Sensing Changes parr.indd 1 17/11/2009 3:27:23 PM The Nature | History | Society series is devoted to the publication of high-quality scholarship in environmental history and allied fields. Its broad compass is signalled by its title: nature because it takes the natural world seriously; history because it aims to foster work that has temporal depth; and society because its essential concern is with the interface between nature and society, broadly conceived. The series is avowedly interdisciplinary and is open to the work of anthropologists, ecologists, historians, geographers, literary scholars, political scientists, sociolo- gists, and others whose interests resonate with its mandate. It offers a timely outlet for lively, innovative, and well-written work on the interaction of people and nature through time in North America. General Editor: Graeme Wynn, University of British Columbia Claire Elizabeth Campbell, Shaped by the West Wind: Nature and History in Georgian Bay Tina Loo, States of Nature: Conserving Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century Jamie Benidickson, The Culture of Flushing: A Social and Legal History of Sewage William J. Turkel, The Archive of Place: Unearthing the Pasts of the Chilcotin Plateau John Sandlos, Hunters at the Margin: Native People and Wildlife Conservation in the Northwest Territories James Murton, Creating a Modern Countryside: Liberalism and Land Resettlement in British Columbia Greg Gillespie, Hunting for Empire: Narratives of Sport in Rupert’s Land, 1840-70 Stephen J. Pyne, Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada Hans M. Carlson, Home Is the Hunter, The James Bay Cree and Their Land Liza Piper, The Industrial Transformation of Subarctic Canada Sharon Wall, The Nurture of Nature: Childhood, Antimodernism, and Ontario Summer Camps, 1920-55 Jamie Linton, What Is Water? The History of a Modern Abstraction parr.indd 2 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM Sensing Changes Technologies, Environments, and the Everyday, 1953-2003 joy parr http://megaprojects.uwo.ca with new media by Jon van der Veen foreword by graeme wynn UBC Press • Vancouver • Toronto parr.indd 3 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM © UBC Press 2010 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), www.accesscopyright.ca. 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Canada on FSC-certified ancient-forest-free paper (100% post-consumer recycled) that is processed chlorine- and acid-free. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Parr, Joy, 1949- Sensing changes : technologies, environments, and the everyday, 1953-2003 / Joy Parr ; foreword by Graeme Wynn. “http://megaprojects.uwo.ca, with new media by Jon van der Veen”. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7748-1723-3 1. Economic development projects – Environmental aspects – Canada. 2. Economic development projects – Social aspects – Canada. 3. Ecological disturbances – Canada. 4. Human ecology – Canada. 5. Human beings – Effect of environment on – Canada. 6. Nature – Effect of human beings on – Canada. 7. Human ecology – History. 8. Traditional ecological knowledge. I. Title. HM856.P37 2010 304.20971 C2009-906370-0 UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publishing program provided by the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Pro- gramme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The author acknowledges the assistance of the J.B. Smallman Publication Fund, and the Faculty of Social Science, The University of Western Ontario. A reasonable attempt has been made to secure permission to reproduce all material used. If there are errors or omissions, they are wholly unintentional and the publisher would be grateful to learn of them. UBC Press The University of British Columbia 2029 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z2 www.ubcpress.ca parr.indd 4 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM In grateful memory of Athnasios (Tom) Asimakopulos (1930-90), McGill University economist, enthusiast, whose teaching of theory made us attend, first and last, to the assumptions through which we simplified the material world. parr.indd 5 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM parr.indd 6 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM Contents Illustrations / ix Foreword / xi Graeme Wynn The Megaprojects New Media Series / xxiii Jon van der Veen Acknowledgments / xxv 1 Introduction Embodied Histories / 1 2 Place and Citizenship Woodlands, Meadows, and a Military Training Ground: The NATO Base at Gagetown / 25 3 Safety and Sight Working Knowledge of the Insensible: Radiation Protection in Nuclear Power Plants, 1962-92 / 53 4 Movement and Sound A Walking Village Remade: Iroquois and the St. Lawrence Seaway / 79 parr.indd 7 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM viii Contents 5 Time and Scale A River Becomes a Reservoir: The Arrow Lakes and the Damming of the Columbia / 103 6 Smell and Risk Uncertainty along a Great Lakes Shoreline: Hydrogen Sulphide and the Production of Heavy Water / 137 7 Taste and Expertise Local Water Diversely Known: The E. coli Contamination in Walkerton 2000 and After / 163 8 Conclusion Historically Specific Bodies / 189 Notes / 199 Select Bibliography / 243 Index / 254 parr.indd 8 17/11/2009 3:27:24 PM