Environmental History -- Eighth Class: Northern Environmental History

This week my Environmental History course (ERST-CAST-HIST 4670H) turned to the north, examining some themes in the environmental history of northern Canada.  Of necessity, I had to be selective, given the complexity of this history.  So I settled on a few themes: the consequences of activities elsewhere for the north; the diverse meanings that have been attached to the north; and -- using the north as an opportunity to raise this more general topic -- the significance of food as a theme in environmental history.

The starting point was the still sometimes implied view of the north as an unchanging place: a region that, until it began to be affected by climate change, lacked a history, except when visited by outsiders, like European explorers, who brought their own history with them.  As I noted, such a view runs contrary to both what we know about environmental history, and the histories that are told by Inuit and other Indigenous peoples.

I then sketched a series of "chapters" in northern environmental history, drawing out a few lessons from each.  These included the work by Liza Piper and John Sandlos (in their 2007 article in Environmental History) on ecological imperialism in the north; the significance of the Cold War to the north; the redefinition of the north as a site of resource extraction, alongside efforts to integrate Indigenous northerners into Canadian society, through health, education, social services, and employment; and the history of the notion of the Arctic as ecologically fragile, requiring protection.

Then we shifted to considering the implications for environmental history of Indigenous self-determination.  Fnally, we discussed the significance of food to northern environmental history, as expressed through food gathering and sharing practices, state practices of "food colonialism" (as Liza Piper has termed it), and the recent significance of food to controversies over environmental contaminants.