Join us on October 17, at 7 pm, in the Faculty Lounge of UPEI’s SDU Main Building for a lecture titled “Camping in the Backyard” by Dr. Ed MacDonald, PEI historian and professor of history at UPEI.

The historical literature on camping in the Western world has been preoccupied with the period between the mid-1800s and the Second World War. It maintains that well-heeled city dwellers camped in order to escape summers in North America’s dirty, polluted, high-stress cities and connect physically and emotionally with the wild Nature. But it was the postwar era and the gradual democratization of tourism that brought camping to the masses. And the experience on Prince Edward Island tells a different story about the motives behind, and the experience of, camping. Focusing particularly on the Island’s provincial parks, “Camping in the Backyard” will unpack the rise and fall (and rise again) of camping in terms of the Island’s tourism industry.

Dr. MacDonald's lecture is part of the Institute of Island Studies' Island Lecture Series.