Parks for the people? : Strathcona Park 1905-1933
Date
1996
Authors
Eng, Paula Louise
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Abstract
In 1911 Central Vancouver Island became the site of British Columbia's first provincial-park, Strathcona. Debates over the fate of Buttle Lake, the "jewel" of the Park, reveal the ideas of park held by an elite group of Anglo middle-class men on Vancouver Island from the time of its inception until the early 1930s. These ideas were often diverse and contradictory and reflected the acceptance of transforming or improving nature. The changes to the idea, or construction, of park follow the rise and decline of the first conservation movement in British Columbia and indicate a shift in emphasis from parks for the people in 1910, to parks for resource extraction after 1918. The debates also reveal the process of the com modification of scenery, or the discussion of scenery in economic terms, which was used initially for description, and by the late 1920s to justify park preservation. Conservationists also posed a challenge to the dominant industrial expansionists who had, until that time, virtually exclusive use of the province's resources. By the 1920s there was another division among park proponents and opponents which reflected the desire for local control of resources at central and northern Vancouver Island. Importantly, this case study of Strathcona Park and the conflicts over the appropriate use of the park reveals the origins of land use conflicts which continue to plague British Columbia.