Dr. Geoff Cunfer's Students

Jessica DeWitt
PhD (ABD)

Fields of Expertise: Park History; Recreation; Tourism/Eco-tourism; Urban Nature; North American Environmental History; Canadian and American West; Contemporary US History.

Dissertation Description My dissertation is a comparative study of provincial and state parks, which defines the unique role that these park "middlemen" play in North American society. Focusing on the park systems of Idaho, Alberta, Ontario, and Pennsylvania, my dissertation explores the role that population density and urban centers play in the formation and management of state and provincial parks. By studying two park systems in the East and the West, this study determines whether North American ideas about nature are better described by an East/West bifurcation than the Canadian/US border. This study also challenges the typical environmental decline narrative assigned to national and state parks, in which parks scholars present parks as being the ironic victims of the same recreation and visitation that led to their initial preservation. My dissertation looks at the role that state and provincial parks played in the environmental restoration of the park lands and the regions surrounding the parks. Lastly, my dissertation unveils factors other than preservation and economic gain, such as patriotism and guilt, that led to state and provincial park formation by looking at the reactions and opinions of the common people--both the rural citizens living near the parks and the urban working and middle-classes for whom the parks were created.

Conferences Presentations:
“Provincial and State Park History and Its Connection to Contemporary Society,” Graduate Research Conference 2014, University of Saskatchewan March 7, 2014

"’Nearby and Natural’: Stretching the Definition of Nature in Ontario's Bronte Creek Provincial Park and Pennsylvania's Point State Park,” NiCHE Prairie Environment Network Workshop, University of Saskatchewan April 26, 2014

“Softening the Divide Between Natural and Man-Made: Exploring the Flexible Definition of Nature in Two Urban State and Provincial Parks,” 2014 Fort Garry Lectures, University of Manitoba May 2, 2014

"’Nearby and Natural’: Stretching the Definition of Nature in Ontario's Bronte Creek Provincial Park and Pennsylvania's Point State Park,” 2014 Canadian Historical Association Annual Meeting, Brock University May 26, 2014

“Harvesting Nostalgia: A Historical Look at the Farm Park Concept and its Conflicting Function in Breaking Down and Strengthening the Barrier between Urban and Rural Life in North America”, Second World Congress of Environmental History, Guimarães, Portugal July 2014

“Parks For and By the People: Acknowledging the Role of Non-Elites in the Formation and Protection of State and Provincial Parks in the United States and Canada,” Environmentalism from Below: Appraising the Efficacy of Small-Scale and Subaltern Environmentalist Organizations, University of Alberta August 7, 2014

“Reviving the Distant Clarion: The Ecological Degradation and Expedient Restoration of Pennsylvania’s Clarion River,” American Society for Environmental History 2015, Washington, D.C. April 2015

Email: jessicamariedewitt@gmail.com


Matt Todd
PhD Candidate
Matt completed an M.A. in history at the University of Saskatchewan in 2009. His project explored the interrelationship between environment, climate and mis-perception on the Texas Panhandle.

He began his Ph.D in Environmental History the same year. His research interests include Environmental History, Borderlands History, Frontier History, and geo-spatial analysis using HGIS. After successfully passing his composite exams in 2010 Matt spent a year researching his current project examining land-use, perception, changing technology, geography, and climate fluctuation on the Great Plains during the 19th and early 20th century.

In 2013 Matt developed and taught Environmental History 290: the Environmental Frontier and is currently teaching History 170: the Americas. Matt has been an employee of the HGIS laboratory for 6 years and has completed several GIS and HGIS projects including Traditional Land Use Maps, Community Development Maps, soil erosion maps, and pursued geo-spatial history as it relates to his own research.


Andrew Dunlop
PhD (ABD)

Dissertation Description:
Part of his research involves digitizing historical aerial photographs of agricultural landscapes on either side of the Canada-U.S. border to trace land use change during the twentieth century.

Dissertation Title: Agricultural Landscape Change within the Northern Great Plains, 1935-2000



Cheryl Troupe
PhD Candidate

Dissertation Description:
She began the Ph.D. program in History in 2012, exploring Métis women’s “road allowance” gardening in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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