No place to found a race: Wolf (re)colonization in pre-confederation nineteenth-century Nova Scotia

Abstract

Considering the severe lack of literature on wolves in Nova Scotia, it is imperative to establish how wolves were perceived prior to their extirpation. By the 1820s, the province experienced a wolf population revival. The language contained in scientific periodicals, natural history, and legislation indicates that wolves in pre-Confederation nineteenth-century Nova Scotia were a culturally noxious threat that demanded annihilation. Efforts to eliminate wolves offered a chance at economic relief for struggling agriculturalists and allowed an emerging responsible government to demonstrate their ability to create a civilized environment. The wolf was an undesirable animal race, and so they were eliminated from the Nova Scotian landscape and collective memory.