This thesis broadly explores the complex relations between commodity circulation, modes of visuality, landscape experience, and hierarchies of place in the Yellowhead Pass and Robson Valley areas of east-central British Columbia during the period 1910-1975. By examining a wide array of sources, including some that are banal, fragmentary, and indirect, it shows that views of that space and the numerous rural communities located within it have been structured and mediated by modem networks and systems of transportation and communication, beginning with transcontinental railways and ending with transprovincial highways. It demonstrates that the shifting ways in which places in this corridor-region have been connected to and separated from these lines of circulation, and also the associated ways in which they have been seen (and not seen) by people travelling along them have played vitally important roles in both the routines and possibilities of residents' everyday lives, and their local, place-based identities.

"Setting the Standard" examines over one hundred years in the existence of a British Columbia coastal community: Sointula "place of harmony ". From its beginnings as a socialist utopia settled by Finnish immigrants, to its place in the 1960s as a seemingly typical fishing community, peopled by a diverse ethnic mix. this thesis traces the ideological changes of the island's inhabitants over a six decade period. In doing so, this work uses Sointula as a case study to see how an ideological base first forms in a community and then how that ideology forms a standard that influences all succeeding community developments. Through this case study, particular historical events in the province surrounding the mining, logging and fishing industries, as well as the co-operative, labour union, and socialist movements are examined.

How can museums, which have been critiqued as colonial spaces to house the curiosities of disappearing races and to show the superiority of the colonizers, be redeployed as assertions of alternative (aboriginal) worldviews? I argue that while Stó:lō Nation and Stó:lō individuals have redeployed museum techniques to serve their own purposes they are still constrained by external and internal factors. Throughout this study I note where the Stó:lō have worked with existing museums, constructed their own interpretive centres, and changed their interpretive centres to differ from and be similar to non-aboriginal-run museums. I also explain how these different museums/interpretive centres are actually coming closer together ideologically. I examine three museums/interpretive centres: the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, located in Vancouver, and the Stó:lō-owned Shxwt'a:selhawtxw (The House of Long Ago and Today), located in Sardis, and Xa:ytem Longhouse Interpretive Centre, just outside of Mission.

This dissertation is a history of humanitarianism in Canada in the 1870s and 1880s. It examines the rise of the first Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in 1869 in Montreal and the destruction of the buffalo on the Canadian prairies by 1879. These two case studies on the historical treatment of animals are complemented by two other case studies which explore "man's humanity to man" in these years. One chapter examines how Montrealers responded to the indigent poor on their city streets, focusing particularly on the nature of humanitarian child-saving efforts which led to the removal of many poor children from their families. The last chapter investigates the nature and limits with which central and eastern Canadians responded to reports from the prairies of "starving Indians" following the destruction of the buffalo. The dissertation makes sense of the seeming contradictory contemporary impulses which led to the protection of the domestic animals of the "uncivilized" urban poor on the one hand and the destruction of the buffalo (as a free roaming species) to make way for "civilization" on the other. It shows how both the SPCA movement and the destruction of the buffalo were the result of "civilization," signs of the emerging capitalist and colonial order. It demonstrates that contemporaries recognized and were dismayed by the central role played by civilized white hunters in the destruction of the buffalo. Once the buffalo disappeared, a new narrative emerged that blamed the Indians for the destruction, helping to justify Canadian domination of the prairies. The thesis also demonstrates that as dominant culture took on the mantle of humanity to animals, through the establishment

The Second World War has often been regarded a period of great change for women. Using both print and oral historical sources this paper seeks to detail, measure and understand the changes which were occurring both during and after the war to ideas and attitudes about gender in Trail. British Columbia. Diverse and complex changes are detailed through the memories of both women and men and their children. This paper argues for the importance of inter-generational investigations of change through the use of oral history and illustrates that historical change is often as multi-faceted as the individual experiences of people themselves.

This thesis braids ethnography with political analysis to explore the nature, scope and breadth of Doukhobor sectarianism in order to illuminate the nuances of difference within the Doukhobor community. A major focus of this study is the development and functioning of the Sons of Freedom (Freedomite) branch's terrorism and its effects on the Orthodox and Independent branches as well as majoritarian society, particularly in Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Another important area of discussion concerns the formulation and application of government policy to Freedomite violence and its effects. Finally, the thesis seeks to isolate the complex factors that brought the violence to an end by focusing on three significant historical events: the violent Freedomite attack on a Saskatchewan Independent leader's home in 1936; the BC government's New Denver forced schooling program (1953-1959); and finally, the trial of Orthodox Doukhobor leader John Verigin in 1979. Ultimately, this work offers ideas and approaches for understanding other sectarian conflicts defined by terrorism.

Stories exist throughout S’olh Téméxw, the traditional territory of the Stó:lõ people in the Lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, of subterranean tunnels connecting disparate locations. These stories, recounted in archival records and by contemporary Stó:lõ community members, provide a gateway into Stó:lõ spiritual connections to place. Through the tunnels, I will explore the complexities of a subterraneous spiritual geography – what is significant about the tunnel stories and what they can say about the way that Stó:lõ people relate to the place world of the valley. Central to this thesis is ideas of imagining and re-imagining space. Through the exploration of the tunnel stories, and the complex and often cross-cultural research relationships that they are recounted in, I hope to show that the connections the tunnels provide can bring distant places, both physical and mental, together in a social imagination. This thesis focuses on the relationships that the tunnel narratives describe – relationships between people and places, researchers and storytellers, physical and metaphysical landscapes, and cultural ways of imagining the space of the valley.

In the years between 1789 and 1792 the shores of what is now British Columbia were opened to European scrutiny by a series of mostly Spanish expeditions. As the coastline was charted and explored by agents of European empires, the Pacific Northwest captured the attention of Europe. In order to carry out these explorations the Spanish relied on what turned out to be an experiment in ‘gentle’ imperialism that depended on the support of the indigenous “colonized”. This thesis examines how the Spanish envisioned their imperial space on the Northwest Coast and particularly how that space was shaped through the exploration of the Salish Sea. A close examination of the Spanish explorations of 1790-91 opens a window on this distinctive Spanish imperialism, on Aboriginal culture and politics in this era, and on the cartographic and cultural mapping of this the centre of gravity of modern British Columbia.

This thesis examines how and why two amateur videos, broadcast across Canada in 1995, contributed to the disbandment of the Canadian Airborne Regiment. A brief history of the Airborne highlights discipline problems that were known to exist before the videos were broadcast. Common assumptions about images, particularly amateur video images, are explored. The concept of the "media event" is used to show how mediation magnified the videos' impact. A detailed examination of the videos and their constructions as news stories demonstrates how narrative frames and the newsmaking process in general shaped what the public saw. A general content analysis of the media coverage surrounding the videos shows how a moral panic developed when Canadian values were threatened. It is argued that the videos and reaction to them shed more light on attitudes Canadians wanted to keep hidden than they did on any secrets the military harboured.

This thesis is part of a more extended study of the life of John Neilson which I hope to complete later for the degree of Ph.D. It is restricted to the period 1818-182 8 and deals with Neilson1s activities in the Assembly of Lower Canada and his representations in England in 1822, on the matter of the Union Bill, and in 1828 before the Canada Committee. Its scope has been further limited to those issues arising out of the constitution, organization and functioning of the government. This involves the question of administration and the struggle between Assembly and Executive for its control, as well as relations with the mother country and with Upper Canada. The closely related fields of law, land settlement and education have not been included. The object has been to bring out Neilson1s views on these questions in the belief that they contribute to an understanding of the period. / fr