Defining Strathcona Park
August 20th, 2021
Most visitors to Strathcona Provincial Park, situated in the middle of Vancouver Island, know it as a place of breathtaking scenery with its mountains, lakes and waterfalls. In her second book, A Journey Back to Nature: A History of Strathcona Provincial Park (Heritage House $26.95) Catherine Marie Gilbert shows that behind this picture of serenity lies a volatile history of competing interests that have struggled to protect and define it over the past century—from Indigenous Peoples who have lived on the land for millennia, to European explorers and industrialists who could not see beyond the wealth of its natural resources, to early conservationists and enterprising settlers who wished to preserve the area as a wilderness playground for B.C.’s booming population and nascent tourist industry. Gilbert illustrates this lively history with archival and contemporary photographs and maps. 9781772033588
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