Changing Parks: The History, Future and Cultural Context of Parks and Heritage Landscapes

David Quiring is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of
Saskatchewan.

Canadian park users, whether pleased, annoyed, or merely perplexed by
the changing nature of their experiences in regional, provincial, and
national parks over the past decades, will likely find an explanation in
Changing Parks, which attributes the dramatic and often controversial
changes in park policies to a global shift from conservation to
preservation.

The book, which grew from a conference hosted in 1993 by Trent
University, includes the contributions of 17 writers from various
disciplines. Although there is some discussion of parks outside Canada,
the focus is on Canadian parks, particularly those in Ontario. Apart
from an account of how racial prejudice once blocked Martin Luther King
from visiting Fundy National Park, there is little information about
parks in the Maritimes. Nor is there any acknowledgment of the hundreds
of regional, provincial, and national parks in the Prairie Provinces.
While the book does not claim to present a comprehensive picture of
Canadian parks, it does give some attention to Quebec, British Columbia,
and the Northwest Territories, but this serves only to underscore the
omissions. That said, Changing Parks sheds light on some of the issues
confronting park naturalists, administrators, and politicians.