Episode 61: Why Graduate Students Study Environmental History Download Audio Subscribe            Four amazing stories about four impressive graduate students in environmental history. Ever wonder why someone might study environmental history and write a dissertation in this field? On this episode, we speak with four […]
Nature's Past
Episode 60: New Research in Canadian Environmental History Download Audio Subscribe            From time to time, we like to draw your attention to new research in the field of Canadian environmental history. We interview authors about new books, we speak with graduate students about […]
Episode 57: Why Study Canada? [33:09] Download Audio            Why study Canadian environmental history? Where does Canada fit in global perspectives of environmental history? This episode focuses on the role of Canada in environmental history and explores some of the reasons why some scholars study […]
Episode 56: Animal Metropolis [38:08] Download Audio To kick off the 2017 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Toronto, Ontario, I joined two of the editors of a new volume on histories of human-animal relations in urban Canada published by University of Calgary Press. Joanna Dean and Christabelle Sethna […]
Episode 55: Asbestos Mining and Environmental Health [38:08] Download Audio In 2012, Canada stopped mining and exporting asbestos. Once considered a miracle mineral for its fireproof qualities, asbestos came to be better known as a carcinogenic, hazardous material banned in numerous countries around the world. Canada was once a […]
Episode 54: Reclaiming the Don, From Dissertation to Book [28:00] Download Audio In 2008, I interviewed Jennifer Bonnell about her work on the environmental history of the Don River Valley. It was the first episode of this podcast. Back then, Bonnell was a doctoral student at the Ontario Institute […]
Episode 53: The Social and Environmental History of Hamilton Harbour [41:33] Download Audio If you look at a map of the head of Lake Ontario and the waterfront of the City of Hamilton, you’ll find several distinct features. From east to west, you’ll first find a narrow strip of […]
Episode 52: Hydro-Power and War [51:26] Download Audio What fuels war? The total war of the Second World War placed enormous demands on the resources and environment of Canada. Manufacturing equipment for the war and harvesting natural resources for production were some of the most substantial contributions Canadians made […]
Episode 51: Has Environmental History Lost Its Way? [53:04] Download Audio Late last year in December, Lisa Brady, the editor of the journal, Environmental History, posted a provocatively titled blog article, “Has Environmental History Lost Its Way?” In that article, she reviews a round table panel from the most […]
Episode 50: Canadian Energy History [54:06] Download Audio According to a study by Richard Unger and John Thistle, Canadians consumed 430 petajoules of energy in 1867. Combining energy from animal labour, food, firewood, wind, water, coal, crude oil, natural gas and electricity, by 2004 Canadians reached a historic peak […]
Episode 49: Wildlife Conservation in Quebec [40:17] Download Audio There is a lot of good historical writing on wildlife conservation in Canada. Historians, including Janet Foster, George Colpitts, John Sandlos, Tina Loo, and others have provided excellent and important studies of the topic. But our understanding of wildlife conservation policy […]
Episode 47: Pollution Probe and the History of Environmental Activism in Ontario [50:31] Download Audio Environmental activism has a long history in Canada. Like others around the world, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canadians became involved in a number of environmental non-governmental organizations. Picking up on a prevailing […]