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Before the 1970s, Harkin was viewed as a visionary conservationist and creator of Canada’s national park system. Since then, many critiques of Harkin have cast him in a darker light. When Harkin was appointed National Parks Branch Commissioner in 1911, he had to juggle the twin policy of advocating conservatism while encouraging tourism to the parks, which brought forth controversy to Harkin’s role as commissioner.^[1] When Harkin accepted the job, he admitted that he knew little about parks in general or what was expected of him in his role as commissioner. Many biographers have written about Harkin’s work, but his life is based off of a very thin collection of sources, leading to skepticism about his duty and achievements as commissioner.^[2] Harkin’s personal archival papers say little about his involvement with the national parks; they focus almost entirely on his notes and correspondence on Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s expedition to the Arctic in 1921.^[3] The limited information about Harkin’s life has led biographers to create several sizable assumptions about him, one being that everything wrote by Harkin is credited to him alone.^[4] Parks Branch papers show that what is attributed to Harkin was actually first drafted by others, especially his assistant, F.H.H. Williamson.^[5] Harkin also adapted many of his policies from the American National Park Service, because of the familiarity of geographic location and goal at improving the development of the parks through tourism.^[6]

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One of the first controversies that Harkin was involved in was the Parks Branch’s first attempt to create a wood bison sanctuary. The disagreement proved to create tensions within the federal government and also started the theory that local Indigenous peoples were to blame for the decrease in the population of buffalo.^[7] The tension between the Indian Affairs Department and wildlife conservationists was very evident at the National Conference on Conservation of Game, Fur-Bearing Animals, and other Wild Life held in February 1919.^[8] The beginning of the conference began with Arthur Meighen, then Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, emphasizing the complete dependence that the northern Native people have on wildlife, and how prohibiting the Aboriginal peoples from hunting buffalo would greatly and negatively affect their livelihood. Harkin stated his own views and discussed how wildlife preserves prohibiting Indigenous peoples from hunting was crucial for conservation. He argued that Indigenous peoples should respect this, since they have wholesome respect for park boundaries.^[9] Wood Buffalo National Park was created in 1922 to help preserve the five hundred buffalo that were found south of the Great Slave Lake in Northern Alberta.^[10] Indigenous groups that lived in the area protested the creation of the Wood Buffalo National Park up until its establishment and continued after in hopes of gaining back their sovereignty and their right to hunt on their traditional territories.^[11] The creation of the park led to a dramatic increase of law enforcement and administrative personnel on Indigenous lands, which allowed the federal government to administer a system of wildlife regulations that would include punishments of fines, jail terms, and hard labor if Indigenous persons were to stray from the law.^[12]