ABSTRACT
Historical narratives of Canadian community gardens have changed and developed over time, influencing how gardening is a leisure practice. Understanding these changes supports a polythetic constituent of leisure beyond Eurocentric definitions (Fox & Klaiber, 2006). Fox and Klaiber argued that:
A brief social history of the meta-narratives of community gardening in Canada situates how gardens have been represented and how people, including each of the authors, negotiate these representations (see Lawson, 2004, 2005; Martin, 1998, 2000; von Baeyer, 1984, for a comprehensive history). Community gardens have largely been supported in response to social crises and citizen development (Lawson, 2004). The first institutionalized investment in communal gardens in Canada came alongside the construction and completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. “Railway gardens” were seen as a way to sell the productive lands of Canada’s West and as an everyday food practice that constructed the “right” kind of citizen, one who was not idle, but productive and industrious (von Baeyer, 1984). With the onslaught of World War I and II, gardening narratives of the government suggested that patriotic citizens had the duty to plant a “victory garden” or “war garden.” These gardens were represented as causal links to war outcomes by alleviating food shortages and as a domestic form of conscription. During the Great Depression and after World War II communal gardens were associated with a type of “relief” or “welfare” tactic for high levels of unemployment. They were seen as a method to alleviate idle hands and social unrest in a time of economic turmoil.
