When you think about Canada's national parks do you imagine miles of unspoiled wilderness? Or bumper-to-bumper land yachts?

Everyone has a vision of what a national park should be - especially Canadian politicians, says environmental studies professor Catriona Sandilands. "There's always been a tension between conservation and recreation," she says. "Our early parks were more about profit than preservation."

Sandilands is researching how parks helped shape a sense of what it means to be Canadian. "Parks are important cultural texts...I think politicians have always realized this, but there's surprisingly little research on the topic in Canada.

"But if you look at national parks for their cultural meanings, you see they illustrate how ideas of nature and nation are interrelated and contested," she says.

"There [is still] a lot of conflict over what they mean and should mean. I think they illustrate the ongoing debates about what it is to be Canadian. Parks are a statement of what we believe we are. They're the result of a particular idea of us as a nation."

Sandilands' research will form the basis of two books-one scholarly, and the other a kind of insider's guide to our national park system. Identity Illustration: Craig Campbell