Enclosure to Enclosure: from Temagami Forest to the CMHC Post-War House

Abstract

Approximately two-thirds of Ontario, Canada is comprised of forests—making up more than one-fifth of all forests in Canada—and 90 percent of it is situated on public Crown Land. While forests are ecological lands, they are also geopolitically delineated territories and administrated provincially. Within Ontario’s system of administrated forests, Temagami Forest distinguishes itself as a site of settler-colonial experiments in property, territory, and forestry. Although the land is public, the woods are entangled with the practices of capitalist industry. Softwood dimensional lumber—colloquially referred to as wood studs or 2x4s—is the product of such capitalist interventions in the forest. The colonial impact of this material extends beyond the forest; it is essential to the development and construction of the single-family stick-frame house. This typology is implicitly associated with democracy, self-determination, and social mobility, remaining deeply tied to the institution of private property in the nation-state of Canada and the United States. Through review of literature, assembling an archive of present and historical maps, and site visits, I weave together a narrative which bridges different landscapes and scales of wood extraction. This thesis explores the use of surveying and mapping, forestry and logging administration systems, stick-frame construction methods, and the nationally distributed housing design catalogue as four mechanisms that link forested landscapes in Ontario to the dominant culture of single-family stick-frame house ownership. Throughout are also speculative pencil drawings that rethink the standard representational strategies for 2x4s and wood. I use the concept of assemblage to understand the cooperation between material and cultural aspects of dimensional lumber. Forests are not readily available “supplies” that fill the “demand” for domestic property; there are legal, cultural, material, and architectural mechanisms which transform woodlands into fungible wood prisms into stick-frame houses. The 2x4 as a narrative device to explore how the institution of property emerges across forests and stick-frame houses. Through the duality of the word “enclosure” I demonstrate how logics of capitalism enclose commons across different scales.