the declining catarrhal condition among the boys. There was also a very marked decline in colds and influenza. Colds are now rare and any cases of influenza very mild. In the 1938 measles epidemic, which was universal in New Zealand, the new boys suffered the more acute form of attack: the boys who had been at the hostel for a year or more sustained milder attacks with a much more rapid convalescence.”

This influential study by Dr. Chapman was presented to the House Select Committee to Investigate the Use of Chemicals in Food Products in the United States Congress in 1951.

“There is much more to the same effect but we pass on to the Royal Commercial Travellers’ Schools near London, England. In 1939, Dr. E. Brodie Carpenter of that institution, took over the dental care of two or three hundred children whose condition he found “to be (dentally) deplorable.” In Sept. 1941,  he again classified his charges and found the percentages of caries was about the same. In 1943 and 1944 there was some improvement, but the Dr. got a great surprise in Sept. 1945: his A class- the best- had increased to 97 per cent (from 50 p.c.); the B class once 32 p.c. was now only 3 per cent; and the C’s- worst of all, and once 18 p.c.- were entirely eliminated.

“Dr. Carpenter set out to find the reason for the improvement, and discovered that a 5 ½ acre field had been taken over in 1939, and a gardener appointed who believed in manure but not in fertilizer. He brought the field up gradually till the school was self-supporting so far as roots and green vegetables were concerned: and he claimed that the humus-grown stuff was responsible for the great improvement cited.

It is important to recognize that Dr. E. Brodie Carpenter was a dental scientist, but he was an active soil conservationist in the Soil Association’s group in Middlesex, England.

“At the College of St. Columba in Northern Ireland they even produce their own wheat and bread! Chemical fertilizers are rigidly excluded, and to this is attributed the very high standard of dental health enjoyed by the students.

“Now these conclusions are certainly plausible and seem to point the way to a change in farming, but it will, I venture to predict, take a long time to convince the farmer that he must farm without chemicals. Overwhelming proof that they are dangerous must be produced, and such proof will be hard to furnish: two or three examples are not enough.

“Chemical fertilizers certainly give the crops, and within certain limits the more fertilizer, the bigger the crop- which is all that the farmer looks for. But there are many chemicals in the soil in very small amounts, which are necessary to the good health of the crop and its consumer as well. The bigger the crop the more the soil is depleted of these necessary elements. We have already got to the stage where we must supply the turnips with boron and the potatoes with magnesia, while there may be other deficiencies not so apparent, or not yet discovered.

“A year or two ago P.E.I. was in the spot-light on account of the longevity of its people. Was the cause of the long life in the naturally raised food which the old-timers ate? Will the next generation live as long?”

The life expectancy in Canada has been steadily increasing over the course of the last century, according to the Government of Canada. So, while perhaps Agricola was a little too enthusiastic on suggesting artificial fertilizers as the cause of the early demise of Canadians, there is still value to noting that there were advocates for organic and sustainable farming in the 1940s, even though the concepts were not yet fully understood.

Read more of this Newsy Notes here.

To read more on the ninth Earl of Portsmouth and the political origins of his Soil Association, see here.

To read the full hearings on the Investigation of Chemicals in Food Products, see here.

To read more on Dr. Carpenter, and British agricultural history, see here.

To see the Statistics Canada data on fertilizer, see here.

To see the Statistics Canada data on life expectancy in Canada, see here.