Arcadia in Peril

This little book—short enough to be read at a single sitting, small enough to fit into one’s jacket pocket—has big ambitions. It is really three essays in one: a manifesto announcing an ecologically based view of Western Canadian history, a lament for a lost community and advice on how to resist the forces of “hyper-development,” the rapid urbanization of once cosy rural mountain communities. Tying these parts together is an argument about the importance of a sense of place and identity when we confront threats to the communities we love.

Robert William Sandford is an ecological historian and an expert in regional water issues who teaches at the University of Lethbridge and lives in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. He is a regional patriot and, as he says of himself, he has spent “the better part of a lifetime articulating and sharing the nature, history, and culture of the Canadian Rockies.” Yet the book is suffused with a sense of frustration and deep regret...