By the Way...

A busy day today finds me putting the posts off until tomorrow, but in the meantime, I can respond to an e-mailed question:

Q: "I thought Algonquin was a provincial park.  How come you kept referring to it as a national park?"

A: The 1893 piece of legislation creating the park was known as the "Algonquin National Park Act" even though control and responsibilities regarding the park fell largely under Ontario's jurisdiction.  While the concept of state and provincial parks was not entirely a novel one (Yosemite had actually been under the control of the state of California since the 1860's), the conservation movement made most of its political strides in both the United States and Canada largely under a helpful federal government.  The states and provinces tended to favor economic development and wanted to protect their interests against conservationists who usually hailed from areas far away from theirs.

The Americans, for example, were largely Ivy-league educated naturalists from the east coast.   You can see how someone in Oregon or Colorado would get upset about an "interloper" from that far away.  Conservationists were usually derided as "do-gooders" and idealists who wanted to interfere with the politics of the locals.  Needless to say, this problem also existed in Canada, the land of strong provincial freedoms.  Ottawa had their role in creating Algonquin, but the province had to be the one to carry the act through.  In 1913 the name of the park was changed to Algonquin Provincial Park, pretty much because it was in all but name.  That said, many people would continue to refer to it, as well as Quetico and Rondeau provincial parks as national parks well into the twentieth century.  When you think about it, the scale and fame of Algonquin are more in line with parks like Yosemite and Yellowstone than your average state park (this is not meant to be a slam on state/provincial parks, some of which are just as world class as the national sites).

As I mentioned a week or so ago, I am heading north to Algonquin on the 31st.  I have a fully loaded and ready camera with me for the trip, intent on making up for years of not liking cameras (I know, I know, silly me).  Be sure to check back on the second week of September to see August posts enhanced with fresh pictures!  I can't let the McElroys do all the work, after all.