INTRODUCTION: ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES, COMMUNITY

Abstract

GEOGRAPHERS HAVE A LONG AND ENVIABLE RECORD of achievement in three areas of interest for Canadianists. These are: the exploration and development of the Canadian nation; the birth and growth of the British Association for Canadian Studies; and indeed the evolution of this esteemed Journal. My own article in this Special Issue speaks of the physical geographer, Professor Kenneth Hare, and his immense contribution to our, and indeed the Government's, understanding of the physical environments and ecological fabrics of the country. I talk also of the tremendous debt that Canadianists on both sides of the Atlantic owe to the human geographer, Professor Wreford Watson, a debt partially recognised by his election as a distinguished predecessor as the founding President of bacs! In terms of the British Journal of Canadian Studies, the contributions by geographers to past volumes are testimony enough, and the 'broad church' which is Geography is well illustrated by the fact that in a recent interdisciplinary Special Issue of BJCS guest-edited by Danielle Fuller (1999), no less than three professional geographers were able to submit articles. In the present Special Issue perhaps only three of the fourteen contributors would not classify themselves as professional geographers! The themes of environment, resources and community provide a useful envelope for the articles in this Special Issue. They are themes which have much of the substance for geographical research in Canada during the past half-century as Geography has come of age as an academic discipline, and at the same time has provided the research necessary for formulating policy in the fields of environment, rural land-use, natural resources, community, heritage and cities. The articles adopt a variety of approaches, and the processes operating in the various economic, social and environmental spheres are conceptualised in different ways by the authors. John Wadland (1998) identifies four elements underlying Canada's environmental historical discourse in the past century; these he calls the 'macro landscapes of the wilderness, the frontier, the agrarian and the urban'. The agrarian landscape is usually interpreted sensu lato to include the complementary rural resource uses of forestry, water and public access, and in this sense the present issue has something to say about each of the four macro landscapes. Geographers have received criticism in the past for not addressing matters of concern for society at large, and for entering introspective moods. Bouts of overly theoretical and methodological 'navel-gazing' have afflicted the subject, perhaps no-more and no-less than in other academic disciplines. Generally the criticism has been less appropriate in Canada than in the uk and the usa, though this is a subjective evaluation. Certainly the question 'and how does this research benefit society?' appears to be raised more frequently in Canada than elsewhere, with usually favourable answers. There is a real desire to solve real problems. All the articles here spend some space looking forward in time, suggesting pointers for future policy, programmes and projects at all levels of government. This is even true, for example, in Michael Hopkinson's study of the historical geography of fortified cities, which has much to say which is relevant to the heritage industry of the future. In my own essay I talk of the contribution of Professor Kenneth Hare to public policy-making in Canada. The contributors would join the Editor in feeling honoured if they were judged to be continuing in this tradition. Another characteristic which links the majority of contributors is that almost all have benefited from awards under Government of Canada programmes to visit Canada for purposes of research and scholarship. Readers will be familiar with the Faculty Research Program and the Faculty Enrichment Program, but perhaps less so with the Institutional Research Programme and the Sustained Studies in Contemporary Canadian Issues Program. …