A History of Settler Place-Making in Burns Bog, British Columbia

From Reclamation to Conservation: A History of Settler Place-Making in Burns Bog, British Columbia By: Cameron Butler Supervised by: Catriona Sandilands A Major Paper Submitted to the Faculty of Environmental Studies In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada August 31, 2019 Abstract Wetlands are, in the Canadian settler imaginary, ambiguous spaces that are neither strictly landmasses nor only bodies of water. This paper explores how Canadian settler-colonialism has incorporated wetlands into systems of land ownership and control by tracing the history a specific wetland, a peat bog known as Burns Bog since the 1930s in the area settlers call Delta, British Columbia. Given its presence as one of the largest wetlands in the region, settlers failed to drain the bog in its entirety. As a result, the bog persisted throughout the history of settlers’ presence on the west coast and has been subjected to waves of settler approaches, making it an ideal case study to consider how ongoing settler-colonialism has shaped, and continues to shape, wetlands. Previous historical works on wetlands in Canada and the United States have documented how early settlers, through to roughly the mid-twentieth century, worked to “reclaim” wetlands and transform them into arable land. However, these accounts have often neglected to continue their analysis of settler-colonialism beyond this period and have, as a result, treated settlers’ more contemporary views of wetlands -- as ecologically valuable ecosystems that need to be conserved or restored -- as a break in colonial dynamics. This research intervenes in this existing body of work by treating shifting practices towards wetlands as successive stages in efforts to incorporate wetlands into settler-colonial logics. I argue that these different practices need to be interrogated for how they both rely on similar logics, frameworks, and approaches to the nonhuman, and for how they further the settler-colonial project of suppressing Indigenous voices, histories, and relations to land. The paper draws upon Indigenous studies, queer ecology, and posthumanism to develop a more theoretically robust framework through which to approach the history of Burns Bog. I use a collection of archival and secondary materials—particularly early ethnographies of the region— to trace Indigenous and settler relations to the bog. In chapter 1, I present a framework that pays particular attention to settler practices and conceptions of land, biopolitical capitalist subsumption of the nonhuman, and methods of thinking with and through water. In chapter 2, I trace the bog’s history from its formation through to the 1920s, including Indigenous peoples’ relations to the bog and early settler efforts to reclaim the bog. Chapter 3 explores the rise of different settler practices in the bog from the 1930s to the 1980s, especially peat extraction, cranberry farming, and the use of the bog as a landfill. Chapter 4 presents the rise in scientific and conservation approaches to Burns Bog, highlighting how they provide a means for making the bog more legible and enabling more extensive settler direction of nonhuman beings within the bog as well as the resurgence of Indigenous claims to the bog. I argue that by viewing wetlands as ongoing and overlapping collections of material and narrative practices, we can see how contemporary conservation politics often function as an extension of settler domination of land. i Foreword This major paper is the culmination of the Area of Concentration that has guided my journey throughout my master’s degree in Environmental Studies at York University. It speaks to all three Learning Components, “Queer ecology and critical theory,” “Environmental histories and cultures of wetlands,” and “Theorizing the More-than-human,” reflecting them in both the theoretical framework developed for the research as well as the approach to the archival work I conducted. The paper draws heavily from Indigenous studies and queer ecology to inform discussions of how settler-colonialism structures relations with land and nonhuman beings. It also incorporates some Marxist theory to shape the analysis of capitalism and modes of production around and in the wetland. Finally, on a methodological level, the paper is an exercise in thinking through how to tell stories of nonhuman subjects that resist and challenge normative Western frameworks. I turned to a number of Indigenous, queer, and posthumanist scholars to consider how they view and engage water in their works. I used these insights to present ways of highlighting different aspects of Burns Bog and wetlands in general through an embrace of their watery nature. Wetlands were central to my Area of Concentration and my paper deepens my understanding of the diverse histories and relationships that settlers and Indigenous peoples have with them. I contextualized my research into Burns Bog within the broader history of wetlands in North America, and Canada in particular, and the paper itself is focused on tracing a vast array of Indigenous and settler practices in the bog. Fundamentally, my Area of Concentration revolved around the question of whether the historical account that settlers went from destroying wetlands to protecting them truly reflected a different and distinct shift in how wetlands were viewed and understood. Through this paper, I came to clarify that it did not; instead, the shift was a gradual transition between different perceptions on how best to use wetlands. In exploring Burns Bog as a case study, I also came to understand this process as an even more complex one that encompassed multiple, overlapping, and interacting dynamics occurring within ongoing settler-colonial logics. I hope that this paper informs a more critical engagement with conservation ethics that enables greater settler solidarities with Indigenous peoples fighting to maintain relationships with their traditional territories. ii Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my advisor and supervisor, Catriona Sandilands, for everything she has done to support me throughout this experience. I entered this program wanting to learn from her and I have learned even more than I had hoped in these past two years. I could not have predicted where it would lead me, and I am so grateful for her encouragement, feedback, and insight that guided me to such unexpected directions. I would like to thank Darryl MacKenzie, Eliza Olson, Nikolai Karpun, and Marcello Oliverio for allowing me to access their organizations’ archives and helping me find the materials I needed for this project. I would not have been able to get through the full bookshelves at the Burns Bog Conservation Society without Nikolai and Marcello’s guidance. I especially appreciate the help and support of Darryl as I spent several weeks in his office going through newspaper clippings, government reports, and books. He provided context for many of the documents I was working through, which made the research much easier and clearer. I also want to thank my union, CUPE 3903. During the first year of my masters, we went on strike and I became part of a wider community of activists, scholars, and fellow graduate students who were passionate about social justice and willing stand together to fight for the best supports possible for all of us. I want to thank my parents and my sister Linzy for their encouragement through this process, and their patience when I had to miss out on family activities in order to write. And thanks especially to my uncle and aunt, Bob and Ophelia, who housed and fed me for the month I spent in the Lower Mainland conducting research. Finally, I want to thank my partner Josh for everything. They were my sounding board and copy- editor throughout this process. They have been there for me through the late nights and exhausting rewrites. I could not have done this without them. iii Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................ 6 Wetland histories ..................................................................................................... 7 Theoretical Interventions ....................................................................................... 14 Methodology .......................................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................................... 30 From sea to marsh to bog ...................................................................................... 31 Pre-colonial Indigenous bog relations .................................................................. 33 Settling the bog ...................................................................................................... 38 Burns gives his namesake ...................................................................................... 43 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 49 Chapter 3 .......................................................................................................................... 50 For peat’s sake .....................................................................................................

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