Canadian Countercultures and the Environment

Colin M. Coates

• Publisher: University of Calgary Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781552388174
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Studies of the radical environmental politics of the 1960s have tended to downplay the extent to which much of that countercultural intellectual and social ferment continued into the 1970s and 1980s. Canadian Countercultures and the Environment adds to our knowledge of this understudied period. This collection contributes a sustained analysis of the beginning of major environmental debates in this era and examines a range of issues related to broad environmental concerns, topics which emerged as key concerns in the context of Cold War military investments and experiments, the oil crisis of the 1970s, debates over gendered roles, and the increasing attention to urban pollution and pesticide use.No other publication dealing with this period covers the wide range of environmental topics (among others, activism, midwifery, organic farming, recycling, urban cycling, and communal living) or geographic locales, from Yukon to Atlantic Canada. Together, they demonstrate how this period influenced and informed environmental action and issues in ways that have had a long-term impact on Canadian society.With contributions by: Matt CaversMegan DaviesNancy JanovicekAlan MacEachernDavid NeufeldRyan O'ConnorDaniel RossHenry TrimSharon Weaver

Section 1:

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ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM

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2

Back-to-the-Land Environmentalism and Small Island Ecology: Denman Island, BC, 1974–1979

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Sharon Weaver

On August 14, 1979, Leslie Dunsmore of Denman Island testified before the Herbicide Appeal Board, arguing against the use of Tordon 22K by Weldwood of Canada. In the Denman Rag and Bone, a local newsletter, editor Des Kennedy reported on Dunsmore’s impressive performance:

I can’t see anyone in the room who isn’t listening intently. Her presentation moves like a just-honed scythe through dry grass. She discusses her own livelihood as a beekeeper, the potential for contamination of domestic water supplies, the soil classifications and topography of the area, the properties and hazards of Picloram, forest management alternatives and the limitations of the licensing and appeal processes. Her text is laced with references to experts, commissions of inquiry and scientific studies.1

Following her brilliant testimony, Weldwood’s cross-examination faltered and sputtered out, reported Kennedy. Dunsmore, like Kennedy, was a back-to-the-lander who had settled on Denman Island within the previous five years. Both came from large urban centres where they had obtained university degrees, and while their degrees were not in science, their education gave both the confidence to question authority and to do their own research. Kennedy reported that “being at the Hearing made one feel proud and happy to be from Denman, to have neighbours of such skill and dedication.” This fight against the spraying of herbicides was one of a series of environmental struggles in which Denman Islanders had engaged over the previous six years. Through local media and debates, back-to-the-landers on Denman Island confronted very local environmental pressures, and in a number of cases—and despite the odds against them—they succeeded in changing decisions and regulations. Their successes were frequently predicated on their ability to engage the concerns and energy of other islanders.

SMALL ISLAND ECOLOGY

Small island ecological systems have been at the cutting edge of environmental concerns and science since at least the seventeenth century. Resource depletion on small islands becomes evident long before it can be detected on the mainland and thus serves as a warning, much like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, to unsustainable draws on natural resources. Their small, bounded geography allows no easy solution to the unexpected collapse of a resource. Historian Richard Grove noted that island contexts led to very early efforts to mitigate environmental change. Both French scientists on Mauritius and English scientists on St. Helena alerted their metropolitan governments in the eighteenth century to the threats posed to the islands’ viability by the unrestricted use of resources such as timber, fruit, and water.2 Even in less isolated locations, ecological impacts are often much more visible on islands than on continents.

Ironically, Denman and other small Gulf Islands located on one of the world’s wettest coasts face serious water problems.3 Sitting in the rain shadow of Vancouver Island’s mountains, they are arid, with just half the rainfall of the Vancouver region.4 In years of light winter rainfall, groundwater is not replenished, and summer shortages are more likely. Because groundwater from wells on Denman is the principal source of domestic and agricultural water, in addition to the two small lakes, the summer rise in population due to cottagers and tourists exacerbates water problems. Overuse of aquifers can lead to saltwater intrusion;5 by the 1970s, this potential threat to the water table had become a source of concern for most islanders, old and new settlers alike. As well, the cutting and hauling of timber contributed to water degradation, and with increased settlement, the impact of logging on water resources grew more alarming.

In the 1970s, environmental unease among North Americans intensified, moving from the margins to the mainstream. The emergence of the environmental movement provided ordinary people with the sense that they could have a say. Ecological disquiet often motivated back-to-the-landers, with many arguing that their way of life testified to their environmental concerns: gardening without pesticides, herbicides or artificial chemicals; heating with wood; building with local materials; and opting out of consumer culture all demonstrated their environmental credentials.6 By moving to relatively remote areas such as the Gulf Islands and Cape Breton, back-to-the-landers were trying to escape the long reach of capitalist, industrial society. However, they quickly discovered that they could not entirely break free from it. Even those for whom the environment was not a primary motivation were quick to defend a right to clean water and clean air.

