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The largest estuary in the world, the Gulf of St Lawrence is defined broadly by an ecology that stretches from the upper reaches of the St Lawrence River to the Gulf Stream, and by a web of influences that reach from the heart of the continent to northern Europe. For more than a millennium, the gulf's strategic location and rich marine resources have made it a destination and a gateway, a cockpit and a crossroads, and a highway and a home.
From Vinland the Good to the novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the Gulf has haunted the Western imagination. A transborder collaboration between Canadian and American scholars, The Greater Gulf represents the first concerted exploration of the environmental history - marine and terrestrial - of the Gulf of St Lawrence. Contributors tell many histories of a place that has been fished, fought over, explored, and exploited. The essays' defining themes resonate in today's charged atmosphere of quickening climate change as they recount stories of resilience played against ecological fragility, resistance at odds with accommodation, considered versus reckless exploitation, and real, imagined, and imposed identities.
Reconsidering perceptions about borders and the spaces between and across land and sea, The Greater Gulf draws attention to a central place and part of North Atlantic and North American history.
Contributors include Rainer Baehre (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Jack Bouchard (Folger Institute), Claire Campbell (Bucknell University), Caitlin Charman (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Jack Little (Simon Fraser University), Edward MacDonald (University of Prince Edward Island), Matthew McKenzie (University of Connecticut), Suzanne Morton (McGill University), Brian Payne (Bridgewater State University), John G. Reid (St. Mary's University), and Daniel Soucier (University of Maine).
“This book is the product of a lively community of Canadian and American historians who share an interest in the transnational construction of a regional identity, and who know how to tell a collective story about a place that encompasses diverse shores and histories. Such stories can be told, with variations, about many places. But the Gulf certainly belongs at the centre of historical inquiries into how these stories are made, and by whom.” Histoire sociale/Social History
"This book reminds us that strong currents and heavy fog force us to reorient ourselves geographically. And perhaps the stench of cod flakes, canneries, and the coal smoke from a Boston steamer encourages us to think more deeply about the ways humans have shaped the sea over the long sweep of time." American Review of Canadian Studies
"The editors have successfully demonstrated a unity and have provided a thoughtful overview, not merely justifying, but celebrating, the deeper study of the Gulf, no matter how defined. Rather than being the last word in the environmental history of a region, these essays should stimulate research of other locations where the contact between land and sea combines natural and human history to create a unique narrative." The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord
"Environmental historians, historians of Atlantic Canada and New England, and Canadian historians will find much of value in these pages. The essays are clear and engaging." Kurt Korneski, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Edward MacDonald is professor of history at the University of Prince Edward Island and coeditor of several edited collections on environmental history of Atlantic Canada.
Brian Payne (Editor)
Brian Payne is professor of history and Canadian studies at Bridgewater State University.