Making Ontario Contributor(s): Wood, David (Author) |
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ISBN: 0773518924 ISBN-13: 9780773518926 Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press OUR PRICE: $108.90 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: April 2000 Annotation: The colony that became Ontario arose almost spontaneously out of the confusion and uncertainty following the American Revolution, as a quickly chosen refuge for some 10,000 Loyalists who had to leave their former homes. After the War of 1812 settlers began to spread throughout the inter-lake peninsula that was to become southern Ontario and by the middle of the nineteenth century expansion had led to a diversifying agriculture and an increasingly open farming landscape that replaced a mature forest ecosystem. The scale of the change from forest to cropland profoundly affected what had been for many decades a rich environment for life forms, from large herbivores down to microscopic creatures. In Making Ontario David Wood shows that the most effective agent of change in the first century of Ontario's development was not the locomotive but settlers' attempts to change the forest into agricultural land. Wood traces the various threads that went into creating a successful farming colony while documenting the sacrifice of the forest ecosystem to the demands of progress, progress that prepared the ground for the railway. Ontario was a going concern before the railway came -- the railway simply streamlined the increasing trade with an international market that drew on Ontario for a multitude of farm products and a continuing output from the woods. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | Canada - General |
Dewey: 971 |
LCCN: 2001411319 |
Physical Information: 0.91" H x 6.34" W x 9.37" (1.08 lbs) 216 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 1800-1850 - Cultural Region - Canadian - Geographic Orientation - Ontario |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: The colony that became Ontario arose almost spontaneously out of the confusion and uncertainty following the American Revolution, as a quickly chosen refuge for some 10,000 Loyalists who had to leave their former homes. After the War of 1812 settlers began to spread throughout the inter-lake peninsula that was to become southern Ontario and by the middle of the nineteenth century expansion had led to a diversifying agriculture and an increasingly open farming landscape that replaced a mature forest ecosystem. The scale of the change from forest to cropland profoundly affected what had been for many decades a rich environment for life forms, from large herbivores down to microscopic creatures. In Making Ontario David Wood shows that the most effective agent of change in the first century of Ontario's development was not the locomotive but settlers' attempts to change the forest into agricultural land. Wood traces the various threads that went into creating a successful farming colony while documenting the sacrifice of the forest ecosystem to the demands of progress, progress that prepared the ground for the railway. Making Ontario provides a detailed focus on environmental modification at a time of great changes. It is liberally illustrated with analytical maps based on archival research. |
Contributor Bio(s): Wood, David: - CA |