Environmental histories of settlement in Canada and New Zealand

This edition of the podcast is devoted to two countries of
European Settlement: New Zealand and Canada. Both countries
received a significant number of settlers from Scotland and
Ireland. Did these groups bring a particular set of land
management techniques with them that had a particular impact on
the landscape and environment? Did a particular conservation
ethic develop among Scottish and Irish settlers? Tom Brooking of
Otago University discusses these questions in this podcast. In
addition he is looking at the unique nature of the environmental
history of New Zealand and how the country has become as
cultivated as most “old world” countries.


In the second part of the podcast Alan MacEachern, a historian of
the University of Western Ontario, explores the confrontation of
European settlers with the extensive forests in eastern Canada
through the Mirimichi fire of 1825. This fire is considered to be
one of the largest ever recorded on the east coast of North
America since European settlement. The fire took settlers by
surprise because it was on a scale unknown to immigrants coming
from a largely deforested continent. Alan discusses the causes of
the fire, the responses to the fire and how it was reported in
the European press.


Websites mentioned: niche.uwo.ca/, anneisaman.blogspot.com/