The Wild Animal’s Story: Nonhuman Protagonists in Twentieth-Century Canadian Literature through the Lens of Practical Zoocriticism

particularly clear in the nineteenth-century animal welfare movement, the upper 
and middle class supporters of which were all dependent on animal exploitation 
in some way: “so many of the men and women who supported it—from 
sportsmen and vivisectionists to cattle ranchers and owners of carting 
agencies
—were connected to professional, industrial and recreational activities 
involving animals” (223). It is unsurprising, then, that “more complex 
interpretations of animal welfare
” were unable to develop (223). 
Likewise, we also find this tension represented in the wildlife 
conservation movement. Tina Loo 
asserts: “To observers in the late nineteenth 
and early twentieth centuries, there was little doubt that wildlife populations 
were declining. Nor was there much question about the reason for that decline. 
Extinction was a by-p
roduct of expansion” (16). Yet, the government showed 
little 
concern, there was no “crusade” for wildlife as there was later in the United 
States, and nor did public champions come forward to lead the cause (Foster 3-
4). In addition to this tension between exploitation and protection, a number of 
other factors seem to have stalled progress, as Janet Foster explains: 
An uninhabited frontier, the myth of superabundance, an era of 
exploitation and lack of knowledge about wildlife, the political climate of 
the National Policy and the division of powers under the British North 
America Act
—all of these factors and attitudes within the government 
and among Canadian people generally, obstructed and delayed the 
advent of wildlife conservation in Canada. (12) 

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Allmark-Kent 85 
In America, Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872 to preserve 
wilderness and wildlife; when Canada first reserved ten acres of land in Banff in 
1885, it was to “preserve a valuable natural resource that could be exploited in 
the interests of the gov
ernment and railway” (20). Two years later when Banff 
Hot Springs was protected as the country’s first national park, it was not a 
wildlife sanctuary but a tourist resort (20, 25). Moreover, J. Alexander Burnett 
explains that, although Canada continued to establish national parks and there 
was even a “flurry of activity” in this area by the end of the century, the nation’s 
efforts to protect wildlife remained “rudimentary” (7). This would start to change 
in the early years of the twentieth century, however, as public interest in this 
was on the rise and the back-to-nature movement was taking hold in both 
Canada and the United States.
 
Significantly, Burnett makes a brief interlude in relating the history of the 
Canadian Wildlife Service to detail the contributions made by Seton and 
Roberts: 
“Among the most influential participants in this popular groundswell 
were Ernest Thompson Seton and Charles G.D. Roberts” (7). He notes that the 
stories of 
both of these “keen outdoorsmen,” positioned “wildlife sympathetically 
in the public consci
ousness;” although he specifies that Seton was the “serious 
naturalist” and “active lobbyist for conservation” (7-8). Moreover, not only does 
Burnett make these connections between their writing and efforts to encourage 
public concern for Canada’s wildlife, he also reveals their collaborations with 
Americans. For instance, he lists Seton and Roberts as key figures
—amongst 
John Macoun, John Muir, and Jack Miner
—in a group who strongly influenced 
the signing of the Migratory Birds Convention in 1916. As spokesmen for this 
unofficial, but powerful, coalition of naturalists, writers, hunters, and scientists 
from both sides of the national border, Seton and Roberts worked to “replace 

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Allmark-Kent 86 
the frontier myth of limitless wildlife,” and “succeeded in arousing public opinion 
to a degree that commanded the respect of political leaders in Canada and the 
United States” (29). Again, although Burnett echoes the attitudes of Polk and 
others by describing the wild animal story as “the most Canadian of literary 
genres” (7), it is clear that Seton and Roberts were not representing