Posted: April 10th, 2015

Historians and Historical Geographers

Historians and Historical Geographers

Length: 1000 words            Due: In class, April 14        10%
Historians and historical geographers of early Canada may deal with the same time period and people, but they do so in somewhat different ways.  In this exercise, you will read Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the text The Peoples of Canada as well as Chapters 1, 2, and 4 in Cole Harris’ The Reluctant Land.  Look critically at, i.e. compare and contrast, how each treats some aspects of the aboriginal and European experience up to 1700.  In the following questions, you will also be asked to comment on how (or if) their approaches can be combined in order to give us greater insights into the past.
Note: You do not need to buy The Reluctant Land – it is available as an e-book on the KPU Library site.
According to Cole Harris, the main difference in a historical geographer’s approach to the past is different from that of a historian in which respects?
1.    Sources: How do Bumstead and Harris differ on the sources they use, and how they use them?
2.    How do each deal with political aspects? Who gives greater emphasis to this aspect of history?
3.    If Harris and Bumstead differ on their approaches to economic questions, how do they do so?
4.     One of the most important differences between Bumstead and Harris is their treatment of individuals and groups.  Please explain the differences in how they discuss the aboriginal experience, the fishers in Newfoundland, the Acadians, and the colonists of New France.
5.    What do you learn from the Harris account of the period that you do not find in The Peoples of Canada?  Similarly, what insights do you find in the approach taken by the historians in The Peoples of Canada  that you would not get if you relied only on Harris?
6.    If the approaches could be combined, pick one of the human groups noted in question 4 and explain what an account of them would look like.