Acknowledgements

This book originates from our realization several years ago that the fast-growing fields of environmental history and mobility studies had much in common, yet were not in close communication. We observed that a number of scholars in Canada, at various stages of their careers and employing perspectives gained from anthropology, geography, technology studies, and other fields, were examining the relationship between mobility and the environment in this country’s past. To bring these researchers together, we organized a workshop at the Glendon College campus of York University, and that workshop formed the basis for this collection.

Funding for the workshop was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Glendon’s Office of the Principal, and NiCHE, the Network in Canadian History and Environment. NiCHE also offered its website as a venue for sharing blog posts based on workshop papers. We would like to thank all of the workshop participants and attendees, including Jennifer Bonnell, Jan Hadlaw, Steve Penfold, and particularly Lisa Cooke. David Zylberberg provided invaluable organizational assistance for the event. Special thanks are due to Tom McCarthy, professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and author of Auto Mania: Cars, Consumers, and the Environment, for contributing his expertise on the intersections of mobility and the environment in North America and for commenting on all the papers.

Many hands are involved in putting a collection such as this together, with much of the work done behind the scenes. All of the contributors to this collection benefitted from the diligent work of archivists and curators at repositories around the country. Samy Khalid translated Maude-Emmanuelle Lambert’s chapter from French to English. Maps are very valuable for both studying and writing about the intertwining of mobility and the environment, and this book benefitted from the work of several cartographers: Steven Langlois from the University of Saskatchewan’s Historical GIS Laboratory made the maps for Jay Young and Elsa Lam’s chapters, in the latter case working from an earlier iteration by James Mallinson; Eric Leinberger produced the map in Jessica Dunkin’s chapter. Chris Gergley provided valuable support on copy work and image quality.

We are very grateful to the estate of Alex Colville for permission to use his famous painting Ocean Limited on the cover. Thanks also to Alan MacEachern for his support and encouragement of this project, both as director of NiCHE and as editor of the Canadian History and Environment series. Thanks especially to the people at University of Calgary Press who helped steer this project home, including Karen Buttner, Melina Cusano, Peter Enman, Helen Hajnoczky, Alison Jacques, and Brian Scrivener.