Colin M. Coates - Canadian Countercultures and the Environment

Canadian

Countercultures

and the

Environment

Canadian History and Environment Series

Alan MacEachern, Series Editor

ISSN 1925-3702 (Print) ISSN 1925-3710 (Online)

The Canadian History & Environment series of edited collections brings together scholars
from across the academy and beyond to explore the relationships between people and
nature in Canadas past. Published simultaneously in print and open-access form, the
series then communicates that scholarship to the world.

Alan MacEachern, Founding Director

NiCHE: Network in Canadian History & Environment

Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de lenvironnement

http://niche-canada.org

No. 1 A Century of Parks Canada, 19112011
Edited by Claire Elizabeth Campbell

No. 2 Historical GIS Research in Canada

Edited by Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin

No. 3 Mining and Communities in Northern Canada:
History, Politics, and Memory
Edited by Arn Keeling and John Sandlos

No. 4 Canadian Countercultures and the Environment
Edited by Colin M. Coates

Acknowledgments

Fifty years after the counterculture began to have an impact on Canada, this collection revisits the way that various groups who contested mainstream norms in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s approached the environment. In 2011, most of the authors in this collection met at an initial workshop, hosted by the Heron Rocks Friendship Centre Society on Hornby Island, British Columbia. Hornby Island, like other Gulf Islands and indeed many other rural parts of British Columbia, experienced the direct impact of the counterculture. On Hornby Island, many people who came to the islands at that time stayed, and they remain key figures in the economy and politics of the island.

The Heron Rocks Friendship Centre Society (heronrocks.ca) is a nonprofit society dedicated to maintaining the vision of local activists Hilary and Harrison Brown and encouraging community and sustainable stewardship of the land. The society provided us space in their exquisite setting under the oak tree and offered us meals. The societys executive, along with its membership, welcomed us with grace and generosity. Rudy Rogalsky played a particularly key role as liaison with the society. Some members attended the workshop, as did other interested people from Hornby and Denman islands, and they shared their views on our discussions. Jan Bevan provided particularly poignant reflections. Margaret Sinclair prepared a photo exhibit on the counterculture period on the island and displayed it at the Hornby Island Co-op. We would like to thank the people on Hornby Island who provided such beautiful accommodations for our early July meeting.

We would also like to thank the external reviewers of the University of Calgary Press for their helpful and constructive comments. This project, like so many others, stems from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Councilfunded Network in Canadian History & Environment/Nouvelle initiative canadienne en histoire de lenvironnement. Alan MacEachern, the founding director of NiCHE, was a participant at our workshop, and he played an essential role both in ensuring that this project take place and in encouraging it along the way. On behalf of the contributors to this volume, I would also like to thank Mary-Ellen Kelm, Kathy Mezei, Bob Anderson, Lauren Wheeler, Peter Evans, and Terry Simmons, colleagues who also attended the workshop and provided thoughts on this project. Peter Enman and Melina Cusano at the Press assisted us through the process, and Alison Jacques contributed her exemplary copyediting skills. Finally, many participants in the countercultural activities that are covered in this book shared their memories, interpretations, and documents, and other scholars kindly provided research notes and documents that they had uncovered in the course of their own projects. The subject of countercultures and the environment clearly inspires generosity.

Contributors

Matt Cavers studied historical geography at the University of British Columbia and Queens University. He now works as a brewer at a craft brewery and hop farm on British Columbias Sunshine Coast.

Colin M. Coates is director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, and he teaches environmental history and Canadian studies at York University. He is past president of the Canadian Studies NetworkRseau dtudes canadiennes.

Megan J. Davies is an associate professor at York University and a BC historian with research interests in madness, marginal and alternative health practices, old age, rural medicine, and social welfare. Her recent projects include After the Asylum, a research site about the history of deinstitutionalization in Canada, and the documentary film The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Stories from MPA .

Nancy Janovicek teaches Canadian history and gender history at the University of Calgary. She is the author of No Place to Go: Local Histories of the Battered Womens Shelter Movement (UBC Press) and co-editor of Feminist History in Canada: New Essays on Women, Gender, Work, and Nation (UBC Press).