[ Episode 2 Preview: Manufactured Landscape ]
>> DR. JOHN WADLAND: The Land Between, in some measure at least and aspects of The Land
Between and certainly areas of abridging and abutting the edge of The Land Between, are
really historically what Edward Burtynsky would call ‘a manufactured landscape.’
That’s not to say that the whole Land Between is a manufactured landscape. In fact, one
of the characteristics of The Land Between is its treelessness. One of the things I’d
like to do is to spend some time looking at that treelessness and finding out whether
it’s always been treeless or whether its current treelessness is a function in part
of the cutting that went on on it a hundred years ago.
>> LISA ROACH: A lot of the growth here now is second growth, but years ago there used
to be a lot of red and white pine trees in the area, and were logged - even on the Mazinaw
rock itself. In fact, the area used to be called, ‘the Bald Hills,’ because of all
of the logs that were removed for logging.
>> BRIAN OSBORNE: My original thought - that the eco-tone had been produced by these massive
fires that would burn for weeks on end, driving settlers out, and the fires ravaging the forest.
Critical question then, what caused the fire? And as we all know, lightning perhaps, but
also the whole process of settlement. What was the settlement process? Chop and burn,
slash and burn, chop down the trees, burn the undergrowth. Did some of those fires get
out of control? Some did.
>> DENNIS CARTER-EDWARDS: When you look at the Trent-Severn, it rearranged the landscape.
It totally changed the hydrology in such a fashion that we could never walk away from
the system today.
You can imagine flooding large areas to allow for navigation left large stumps of trees
in the spring when the water level was low, standing out as a reminder of the change and
the impact that the original construction of the waterway had.
