THE GRADUATE HISTORY REVIEW VOLUME 5, NO. 1 EDITION: 2016 Copyright © 2016 Authors contributing to The Graduate History Review agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported licence. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear. Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication. The articles in this edition are also published online as The Graduate History Review 5, no. 1. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. ― The opinions expressed in The GHR are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Editors or the UVic History Department. While every effort is made by the Editorial Board to ensure that The GHR contains no inaccurate or misleading citations, opinions or statements, the information and opinions contained within are the sole responsibility of the authors. Accordingly, the Publisher, the Editorial Board, the Editors and their respective employees and volunteers accept no responsibility or liability for the consequences of any inaccurate or misleading information, opinion or statement. ii EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Meghan Kort ASSISTANT EDITOR Ezekiel Gow FACULTY ADVISOR Dr. Penny Bryden EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Kalin Bullman, M. Blake Butler, Deborah Deacon, Jack Hoskins, Adam Kostrich, Matthew Miskulin, Rhiannon Murphy COPY EDITORS Deborah Deacon, Ezekiel Gow, Meghan Kort, Noah Miller, Matthew Miskulin, Bonnie Sawyer We gratefully acknowledge the support of: The University of Victoria History Department Faculty and Staff The Graduate History Students’ Union The University of Victoria Graduate Students’ Society Inba Kehoe Noah Miller iii CONTACT Connect with The GHR throughout the year: Web: ghrjournal.wordpress.com Facebook: facebook.com/thegraduatehistoryreview Twitter: @gradhistreview Email: [email protected] SUBMISSIONS The GHR offers an exciting publishing opportunity for graduate students working on all fields and periods of history. We welcome original and innovative submissions from emerging scholars in history and related disciplines across Canada and the United States. PUBLISHING The GHR is a peer-reviewed, open access journal published by graduate students at the University of Victoria. The journal is printed annually at Victoria, BC by the University of Victoria Printing Services. The GHR is published online through the UVic Journal Publishing Services at http://www.uvic.ca/print. COVER IMAGE The cover of this issue of The GHR is a photograph taken by Andrew P. Hill between 1880-1920 in Big Basin, California. The image captures the enchantment of a Pacific Northwest cedar forest, reflecting The GHR’s roots on Vancouver Island. This public domain image was made available through the Rijksmuseum’s Rijksstudio program. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Front Matter President’s Message vi Chair’s Message vii Editor’s Introduction viii Research Notes Setting the Starting Line of Global History: The Case for 1400 11 Articles The Laws of Nature, State or Federal?: A Legal History of the Informal Transition of Responsibility over Environmental Policy in the Australian Commonwealth, 1974 – 1983 23 Possibilities for Intersectional Theorizing in Canadian Historiography: The Subaltern Narrative of Canadian Medical Schools 46 The Final Nail: The Russians in 1916 83 The Unsaid of the Grand Dérangement: An Analysis of Outsider and Regional Interpretations of Acadian History 115 Of Grey Geese and Burning Lawyers: The Structures of the Feud System in Viking Age Iceland 139 Each Star Has a Story: An Ethnographic Study of Indigenous Astronomical Knowledge in the Pacific Northwest, ca. 1900 169 v President’s Message I am pleased to introduce this issue of the Graduate History Review, the University of Victoria’s graduate journal. UVic is home to dynamic researchers with extraordinary ideas. Our university is committed to providing students with a fully immersed, research-enriched academic environment that empowers students to explore and create knowledge alongside their peers and mentors. An education in humanities is a great foundation for academic learning, critical and creative thinking, developing communication skills, and for creating innovative and active citizens. The Graduate History Review features some of our finest graduate researchers. This year’s publication takes us on a journey to Medieval Iceland, pre-communist Russia, modern Australia, and back again, with research topics on Canadian history. The articles represent the diversity of historical thought and study on campus that contributes to new perspectives and ongoing debate and dialogue. This issue also highlights the collaboration between graduate students and faculty members from the UVic History and Art History departments who worked together to bring the publication to completion. The result is an excellent collection of work from students who are directly engaged in research-inspired learning. Congratulations and thank you to the many dedicated UVic graduate students, faculty advisors and mentors for sharing their passion for history and research. Sincerely, Professor Jamie Cassels, QC President and Vice-Chancellor University of Victoria vi Chair’s Message What a pleasure to see a new issue of the Graduate History Review! As chair of the History Department I have a mandate to foster excellence in research, outstanding teaching, and the richest possible student experience. The GHR is what happens when all of these things come together perfectly. This journal is not just a collection of the excellent work produced in our department by graduate student scholars, it is also a hologram of the UVic Department of History showing, from different angles, its better qualities. The best of graduate student writing is research that merits a wide audience and is of interest to many. The existence of so many high caliber articles speaks both to the quality of the students and the commitment to graduate teaching exhibited by History faculty. And the opportunity to experience both the role of an editor, peer reviewer, and to have one’s work carefully edited are examples of rich, experiential educational opportunities. The GHR is also an example of other qualities of our department that we can all celebrate: a strong culture of student-faculty collaboration—eleven faculty and twenty-two students did peer reviews or otherwise contributed to the editorial work; a commitment to interdisciplinarity drawing, as it does, from anthropology, biology, cultural studies, linguistics and from across the historical spectrum; and a wide-ranging, open-minded perspective on history that encompasses the globe. Finally, this journal is a gift on the part of the authors and editorial team who laboured long and hard to bring it to you in this engaging format. Congratulations and thanks for this rich offering! John Lutz, professor and chair Department of History University of Victoria vii Editor’s Introduction I am delighted to introduce the fifth edition of The Graduate History Review! This issue represents a turning point in The GHR’s publishing history. In 2009, this journal began as a collection of the finest graduate work from UVic’s annual Qualicum conference. Today, the journal publishes high-quality graduate work from across Canada and the United States in various fields and periods of history. This current issue also marks a revival, as the last issue of The GHR was published in 2012. This publishing gap reflects some of the turbulence of graduate life, as editors and journal managers graduated or moved on to other projects. About two years ago, an enthusiastic group of UVic grad students, led by Noah Miller, sought to revive the journal. I have no doubt that this issue would not exist if it were not for Noah’s passion, vision, and dedication. This year’s issue, which includes one research note and six articles, is also full of ‘turning points.’ In the first piece, Cassandra Painter critiques the long-standing notion that ca. 1500 marks the divide between medieval and early modern. She challenges instructors of World History courses to rethink periodization, and consider ca. 1400 as a more suitable starting point. Next, Blake Allen examines the complexities of Australian federalism. In his article, Allen identifies key pieces of government legislation which left lasting impacts on the country’s environmental governance. Institutional turning points also feature prominently in Taqdir Bhandal’s critical narrative of the colonial and patriarchal history of Canada’s medical schools. Her article tackles a long and complicated history, beginning with Indigenous systems of healing and ending with the corporatization, marketization, and privatization of medical knowledge. The next two articles speak to well-known historical turning points: the 1916 Russian Revolution and the Grand Dérangement, also known as the Acadian Deportation. In the first of these articles, Jeffrey Maciejewski makes a strong case for a fundamental shift in Russia’s socio-economic foundation viii prior to the 1916 Russian revolution. In the second,