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18 - Mining and Colonialism in the Circumpolar North

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2023

Adrian Howkins
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
Peder Roberts
Affiliation:
University of Stavanger
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Summary

Writing in 1916, shortly after his appointment as ‘Geologist in Charge of Explorations’, the celebrated Canadian geologist and explorer Charles Camsell reflected on the prospects for development in Canada’s ‘unexplored’ Arctic: ‘It is to the mining industry more than any other that we must look for co-operation and assistance in the exploration of our northern regions.’1 Camsell hailed the prospects for mining to launch the transformation of remote, sparsely populated Arctic and Northern regions into prosperous, modern Euro-Canadian settlement frontiers. Nearly forty years later, reflecting on his geological career and the surge in mineral development activity in Canada’s north in the decades around World War II, Camsell confidently concluded, ‘To my mind the whole future of the North country depends primarily upon its mineral wealth.’2 Camsell’s visions of mining’s capacity for transforming the Arctic both echoes and anticipates the ideology of ‘frontierism’ characteristic of industry boosters and state agencies around the circumpolar Arctic.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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