Reviews

The Cult of Nature

Stephen Osborne
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Alexander Wilson, in his book The Cult of Nature (Between the Lines), makes the following remark in passing on page 25: By the late nineteenth century, almost half of North Americans lived in cities. It was not until then—the moment that in the United States is called "the closing of the frontier" and in Canada "the opening of the West"—that wilderness itself assumed value in popular culture. This notion of a "closing" on one hand perceived as an "opening" on the other may be completely wacko, but I can't help wanting to agree with it on an intuitive level. Has anyone a clear idea of what the "frontier" or "the West" is in the Canadian imagination? Drop me a line if you do.

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Stephen Osborne

Stephen Osborne is a co-founder and contributing publisher of Geist. He is the award-winning writer of Ice & Fire: Dispatches from the New World and dozens of shorter works, many of which can be read at geist.com.


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