Known for their extraordinary beauty, unique ecosystems, and biological diversity, the Gulf Islands had come under increased developmental pressure during the 1960s.7 Growing public alarm over uncontrolled development, possibly beyond their carrying capacity, led W. A. C. Bennett’s Social Credit government to impose restrictions in 1969, limiting island subdivisions to lots no smaller than ten acres. Previously, a lack of planning for the islands had arisen out of the fact that British Columbia provided only a reduced framework for local governance outside of municipalities. With the creation in 1965 of twenty-nine regional boards spanning the entire province, citizens living in rural districts obtained a limited form of governance—which was clearly inadequate, as district boundaries combined municipalities with surrounding unincorporated areas.8 Because population determined the voting weight of each elected member to a regional board, this usually resulted in the islands having little to no individual representation on these boards. As an example of scale, in 1981, the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona had a total population of 68,621; within it, Denman Island’s population was 589, and Hornby Island’s, 686.9 With next to no input from island residents on any of the boards, little time or effort was devoted to island issues.10 As a result, many islanders viewed the imposition of policies by the larger region as “illegitimate uses of political power,” and the problem “resulted in considerable dislike for regional district government in some rural areas.”11 Acknowledging “the special planning needs of island environments,” the New Democratic Party government held meetings in 1973 on the thirteen most populated islands, seeking input on how best to create a governing structure for those islands. As a result of these consultations, the Islands Trust Act was proposed and enacted in 1974.12 The Islands Trust staff act as a regional board for the thirteen islands that fell under the new legislation, with two elected trustees from each island, who, as of 1979, then elected a chair and vice-chair.13 The freeze from further subdivision into parcels smaller than ten acres continued until a community plan could be developed on each island. It was hoped that the new legislation would put in place controls to preserve and protect the rural qualities of the islands, “given the uniqueness of island environments, the insignificance of island concerns in regional districts and the sense of community that exists among island residents.”14

Like other islands in the Strait of Georgia, Denman experienced a rapid increase in population beginning in the late 1960s and continuing throughout the 1970s.15 Many of these newcomers were young, often well educated, and in search of a retreat from uncontrolled growth, industrialization, and pollution. A large proportion came from the United States, where debates about the environment were gaining public attention. The population on the island at this time consisted of, in addition to the newcomers, descendants of the original European families who had settled on the island in the latter part of the nineteenth century along with recent retirees, many of whom had summered on the island and then chosen to make it their year-round home.

THE DENMAN RAG AND BONE

On Denman, the vulnerabilities of small island ecologies soon brought the back-to-the-landers into the open, as the best hope for mitigation depended on both disseminating information and generating activism. In 1974, Des Kennedy and Manfred Rupp began the Denman Rag and Bone, a newsletter of local environmental concerns. Kennedy later stated in an interview that

myself and a number of others, sort of more politically oriented people, very quickly realized … the islands were totally ripe for plucking by land speculators and developers and stuck our noses in and said that’s not what we want to have happen here … and that’s where the Denman Rag and Bone sprang out of, that desire to mobilize the community around the need for, at least from my perspective, for that kind of vigilance, because you could see it start to happen, whether gyppo loggers coming in and just butchering the place, … [or] land speculation and development.16

Conceived of and launched as a community newspaper, the Denman Rag and Bone encouraged islanders to communicate with one another. In the span of five and a half years, it reported on numerous issues that constituted a threat to the island’s ecosystem and that local people tackled. Concerns included inappropriate recreational use of Chickadee Lake, road maintenance, and the impact of summer tourism on island capacity, all of which required wide...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Colin M. Coates, Canadian Countercultures and their Environments, 1960s–1980s
• Section 1: ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM
• Sharon Weaver, Back-to-the-Land Environmentalism and Small Island Ecology: Denman Island, BC, 1974–1979
• Nancy Janovicek, “Good Ecology Is Good Economics”: The Slocan Valley Community Forest Management Project, 1973–1979
• Kathleen Rodgers, American Immigration, the Canadian Counterculture, and the Prefigurative Environmental Politics of the West Kootenay Region, 1969–1989
• Ryan O’Connor, Countercultural Recycling in Toronto: The “Is Five Foundation” and the Origins of the Blue Box
• Daniel Ross, “Vive la Vélorution!”: Le Monde à Bicyclette and the Origins of Cycling Advocacy in Montreal
• Section 2: PEOPLE, NATURE, ACTIVITIES
• Henry Trim, An Ark for the Future: Science, Technology, and the Canadian Back-to-the-Land Movement of the 1970s
• Matt Cavers, Dollars for “Deadbeats”: Opportunities for Youth Grants and the Back-to-the-Land Movement on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast
• David Neufeld, Building Futures Together:Western and Aboriginal Countercultures and the Environment in the Yukon Territory
• Megan J. Davies, Nature, Spirit, Home: Back-to-the-Land Childbirth in BC’s Kootenay Region
• Alan MacEachern, with Ryan O’Connor, Children of the Hummus:Growing Up Back-to-the-Land on Prince Edward Island
• Index