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Roderick Percy Sparks (1880–1959) was a Canadian manufacturer and environmentalist. He is widely credited with being the Father of Gatineau Park. Born on March 7, 1880 in Ottawa, Canada, Sparks was the great grandnephew of Ottawa pioneer Nicholas Sparks. Educated at the Ottawa Public School, and the Ottawa Collegiate Institute, he was a garment manufacturer as well as president and executive committee member of various commercial associations, including the Canadian Manufacturers Association. He served as the president/commodore of the Britannia Boating Club from 1910-13. 〔( Ottawa Citizen Jul 20, 1910 ) 〕 == Gatineau Hills == The Ottawa Journal of March 30, 1959 credited Percy Sparks with being the “father of the Gatineau Park,” adding that, as chairman of the Federal Woodlands Preservation League from 1937 to 1947, he “brought about the first purchase by the Dominion government of what is now () Gatineau Park.” On May 12, 1955, the same paper said that “Mr. Sparks and his associates are generally credited with ‘selling’ the late Prime Minister Mackenzie King the idea of setting aside a national recreation area on the outskirts of Canada’s capital.”〔 Ottawa Journal, March 30, 1959; Ottawa Journal, May 12, 1955.〕 A noted conservationist, tariff expert and successful businessman, he waged battles against government corruption in the 1920s, playing a key role in the 1926 Customs Investigation, and defended workers' rights in the 1930s, helping Conservative MP Harry Stevens establish the Select Committee on Price Spreads.〔Wilbur, Harry, “H.H. Stevens, 1878-1973,” University of Toronto Press, 1977, 244 p.〕 He also dedicated nearly a quarter century of his life to building a park in the Gatineau Hills. As chairman of the research committee of the Federal Woodlands Preservation League, Sparks had urged the Bennett government to commission a survey of the Gatineau forests in a letter of April 3, 1935 to Interior Minister T. G. Murphy. The importance of the resulting study was acknowledged in the 1952 annual report of the Federal District Commission:
While chairman of the League, Sparks also wrote several documents that were crucial to the creation and initial development of Gatineau Park.〔Murray, Jean-Paul, “Roderick Percy Sparks: Founder of the Gatineau Park,” brief submitted to the Board of Directors of the National Capital Commission by the New Woodlands Preservation League, April 4, 2003: www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.〕 They include a December 13, 1937 memorandum to the office of Prime Minister King outlining a proposal for creating the park; a preliminary master plan proposal for Gatineau Park sent to the Federal District Commission on October 9, 1945; and a 1946 memorandum to the Standing Senate Committee on Tourist Traffic. Sparks also played a central role in helping orient the park’s design and development in his capacity as chairman of the Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park from 1947 to 1954. He did so by, among other things, writing the 1949 Report of the Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park〔Report of the Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park, May 16, 1949: www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.〕 and – perhaps most importantly – the 1952 Report on a Master Plan for Development of Gatineau Park〔Report on the Master Plan for the Development of Gatineau Park, Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park, May 1952: www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.〕 (the latter being, in effect, the first comprehensive master plan for the park, though the NCC has failed to acknowledge this). Sparks was also a member of the Advisory Committee’s Parkway subcommittee which had been created to study the possibility of building a parkway through Gatineau Park. In July 1953, the subcommittee went on a fact-finding mission to Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park and Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountain National Park.〔Report of the Parkway Subcommittee for Gatineau Park, Gatineau Park Advisory Committee, 1953: www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.〕 The recommendations made in its report were largely inspired by Shenandoah’s Skyline Drive, and many of them were later implemented in Gatineau Park. The park's Étienne Brulé Lookout is a mirror image of lookouts found throughout Shenandoah. In his last major contribution to the park, a 1956 memorandum to a joint parliamentary committee, Sparks argued that the public interest had been seriously ignored in the planning and management of Gatineau Park.〔Memorandum to the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons on the Federal District Commission, R.P. Sparks, 1956: www.gatineauparc.ca/documents_en.html.〕 He underlined that the personal, financial and political interests of area landowners exercised undue influence over park development:
Perhaps his most eloquent vision statement for the park is to be found in the 1949 Report of the Advisory Committee on Gatineau Park:
Roderick Percy Sparks died of pneumonia on March 29, 1959, following a holiday in Arizona. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Percy Sparks」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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