Open Collections

The culture of weeds in Western Canada, 1800-1950 : an environmental history

University of British Columbia

This study chronicles the course of an important but little known Canadian war: the war between people and weeds in Western Canada. Arising from intense competition between two groups of immigrants, this conflict started in Europe, spread to Eastern North America and reached a climax on the broad expanses of the Canadian Prairies. By the early 1940s weeds had gained the upper hand on their human competitors and many predicted the end to extensive grain production in the West. This did not occur, however, because of the timely development of 2,4-D and other selective herbicides immediately following the close of World War II. These potent chemical weapons gave prairie farmers new hope at a time when defeat seemed all but certain and they are largely responsible for the expensive standoff between farmers and weeds that persists to this day. Recounting the history of weeds and weed control in Western Canada between 1800 and 1950 serves a number of functions. One is to provide weed scientists with some historical background and an object lesson in the consequences of seeking simple solutions to complex, long-standing problems. Another is to remind historians that we cannot truly understand the history of western settlement and agriculture without understanding the practical issues that dominated the daily lives of past generations of farmers. Yet a third function is to introduce a specific environmental history approach to Canadian historians while, at the same time, encouraging them to pay more attention to recent developments in this American-dominated field. A fourth and final reason for investigating the historical relationship between people and weeds is that it can be used to symbolize something far larger: the relationship between culture and nature in general. An exploration of this issue is made possible by the curious relationship between people and weeds, a relationship summed up by the thesis that weeds are both the the products of and participants in culture. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of recent trends in weed science and, in particular, of the merits of the "new" doctrine of weed management. Canadian historians are lectured on the danger of ignoring nature when writing about history and readers are asked to consider what the terms "nature" and "culture" mean. Do they represent discrete subjects, separate spheres of existence, a dichotomy? Or, are they just different aspects of a larger, more complex whole?

Canada, Western

Text

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0087923

Doctor of Philosophy - PhD

Arts, Faculty of; History, Department of

1996-11

Graduate