Science gouvernementale et nation building: Parcs Canada et la réinterprétation des territorialités locales (2012)
Craig-Dupont, Olivier (Author)
Scientia Canadensis: Journal of the History of Canadian Science, Technology, and Medicine
Volume: 35
Pages: 65--83
Edition Details: Part of a special issue, “Science in Government”
Language: French
This paper analyzes the history of creation of the Mauricie National Park in Quebec in the 1970s. It explores in particular the role of the ecological science in the development of an idealized representation of `wilderness' encountered in Canada's national parks on the territory of Mauricie. According to the official discourse of the Parks Canada Agency, the park is aiming to protect an example of wilderness of the great forests of the Canadian Shield (nature sauvage des grandes forêts du Bouclier canadien). Our history however reveals forest scarred by centuries of human activity like hunting, fishing and forestry. Therefore, how the federal agency Parks Canada managed to create out of these humanized landscapes a representative natural area of Canadian signifiance (aire naturelle représentative d'intérêt canadien)? The science of ecology allows this transformation of Mauricie territoriality. Through inventories, ecosystemic maps and management plans that focus on natural components of the place----abstracting human history----Parks Canada manages to concretize materially and symbolically on the provincial territory the ideal of `wilderness' of Canadian national parks. Starting from the thesis of Suzanne Zeller (1988), our history shows that science still served in the 1970's to support the enterprise of nation-building of the Canadian State.
...MoreArticle Enros, Philip (2012) Introduction: Science in Government. Scientia Canadensis: Journal of the History of Canadian Science, Technology, and Medicine (p. 1).
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