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Forillon National Park, Quebec

Desirée Valadares

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deals with a more crowded settlement landscape and so the acquiring of land from individual landholders is an issue. It was a bit different in the west as park or defence status preceded settlement. M T: I have thought about the national park system in the US as a sort of sterilized nature before

were historic lodges that supported tourism areas of sparse habitation. This piece makes me realise there are questions about those boundaries and grandfathered settlements. It’s very easy for North Americans to accept the park system as a benevolent one because we pride ourselves on prioritising nature. Defining nature isn’t something most people do. This piece lays the groundwork for readers to be critical of that system. A M: a reference: Giuseppe Licari through his intervention raises

questions on the origins and the ‘ownership’ of the Tuscan landscape. He brings attention to the fact that the landscape praised for its natural qualities is actually designed, then protected and left to the forces of nature. A O’C: I think this question of wilderness, parks, and the formalisation of structures and ownership within the landscape is very relevant to this discussion. Similar to Stephanie’s comparison of Maritime and western national parks in Canada, the formation of national

Desiree mentions that US national parks excluded aboriginal people: surely this is an issue of ownership and how the land was divvied up for settlement. I don’t know about the US, but for Canada who was assigned what land seems to have been conducted in the abstract in Ottawa between various administrative departments. And as it was all one government, it is almost as if it was seen as nominal Crown land, ‘leased’ out to either First Nations, the Canadian Armed Forces or Parks Canada. Desiree’s discussion, being in the Maritimes,

but never though much about the exclusivity that comes with it. I spent the weekend at

Olympia National Park in Washington state, I noted that large portions of the peninsula were devoted to native lands. There

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