ABSTRACT
At the junction of a road and an abandoned railroad just east of the village of Keene, the bicyclist faces a choice. Continue on the railroad, now a trail, as it gradually inclines, gently curving around the hills ahead-an easy ride. Or follow the road as it extends straight, then turns at a right angle, then continues straight again and almost straight up (it seems) a steep hill-a serious workout. Whatever choice is taken, the difference between rail and road becomes immediately evident-and not just in the bicyclist’s muscles, but in the divergent opportunities they provide to experience the natural and cultural features of this region of southern Ontario, Canada. These choices, and the experiences they present, are familiar to any bicyclist
traveling in this or similar landscapes. The distinctive character of these experiences is especially evident when compared with travel by automobile: “[l]andscapes that disappear behind the window glass of a speeding car envelope the cyclist. They smell, they speak, they make you suffer and sing” (Barber 2014). Bicycles enable new experiences, even in familiar landscapes. Indeed, this quality appears in many personal histories: bicycles are the device by which countless children first constructed their own environment, exploring their neighbourhoods beyond the reach of parents. In the history of environmental experience, bicycles are inescapable. Nevertheless, while appreciated as means of recreation and transportation,
bicycles have received less attention from historians. As Graham Robb once noted, even in the country where the Tour de France is a metonym of national identity, the “effect of the bicycle on daily life is now drastically underestimated by many historians, who tend to see it as an instrument of self-inflicted torture” (Robb 2007, p. 341). This neglect is especially striking in environmental history. Environmental historians often insist on the use of not just traditional forms of evidence such as archival materials, printed texts, visual records and oral testimonies, but study of landscapes themselves, to identify the evidence of changes in nature and in human activities that will reward the careful observer. (As Donald Worster has explained, environmental history sometimes requires a “ramble into fields, woods, and the open air. It is time we bought a good set of walking shoes, and we cannot avoid getting some mud on them” (Worster, 1988, p. 289)). To these scholars, bicycling offers particular advantages, and not only
as a means of observing landscapes. It provides an entry into understanding how historical actors have experienced the landscape, whether by bicycling or through other forms of transportation that operated at a similar pace and scale, particularly in the era before the automobile. Yet this significance is rarely remarked on by environmental historians. This paper will discuss the methodological possibilities that bicycling presents
for environmental history. Some of these have been evident in the historical experience of bicycling itself; accordingly, the paper begins with that history. The discussion will then turn to the distinctive benefits of bicycling for historical method. These benefits will be illustrated through a case study of a landscape especially well-suited to historical analysis on two wheels: south central Ontario. This is a predominately rural region, highly accessible to the bicycle, and possessing a rich environmental history.
