Canada and Australia - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 128

Scientific study of nature dates to 1697 when the Royal Physician for
New France, Michel Sarrazin, arrived in Quebec, where he collected plants
for a herbarium and sent reports back to Paris. A 1749 expedition by Pehr
Kalm and J. F. Gaultier provided 200 species to Swedish botanist Carolus
Linnaeus, constituting most of his Canadian material. Arriving from
France in 1785, Andre Michaux studied trees. In the mid-19th century,
William J. Hooker organized amateur botanists to assemble collections.
The Botanical Society of Canada was founded in 1860, but did not endure
long. The Botanical Club of Halifax lasted from 1891 to 1910.
While botany was largely a field for amateurs, the government supported
geology. In 1842 William Logan was appointed to survey the United
Province of Canada, thus establishing the Geological Survey of Canada.
In 1856 Elkanah Billings became a full-time paleontologist for the agency
(although an amateur). Toward the end of the century, the Geological
Survey was operating in Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. In 1874
G. M. Dawson announced the discovery of the dinosaur fauna of Alberta
and Saskatchewan. In the early 20th century, the agency cooperated with
oil wildcatters by analyzing microfossils in the well cuttings. Canadian
participation in the International Polar Year of 1882-83 was minimal.
A team of German scientists explored and observed at Baffin Island, and a
British team was stationed at Great Slave Lake.
Three treaties in the early twentieth century broke new ground for the
two countries sharing the North American continent. The 1909 Boundary
Waters Treaty guaranteed clean water in rivers crossing the border, as well
as cooperation on the Great Lakes, and established the International Joint
Commission. In 1911 Canada signed the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty.
That year it also established its forest reserves, and set up a Commission
on Conservation to investigate natural resources (as well as town planning
and public health). The 1918 Migratory Bird Protection Convention was a
treaty to protect birds. A 1939 law regulated pesticides. Rapid urbaniza-
tion after 1945 required more municipal water and sewer systems.
The Audubon Society was established in 1948, one more example of
how bird-watchers are early leaders in citizen groups. Now called Nature
Canada, it has 40,000 members and 350 affiliated organizations. It seeks
to protect plants, animals and habitat. Endangered species are a special
concern. Its education programs aim at children.
In the 1950s Canadians began to ask the degree to which their country
would remain merely a primitive source of timber, oil, copper, and iron
ore, instead of becoming a modern industrial country. Later several events