Treasures of the Place: Three Centuries of Nature Writing in Canada

Pleasance Crawford, a Canadian landscape and garden history researcher
and writer, is the editor of Landscape Architectural Review.

Wayne Grady, a former editor of Harrowsmith, explains in the
introduction his belief that good nature writing must do more than
recount an author’s encounters with nature. It must also convey a
sense of wonder about the natural world. He explains why most of the
early explorers, with their quick, economically motivated assessments of
Canada’s resources, do not meet these criteria, and why the 28 writers
chosen for this collection do meet them. The resulting book of excerpts
from published works (there are no archival finds here) presents 28
unique, highly readable, and memorable visions of Canada. All but five
are 10 pages or less, perfect for reading at odd moments. An
enlightening paragraph about the author and the source precedes each
excerpt.

Some readers will be disappointed to discover that although the
subtitle promises three centuries, the book consists largely of one. Of
the 28 selections, 21 were written in our century. Only Pehr Kalm and
Samuel Hearne speak from the 18th century, while the 19th century is
represented only by John James Audubon, Henry David Thoreau (through a
selection from his little-known A Yankee in Canada, in which he recorded
a week-long trip from Montreal to Quebec City in 1866), Catherine Parr
Traill, and Ernest Thompson Seton. However, Chief Thunderchild’s 1923
piece actually recalls an event of 1879; and the excerpt from Peter
Matthiessen’s Wildlife in America (1959) examines 18th- and
19th-century attitudes toward nature, and mentions both Kalm and Hearne.

Of the 20th-century selections, two are pre–World War I, four are
from the interwar years, six are from the 1950s, and three each are from
the 1960s, 1980s, and 1990s. Familiar voices—Pauline Johnson, Grey
Owl, and Farley Mowat, for example—mix with lesser-known ones. Each
makes an eloquent contribution to this worthwhile collection.