VANCOUVER LECTURE: J.I. Little - At the Wilderness Edge

Vancouver Public Library - Central Library, 350 W Georgia St, Vancouver, BC
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J.I. Little will give a lecture on his book, At the Wilderness Edge: The Rise of the Antidevelopment Movement on Canada's West Coast, as part of the the Vancouver Public Library's Thinking Forward series. The event will be moderated by journalist and UBC adjunct professor Frances Bula. J.I. Little is professor emeritus in the Department of History at Simon Fraser University.

ABOUT THE BOOK

At the Wilderness Edge examines five antidevelopment campaigns in and around Vancouver that reflected a dramatic decline in public support for large-scale commercial and industrial projects. J.I. Little describes the highly effective protests that were instrumental in preserving threatened green spaces on Coal Harbour, Hollyburn Ridge, Bowen Island, Gambier Island, and the Squamish estuary, keeping these important British Columbia landmarks from becoming a high-rise development project, a downhill ski resort, a suburban housing tract, an open-pit copper mine, and a major coal port, respectively. Through detailed analysis of development proposals and protests, government studies, and community responses, Little argues that it was not the usual suspects - 1960s radicalism and anti-establishment youth culture - that initiated and carried out these protests, but rather middle-aged, middle-class, politically engaged citizens, many of whom were women.