British Columbia by the Road: Car Culture and the Making of a Modern Landscape

by Ben Bradley

Overview

In British Columbia by the Road, Ben Bradley takes readers on an unprecedented journey through the history of roads, highways, and motoring in British Columbia’s Interior, a remote landscape composed of plateaus and interlocking valleys, soaring mountains and treacherous passes. Challenging the idea that the automobile offered travellers the freedom of the road and a view of unadulterated nature, Bradley shows that boosters, businessmen, conservationists, and public servants manipulated what drivers and passengers could and should view from the comfort of their vehicles. Although cars and roads promised freedom, they offered drivers a curated view of the landscape that shaped the province’s image in the eyes of residents and visitors alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780774834186
Publisher:	University of British Columbia Press
Publication date:	05/15/2017
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ben Bradley is a Grant Notley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

Acknowledgments x

A Note on Mileage xii

Introduction: Automobility and the Making of New Kinds of Experience 1

Route A A Drive Through Nature

1 Toward a Park in the Cascade Mountains 19

2 Behind the Scenery in Manning Park 39

3 The Politics of Roads and Parks in the Big Bend Country 65

4 The Failure of Hamber Park and the Big Bend Highway 88

Route B Paths to the Past

5 Tracing the Route of the Cariboo Wagon Road 115

6 Changing Times and Crisis amidst Prosperity 150

7 On the Road for the 1958 Centennial 173

8 Mixed Fortunes in the BC Old Rush 205

Conclusion: Looking Back on British Columbia by the Road 232

Notes 247

Bibliography 283

Index 298

What People are Saying About This

Thomas Zeller

In this book, 'beautiful' and 'British Columbia' go together like a licence plate and a car. Bradley reveals how a mid-twentieth-century coalition of promoters provided scenic roads and outdoor history museums for the newly emerging motoring public.

John C. Walsh

We know little about the history of automobility in Canada. Full of compelling stories, images, and anecdotes, this look at roadside attractions invites us to think historically about communication lines and how they are embedded in the places, spaces, and memories with which we live.