French settlers distanced the indigenous people and flora and fauna to create a landscape that by the mid-eighteenth century had become recognizably European. British industrialists and landowners attempted similar appropriations with far less durable results and the area remained a heartland of French-Canadian life, with a sense of cohesive community. This community spirit, rooted in agrarian landscape, was channelled into the developing sense of colonial nationalism of the 1820s and 1830s. Drawing on maps by explorers and surveyors, correspondence documenting the conflict between a backwoods priest and his parishioners, a gentlewoman's sketchbook, and the documents of a bitter court case between a seigneur's wife and a local priest, Coates illuminates the development of the region and the social, cultural, and economic ties and tensions within it, providing insights into the often hidden values of a rural community.

COLIN M. COATES teaches environmental history and Canadian studies at York University. He is past president of the Canadian Studies Network-Réseau d’études canadiennes and was a member of the executive of NiCHE, the Network in Canadian History and Environment.

Colin M. Coates' profile page

"Colin Coates skillfully introduces his examination of vertical and horizontal social relationships. He goes on to question cultural changes in the peasantry during the lengthy period of over a century." [translation] Jean Roy, Department of Human Sciences, Université de Québec à Trois-Rivières.
"The author draws easily on his understanding of primary and secondary sources. The facts are presented in a broad context, and in a relevant and innovative theoretical framework. In the spirit of new historicism, the book effectively questions the most limited territories." [translation] Laurier Lacroix, Department of Art History, Université de Québec à Montréal.

"Colin Coates skillfully introduces his examination of vertical and horizontal social relationships. He goes on to question cultural changes in the peasantry during the lengthy period of over a century." [translation] Jean Roy, Department of Human Sciences, Université de Québec à Trois-Rivières. "The author draws easily on his understanding of primary and secondary sources. The facts are presented in a broad context, and in a relevant and innovative theoretical framework. In the spirit of new historicism, the book effectively questions the most limited territories." [translation] Laurier Lacroix, Department of Art History, Université de Québec à Montréal.