Open Collections

Sziklasi, Connor

University of British Columbia

This thesis examines how the affective atmospheres of park spaces in Yoho and Banff national parks have become incongruous with the desired visitor experience as a result of being increasingly mediated by capital. Yoho and Banff, located in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia and Alberta respectively, are Canada’s most longstanding protected areas in addition to being among its most well-known and well-attended. Increasing attendance is one of several changes—along with infrastructure developments, use of social media and smartphones, and park management decisions¬—that have, in recent years, sparked concern among visitors, locals, and park staff of a perceived imbalance in the dual mandate of simultaneously protecting and promoting parks across the country and beyond. I engage with non-Indigenous recreationists, tourists, and locals of Yoho and Banff on a variety of parks-related topics, including the current state of protected areas and their affective atmospheres, including what changes many are hoping to see within them. I employ ethnographic research methods such as semi-structured interviews, informal interactions, nonhuman observation, and “walk-and-talks” on park trails to help learn of the relationships that non-Indigenous people hold with these spaces as well as the values at the core of these relationships. Through the analysis of these interactions and observations, I identify the inherent contradiction embedded within “the world’s craziest mandate” and demonstrate how it is neither protection nor promotion but the balancing of the two that defines the values and desired atmospheres of parks organizations and their patrons. I then explore the ways in which atmospheres have become compromised by processes of fetishization and an increasingly image-centred set of behaviours among growing crowds. I attribute recent atmospheric changes as the result of Parks Canada’s centralization and resultant delocalization of power and point to the integral role of local, intimate knowledges in the management of park spaces.

Text

2025-04-25

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/90810

Anthropology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/