Wet Prairie: People, Land, and Water in Agricultural Manitoba

by Shannon Stunden Bower

Overview

The Canadian prairies are often envisioned as dry, windswept fields; however, much of southern Manitoba is not arid plain but wet prairie, poorly drained land subject to frequent flooding. Shannon Stunden Bower brings to light the complexities of surface-water management in Manitoba, from early artificial drainage efforts to late-twentieth-century attempts at watershed management. She engages scholarship on the state, liberalism, and bioregionalism in order to probe the connections between human and environmental change in the wet prairie. This account of an overlooked aspect of the region’s environmental history reveals how the biophysical nature of southern Manitoba has been an important factor in the formation of Manitoba society and the provincial state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780774818537
Publisher:	University of British Columbia Press
Publication date:	01/01/2012
Series:	Nature | History | Society
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Shannon Stunden Bower is an associate professor in the Department of History, Classics, and Religion at the University of Alberta. She is the author of Wet Prairie: People, Land, and Water in Agricultural Manitoba. She has also published articles in journals such as Environmental History and Agricultural History.

Table of Contents

Foreword: Wetland Elegy? / Graeme Wynn

Introduction: The Wet Prairie

1 Drains and Cultural Communities: The Early Years of Manitoba Drainage, 1870-1915

2 Jurisdictional Quagmires: Dominion Authority and Prairie Wetlands, 1870-1930

3 Drains and Geographical Communities: Experts, Highlanders, and Lowlanders Assess Drainage

4 International Bioregions and Local Momentum: The International Joint Commission, Ducks Unlimited, and Continued Drainage

5 Permanence, Maintenance, and Change: Watershed Management in Manitoba

Conclusion: Chequer Board Squares in a Dynamic Landscape

Appendices

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

What People are Saying About This

Geoff Cunfer

The work represents environmental history at its best. . . . As Canadian history, it further illuminates the federal—provincial contest over natural resources in the west, arguing that the political jurisdictional battle had real consequences on Manitoba’s wet agricultural landscape, even as wetlands forced the various levels of government to adjust their relationships with one another. Drainage, to many, seems rather uninteresting; Stunden Bower shows how important it really is, even to people who live far from the Red River.

From the Publisher

"The work represents environmental history at its best .. As Canadian history, it further illuminates the federal-provincial contest over natural resources in the west, arguing that the political jurisdictional battle had real consequences on Manitoba's wet agricultural landscape, even as wetlands forced the various levels of government to adjust their relationships with one another. Drainage, to many, seems rather uninteresting; Stunden Bower shows how important it really is, even to people who live far from the Red River."—Geoff Cunfer, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan

"This book offers a finely tuned narrative of back-and-forth interactions .. between human desires and environmental circumstances. More than this, however, Stunden Bower's work offers a convincing demonstration that environmental history is .. a wide-ranging, integrative approach to the past capable of providing new perspectives on, and a more complete understanding of, topics and themes long of interest to historians."—Graeme Wynn, from the foreword

"This book offers a finely tuned narrative of back—and—forth interactions . . . between human desires and environmental circumstances. More than this, however, Stunden Bower’s work offers a convincing demonstration that environmental history is . . . a wide—ranging, integrative approach to the past capable of providing new perspectives on, and a more complete understanding of, topics and themes long of interest to historians."—Graeme Wynn , -rom the Foreword

"The work represents environmental history at its best. . . . As Canadian history, it further illuminates the federal—provincial contest over natural resources in the west, arguing that the political jurisdictional battle had real consequences on Manitoba’s wet agricultural landscape, even as wetlands forced the various levels of government to adjust their relationships with one another. Drainage, to many, seems rather uninteresting; Stunden Bower shows how important it really is, even to people who live far from the Red River."—Geoff Cunfer, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan

Graeme Wynn

This book offers a finely tuned narrative of back-and-forth interactions .. between human desires and environmental circumstances. More than this, however, Stunden Bower's work offers a convincing demonstration that environmental history is .. a wide-ranging, integrative approach to the past capable of providing new perspectives on, and a more complete understanding of, topics and themes long of interest to historians.

Editorial Reviews

"This book offers a finely tuned narrative of back-and-forth interactions ... between human desires and environmental circumstances. More than this, however, Stunden Bower's work offers a convincing demonstration that environmental history is ... a wide-ranging, integrative approach to the past capable of providing new perspectives on, and a more complete understanding of, topics and themes long of interest to historians."

- from the Foreword by Graeme Wynn

"The work represents environmental history at its best ... As Canadian history, it further illuminates the federal-provincial contest over natural resources in the west, arguing that the political jurisdictional battle had real consequences on Manitoba's wet agricultural landscape, even as wetlands forced the various levels of government to adjust their relationships with one another. Drainage, to many, seems rather uninteresting; Stunden Bower shows how important it really is, even to people who live far from the Red River."

- Geoff Cunfer, Department of History, University of Saskatchewan

From the Publisher