Imagining Duckland: Postnationalism, waterfowl migration, and ecological commons

Foreign place names reflecting the names of American hunter-conservationists and places mark the geography of Western Canada. This exogenous place naming dates to the 1930s when one of Canada's most successful NGOs-Ducks Unlimited Canada-launched The Lake that Waits project. Emerging out of the Dust Bowl and declining waterfowl populations, the project combined geographical imagination, foreign toponyms, and ecological knowledge to incite American waterfowlers to invest in the rehabilitation of Canadian wetlands. It is insinuated that this renaming re-colonized in the name of nature conservation. When theorized within a postnational ecological and historical context, however, the use of foreign toponyms may be interpreted as a means to positively influence perceptions of identity and sense of place. It was a social construction of nature encouraging recognition of the shared ethical responsibilities of continental waterfowlers who needed to re-envision waterfowl migration within an ecological common-Duckland. Renaming was a means to effect both environmental and cultural change resulting in the conservation of millions of acres of waterfowl habitat, leaving an enduring mark on North American geography.