The Forgotten North: A History of Canada's Provincial Norths

Graeme S. Mount is a history professor at Laurentian University.

Publication of this book is itself a historical event. Its two authors
are now senior administrators at the University of Northern British
Columbia in Prince George, and the book is the first written by UNBC
academics. If the publication level remains abreast of this, UNBC faces
an impressive future.

The authors argue that there are seven provincial norths—the area
north of the best agricultural lands in all provinces except Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. The provincial norths
are home to many transient non-Natives, and to a disproportionately
large Native population. The economics are resource-based, and the
southern heartlands of each province siphon wealth from the politically
impotent northern hinterlands. Too many transients lack commitment to
the north and fail to work for improvement, since the plan is to return
south as soon as possible. Residents of each provincial north fail to
recognize interests shared with their counterparts in other provinces,
and do not organize interprovincial associations.

With only 131 pages of text (and four pages of extensive bibliography),
this book is amazingly comprehensive. It deals with Natives and their
problems, the problems of one-industry towns whose resources may not
remain in demand, and transportation. It offers histories of communities
across the provincial north and deals at length with some. The authors
marvel that Mulroney’s closure of Schefferville had no negative impact
on his political career, and they suggest that post–Cold War Elliot
Lake’s successful transition from a uranium mining centre to a
retirement haven is not a precedent. Seniors from Montreal are as
unlikely to relocate in Schefferville as retirees from Regina are to
move to Uranium City, another casualty of the end of the Cold War.

The book concludes with a call for residents of the various provincial
norths to pursue their common interests together and end exploitation by
the southern heartlands. Its only serious flaw is the absence of maps,
for small towns and northern lakes in one province may not always be
familiar to readers in another.