Environmental History: Subsistence, Science, and Capitalism

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing key concepts, historical figures, technologies, and ecological transitions in Canadian environmental history from pre-colonial subsistence to industrial capitalism.

Environmental History

The field of study that examines the dynamic relationship and ongoing interactions between humans and the natural world.

Subsistence

The means people use to survive by relying directly on their local environments to obtain basic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and materials.

Athabasca Glacier

A Canadian glacier whose continuous retreat serves as physical evidence demonstrating the modern effects of regional warming.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

A massive accumulation of floating plastic and non-biodegradable waste concentrated by ocean currents, which breaks down into microplastics that enter ecosystems and food chains.

Natural Conservatism

The misleading historical assumption that Indigenous societies lived in complete harmony with nature and exerted minimal to no impact on their surrounding environments.

Swidden Agriculture

A farming technique (also termed slash-and-burn) where standing vegetation is cleared and burned to replenish soil nutrients before planting crops in mounds.

Three Sisters

The core agricultural companion planting complex composed of maize, beans, and squash cultivated by Indigenous nations such as the Wendat.

Acadian Dykes

Earthworks constructed along the Bay of Fundy to hold back seawater and convert coastal tidal wetlands into arable agricultural land without excessive salt damage.

Seigneurial Landholding

A French colonial land tenure system in Quebec where large land estates held by seigneurs were subdivided into long, narrow strip farms rented to peasant tenant farmers (habitants).

Clovis Points

Distinctive fluted stone tools dating to approximately $13{,}500\text{ BP}$ that provide widespread archaeological evidence of Paleoindians in North America.

Broad Spectrum Revolution

An archaeological horizon occurring around $8{,}000\text{ BCE}$ characterized by the expansion of human diets to include a broader variety of resources, such as nuts and seeds.

Thule Peoples

The direct ancestors of the modern Inuit who arrived in northern North America around $900\text{ CE}$.

Local / Situated Knowledge

An experiential, place-specific knowledge system developed through direct observation and intergenerational transmission to sustain regional survival and resource use.

Imperial Science

The systematic collection, mapping, surveying, and classification of natural resources and specimens to produce transportable knowledge that supports colonization, governance, and commerce.

Michael Sarrazin

A naturalist who arrived in New France in $1697$ and established links with prominent French scientific institutions, including the Académie royale des sciences and the Jardin du Roi.

John Richardson

A naturalist who accompanied John Franklin on northern expeditions in $1821\text{–}1823$ and $1824\text{–}1827$, and documented Arctic biology in Fauna Boreali-Americana.

William Logan

The head of the Geological Survey of Canada who mapped and identified the Laurentian and Huronian rock formations.

Catharine Parr Traill

A Canadian settler and botanist who blended direct settlement experience with formal science, authoring Studies of Plant Life in Canada ($1885$).

Gilbert White

The English author of The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne ($1789$) who pioneered the close observation of interactions and ecological relationships between plants and animals.

Capitalism

An economic system organized around private property, commodity production for market exchange, competitive pricing, and capital accumulation.

Enclosure

The historical process of converting open fields and customary communal lands into privately controlled, fenced property, thereby creating a class of wage-dependent laborers.

Agrarian Capitalism

An agricultural regime that developed in England by the mid-$1600\text{s}$ focused on private land, competitive agricultural markets, labor efficiency, and production for profit rather than subsistence.

Industrial Capitalism

A phase of capitalism emerging in the late $1700\text{s}$ characterized by factory mechanization, wage labor, mass commodity production, and intensified extraction of raw materials.

Pemmican

A durable food supply made from dried meat and animal fat that served as a critical trade commodity powering voyageur travel and commercial fur trade networks.

Monopsony

A market condition where a single dominant buyer exercises control over prices, exemplified by fur-trading corporations dictating purchase terms to Indigenous hunters.

Planters

Fishing families in the Newfoundland cod fishery who organized direct fishing operations while relying heavily on mercantile credit for gear and essential supplies.

Cod Seines

Large commercial fishing nets deployed in the Newfoundland fishery to encircle and land aggregations of cod.

Bultows

Long fishing lines rigged with multiple baited hooks that reduced labor demands and were actively promoted by the government in the Newfoundland cod fishery during the $1840\text{s}$.

Organic City

An early nineteenth-century urban environment closely intertwined with surrounding nature, characterized by roaming livestock, household waste, and direct dependence on local wells and streams.

The Great Epizootic (1872–1873)

A virulent outbreak of equine distemper that swept through dense populations of urban working horses in Canadian cities, highlighting the unique ecological dynamics of industrial urban centers.