This week our Environmental History class (ERST-CAST-HIST 4670H) moved outside, to do a field trip into one of the nature areas on the Trent campus. It was a lovely sunny day for a walk, and we made the most of it -- spending about 2 hours examining the landscape, and considering what it can tell us about the environmental history of our campus and our region.
This place has a quite rich environmental history, encompassing European settlement, land clearing and the formation of a farming economy, and the later creation of the university and its nature areas. So there are opportunities to think about different land uses, and the interaction between human intentions and the geological and ecological dynamics of the region.
We started in the classroom, with a few ideas about observing the land, and situating it within the the larger networks of mobility (of people, species, commodities) that connect this place to the rest of the world:
Next, we moved outside, walking, and stopping at about 15 different sites, each of which tell a story about the environmental history of the campus and region. These images give some hints of what we talked about:
Loyal Orange Lodge, built 1852 -- once in centre of Nassau Mills, a now vanished community on the Trent campus
Glacial erratics -- remnants of the last ice age
Line of cedars and remains of old fence
Trail through cedar grove -- ecological succession on farm field abandoned in 1960s
Driveway leading to house, abandoned in early 1970s
Tree stump hardened by fire -- likely many decades old, charcoal mainly on one side, likely where leaf debris accumulated -- result of a lightening strike?
House site, with domesticated plants, abandoned in 1970s when nature reserve created
Foundation of house, abandoned in early 1970s
Large rocks by side of field -- unforgiving terrain for farming
Abandoned farm field, with successional plant community -- note contrast with cedar grove nearby
Apple tree -- multiple trunks suggesting this field once pasture, with sprouts browsed by cattle
Old fence -- style typical of mid-1800s
Rock pile by side of field, likely used to mark property line and as cattle fence; note mix of large and small stones -- indicating adjoining land was plowed?
Weir built in 1970s for hydrological study, abandoned since 1990s
Rocks by side of field, covered with lichen -- useful for dating
Black walnuts -- usually found in Carolinian region (not here), so likely planted
Trees uprooted in 1996 windstorm -- the significance of sudden events
Contrasting types of tree stump: hardwoods rot from the inside out, softwoods from the outside in
Rockbar -- created when the Otonabee River was a glacial outlet (and much, much bigger than today), c. 8000 BP
As Donald Worster once wrote: doing environmental history also involves putting on one's walking shoes, and heading out -- and certainly there's no better way to spend the day!
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