Introduction
The great wilderness was another Victorian idea that led many of the aristocratic men to hunt large beast to fulfill a personal quarry. Although most of aristocrats were primarily sporting hunters some were adventures and searched for new areas and animals that could be names by them. This “romanticized”[1] idea of nature and how it was undiscovered spurred large groups of men to continue exploring even after colonization; however what had changed in these explorations was where these men and women were going. These new locations were found up north were white men were not settling yet due to the harsh climate/ weather that could be found there, the animals being more migratory which lead to less sustainable food sources, and overall a lower survivability chance. Although most Europeans were failing to colonize the North that did not mean that the North was void of human life. Some Indigenous people did live up north and were willing to help European settlers. But after policy and law creations Native rights towards certain animals indigenous people become sparse and forced new sedentary lifestyles to be adopted; which we can later see allows for the assimilation of the native culture into Canadian society while preventing complete assimilation.[2] However ideas presented in the in other texts like “Pike’s contrast between Native hunting practices and his own “clean” kill presages an entire tradition of critical commentary concerning the “needless slaughter” and “reckless” hunting practices of Native people in the North”[3] still show the falsified European ideas of the wasteful natives. These ideas presented by the Europeans have continually created boundaries for those they look down upon. While some Europeans were not looked down upon English women that did not prevent them from being discriminated against, as seen in all areas of society women are beneath the men in almost every societal group except the natives. As seen in the early years the only times were women would expand into new areas of work is in times of crisis like the world wars. Where “a women going out to work to pack sausages, empty bed pans, type memos, or wait on tables was confronted with an array of diverse and sometimes conflicting images of herself as a “worker.””[4] These issues show that multiply images impacted many different aspects of Canadian society and it was not just Europeans that suffered, but natives, men and women that suffered from all forms of assimilation.
[1] Jessup, “The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or The More Things Change,” Journal of Canadian Studies: 37,1 (2002):147.
[2] Jessup, “The Group of Seven and the Tourist Landscape in Western Canada, or The More Things Change,” Journal of Canadian Studies: 37,1 (2002):149.
[3] Fahrni, “The Romance of Reunion: Montreal War Veterans Return to Family Life, 1944-1949,”Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 9,1 (1998): 192.
[4] Sangster, Joan. 2010. Transforming labour : women and work in post-war Canada. n.p.: Toronto ; Buffalo : University of Toronto Press, c2010., 2010, 17.
