Past nature : public accounts of Nova Scotia's landscape, 1600-1900

Abstract

This thesis examines the ecological changes in the land that took place with the European colonization of Nova Scotia over a three hundred year period (1600-1900). Public accounts of Nova Scotia's landscape are studied to determine what kind of environment these newcomers first encountered and how the natural history features of the land changed with settlement. The diverse cultural responses to landscape are examined and categorised into distinct patterns of responses to nature. Narratives are also used to determine natural history patterns and the transformations that came with agriculture, lumbering, the fisheries and fur trade. Central to this story are the tensions between two different cultures colliding -- Micmac and European -- and the ties to the land that both united and divided them. Ecological consequences of both ways of living in nature -- the hunter and the cultivator -- are examined.

This thesis makes a contribution to our collective understanding of the central role of nature in Nova Scotia's past cultural history. Three centuries of discourse over the land reveal an intense interest in this subject and serve to expand our vision of the natural world and the role of humans in it.