Supported by a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant Between UNB Atlantic Canada Studies and UPEI GeoREACH Lab
Ecologies, Knowledge, and Power in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Region, c.1500-present
Ethnically diverse communities encircle the Gulf of St. Lawrence and constitute one of the most culturally and jurisdictionally complex regions of Canada. And yet we know little about them. For millennia, Innu and Mi’kmaq communities have been located on the Gulf littoral. NunatuKavut, the territory of the Southern Inuit in Labrador, adjoins the northeastern Gulf. Acadians have lived and worked in and around the region, first settling during the French regime. Later, Gaelic-speaking Highland Scots and Irish interspersed their settlements along the same coasts as the Acadians. On Newfoundland’s Gulf coast, French fishers were the predominant European presence until the late 19th century when anglophone settlers moved in. Throughout the Gulf are found many linguistic communities, including English, French, Mi’kmaq, Innu, and Gaelic, some speaking dialects which have been lost elsewhere in the world. Jurisdictionally, the Gulf region was one of the first parts of North America that Europeans frequented, and since those early arrivals imperial and international disputes over rights to extract wealth from its waters have ensued. In the late 18th century, the British imperial government delegated local governance to four colonies on the Gulf – Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Quebec, with a fifth, Newfoundland, formally becoming a colony in the 1820s. By the early 19th century, 75 percent of all British trade with British North Americans transited the Gulf on its way into the St. Lawrence River—Great Lakes watershed where half of Canada’s population now lives. Yet, in four of five provinces, the Gulf region is a marginal area to the power structure. Prince Edward Island, entirely within the Gulf, is the exception; its capital, Charlottetown, is the largest urban centre on the Gulf, but at 40,000, it has little power beyond the province’s borders. Rather Eurowestern interests have projected economic and political power into the Gulf for a half millennium, whether from Europe, the United States, or Central Canada, and from provincial-level governments whose Gulf-facing regions are politically marginal. “Ecologies, Knowledge, and Power” seeks to understand this remarkable diversity through Gulf-centric collaborative research.
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As part of this ongoing partnership project, contributors and research associates are developing a series of blogs, databases, and digital resources that explore different aspects of the history of the Gulf of St. Lawrence as a distinct region characterized by unique environments, knowledges, and relationships that have shaped the different geographies, jurisdictions, and peoples who traverse that space.
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On the NiCHE Blog, Elizabeth Mancke and Joshua MacFadyen introduce “Ecologies, Knowledge, and Power in the Gulf of St. Lawrence Region, c.1500-Present,” a collaborative project bringing together the work of over 30 researchers and academics, many of whom are emerging scholars.
On the Acadiensis Blog, Nicolas Landry explore some realities of the ways Acadians integrated the Atlantic economy after the Expulsion of 1755-63. Although the fisheries became predominant all along the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast, Acadians also got involved in agriculture, forest industry, shipbuilding, etc.
On the Acadiensis Blog, Nicolas Landry with a short Survey which to acknowledge the phenomenon of commemoration, regarding the return of Acadians around the Gulf of St-Lawrence after the Expulsion of 1755-63. Our choices are limited to the coastal communities of Atlantic Canada where traces of past pioneers are still tangible with monuments, plaques and celebrations.