Behind the Greens: Understanding Golf Course Landscapes in Canada, 1873-1945

Between 1873 and 1945, the golf course emerged as a distinct landscape category in Canada. During this transformative period of golf development, the course, as a landscape, revealed particular human and human/non-human interactions. To explore these associations, the term `golfscape' signals the course's literal and ideological construction as simultaneously a playing field and manifestation of nature. Gendered sport identities existed within these golfscapes and reinforced class-based and racialized relationships as well as Anglo-Canadian and Canadian/American connections. Traditional British golfing canon collided with the cultural and environmental realities of Canada to create a unique social and physical space. An examination of private, public, and resort course locations across the country illustrates how clubs positioned and promoted their playing fields within an urbanizing and diversifying country. For example, golfscape game and aesthetic features prompted private and public interests to integrate golf into nature tourism within Canada's national parks during this time. Clubs, however, were held to certain appearance and playability standards, whether in the wilderness of the Rocky Mountains or in the rural-urban fringe that fueled product experimentation and creation. Trends towards professionalism and expertise as well as recognition of the diversity of the country's climates and geographies created room for golf architects and agricultural scientists to position themselves as authorities with the power to experiment and disseminate knowledge and practices to the wider culture. Consequently, a North American-focused golf industry touted their products as scientifically tested and catered to local needs. An analysis of golfscape development, therefore, not only promotes a deeper understanding of the connections among culture, environments, and technology but also contributes a different vantage point from which to study the intersecting forces that shaped life in Canada during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Ph.D.2017-06-30 00:00:0