Envisioning the North Coast: Multiple Perspectives and Entanglements in a Contemporary Seascape

Today’s marine environments are utilized and conceptualized in numerous ways by increasingly disparate populations. Building on my fieldwork in Prince Rupert, this paper addresses the formations and transformations of the North Coast of British Columbia by examining how multiple perspectives of this space are enacted and relate to one another. I examine the North Coast seascape as perceived as a space for marine protected areas, fisheries management areas, a traditional homeland and harvesting site for local First Nations, and as a potential oil shipping route for the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. I argue that the North Coast seascape contains layered meanings and entanglements that enact the contemporary tensions and relations that humans have with each other and their political, economic, and social environments.