Mayer, F.;
Bernbaum, P.;
(2023)
Defining wilderness: the evolution of Banff National Park.
Architecture_MPS
, 26
(1)
, Article 3. 10.14324/111.444.amps.2023v26i1.003.
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Abstract
Internationally, Canada is a country known for its iconic, expansive landscapes. Images of the Rocky Mountains and destinations such as Lake Louise and Banff are instantly recognisable, drawing visitors from around the world each year. Wilderness is a term that has become irrevocably linked to Canadian national identity and Canadian culture. Nowhere is the significance of wilderness within Canadian culture and history more visible than in the country’s vast network of provincial and national parks. This article explores the history of Canada’s oldest national park, Banff, and the creation and evolution of its boundaries. It explores how park boundaries act as spatial tools to project legal frameworks and cultural values, creating landscapes and an experience of place rather than simply preserving existing conditions or ecologies. The history of Banff National Park is also used to explore the broader implications that idealised or romanticised notions of wild spaces have had in shaping Canadian cultural values, which in turn have shaped attitudes towards landscapes and the defining of landscapes into industrialised zones and zones of conservation. Fundamentally an architectural study of site, this article explores the evolution of the national park boundaries of Banff through their interactions with industrial interests, cultural landmarks and historical narratives, dissecting their capacities to control intensely layered and contested areas. Through a study of the park boundary and the forces that have shaped it over time, the dynamics of power, exclusion, exploitation and commercialisation inherent to the definition of landscapes and boundaries are investigated.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Defining wilderness: the evolution of Banff National Park |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.444.amps.2023v26i1.003 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.amps.2023v26i1.00... |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023, Felix Mayer and Piper Bernbaum. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
| Keywords: | wilderness, national parks, boundaries, conservation, borders, Canada, tourism |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10186476 |
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