This article examines how images of nature, weather, and topography disclose a politics of recognition (who is visible/invisible) invested in a burgeoning criminal justice milieu, where punishment of wrongdoing became increasingly racialized in British Columbia during the early confederation period of Canada’s history. Drawing from archived court documents and colonial writing, it examines dominant environmental metaphors and tropes that structured this politics of recognition within the colonial legal imaginary. I argue that images and understandings of topography, nature, weather, and seasons shaped the background enactment of law in early Canadian lawmaking practices. By examining these natural tropes, this article seeks to understand the contours of a contextually specific colonial legal imaginary as a vital component for entry into the criminal justice system. This colonial legal imaginary predisposes certain groups, and particularly Indigenous peoples, as subject to the constraining power of law, thereby fueling the growth of crime control industries over the last 150 years.

本文探讨了自然、天气和地形的图像如何揭示了一种在新兴刑事司法环境中投资的承认政治（谁是可见的/不可见的），在加拿大历史早期联邦时期，不列颠哥伦比亚省对不列颠哥伦比亚省的不法行为的惩罚变得越来越种族化。它借鉴了存档的法庭文件和殖民时期的著作，研究了在殖民法律想象中构建这种承认政治的主要环境隐喻和比喻。我认为，对地形、自然、天气和季节的图像和理解塑造了加拿大早期立法实践中法律制定的背景。通过研究这些自然比喻，本文试图了解特定背景下的殖民法律想象的轮廓，作为进入刑事司法系统的重要组成部分。这种殖民法律想象使某些群体，特别是原住民，容易受到法律的约束，从而推动了过去 150 年犯罪控制行业的增长。