Park Prisoners: The Untold Story of Western Canada's National Parks, 1915-1946

William Glassman is a professor of psychology at Ryerson Polytechnical
University.

Park Prisoners tells the story of the various groups of people—enemy
aliens in World War I; relief workers and transients during the
Depression; and conscientious objectors, Japanese aliens, and German
POWs during World War II—who were interned in labor camps located in
western Canada’s national parks and compelled to build roads
(including the scenic Icefields Parkway), park buildings, and golf
courses. Bureaucratic infighting and incompetence, indifference to human
conditions, and raw politics all play a prominent role in this history.
Waiser’s detailed account is based on extensive archival research and
oral-history interviews with many of those forced to participate in the
various park projects. This human record of the thousands of men who
worked for months, sometimes years, on these projects will be of
particular interest to students of social history and policy.