The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow
Alberta's iconic river has been dammed and plumbed, made to spin hydro-electric turbines, and used to cleanse Calgary. Artificial lakes in the mountains rearrange its flow; downstream weirs and ditches divert it to irrigate the parched prairie. Far from being wild, the Bow is now very much a human product: its fish are as manufactured as its altered flow, changed water quality, and newly stabilized and forested banks. The River Returns brings the story of the Bow River's transformation full circle through an exploration of the recent revolution in environmental thinking and regulation that has led to new limits on what might be done with and to the river. Rivers have been studied from many perspectives, but too often the relationship between nature and people, between rivers and the cultures that have grown up beside them, have been separated. The River Returns illuminates the ways in which humans, both inadvertently and consciously, have interacted with nature to make the Bow.
1101364485
The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow
Alberta's iconic river has been dammed and plumbed, made to spin hydro-electric turbines, and used to cleanse Calgary. Artificial lakes in the mountains rearrange its flow; downstream weirs and ditches divert it to irrigate the parched prairie. Far from being wild, the Bow is now very much a human product: its fish are as manufactured as its altered flow, changed water quality, and newly stabilized and forested banks. The River Returns brings the story of the Bow River's transformation full circle through an exploration of the recent revolution in environmental thinking and regulation that has led to new limits on what might be done with and to the river. Rivers have been studied from many perspectives, but too often the relationship between nature and people, between rivers and the cultures that have grown up beside them, have been separated. The River Returns illuminates the ways in which humans, both inadvertently and consciously, have interacted with nature to make the Bow.
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The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow

The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow

The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow

The River Returns: An Environmental History of the Bow

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Overview

Alberta's iconic river has been dammed and plumbed, made to spin hydro-electric turbines, and used to cleanse Calgary. Artificial lakes in the mountains rearrange its flow; downstream weirs and ditches divert it to irrigate the parched prairie. Far from being wild, the Bow is now very much a human product: its fish are as manufactured as its altered flow, changed water quality, and newly stabilized and forested banks. The River Returns brings the story of the Bow River's transformation full circle through an exploration of the recent revolution in environmental thinking and regulation that has led to new limits on what might be done with and to the river. Rivers have been studied from many perspectives, but too often the relationship between nature and people, between rivers and the cultures that have grown up beside them, have been separated. The River Returns illuminates the ways in which humans, both inadvertently and consciously, have interacted with nature to make the Bow.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780773581449
Publisher: McGill-Queens University Press
Publication date: 10/14/2009
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
File size: 9 MB

About the Author

Christopher Armstrong is professor emeritus of history at York University.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Abbreviations xiii

1 Discovery 3

2 Homeland and Margin 24

3 Home on the Range and River 45

4 The Wooden River 86

5 Power and Flow 119

6 Watering a Dry Country 152

7 The Sanitary Imperative 187

8 The Fishing River 218

9 Overflow 242

10 Building Banff 271

11 Greening Alberta 297

12 Water Powers 325

13 Who Has Seen the River? 358

Conclusion 386

Appendix: Calgary Power-Generating Capability in the Bow Watershed, 1911-1960 395

Notes 397

Acknowledgments 473

Index 477

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