Canada's Middle North: Some Problems for Development

CANADA'S MIDDLE NORTH: SOME PROBLEMS FOR DEVELOPMENT Burke G. Vanderhill The economic and political evolution of the Canadian state has had a significant northerly component with which has been interwoven a certain romantic attachment for the region, a northern mystique. In recent years, with its ecumene an attenuated zone along or near the American border and with population continuing to accumulate within that zone, Canada has looked northward with a heightened sense of urgency. Her citizens reveal no strong desire to live in the north; indeed the margins of agricultural settlement have drawn back here and there. They are reasonably confident, however, in the ability of northern raw materials to undergird the growth of the Canadian nation and of the vast empty spaces of the region to accommodate an expanded national population. At the same time, the role of foreign—chiefly American—enterprise and markets in the development of the Canadian northland is the source of growing uneasiness. Despite highly visible thrusts to the arctic in connection with the search for petroleum and natural gas, attention of late has been drawn to the "near-north" or "mid-north," the broad swath of territory across the country generally poleward of the present ecumene which presumably offers conditions for life not drastically different from those faced by residents of Edmonton, Winnipeg, or Montreal. No doubt this largely subarctic region will undergo further development, but there is uncertainty about how it should proceed. Where and to what extent should development occur? Under whose auspices? For whose benefit? Will growth continue to be localized and uncoordinated or will it derive from regional policy and planning? The present paper explores various aspects of the situation. THE MIDDLE NORTH AS A CONCEPT. The Canadian subarctic has been penetrated along an irregular and discontinuous front from Dr. Vanderhill is Professor of Geography at The Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida 32306. 14 Southeastern Geographer Hamelin's Middle North ^ "i!~>Va{___« Fig. 1. Three conceptualizations of Canada's Middle North. Vol. XIX, No. 1 15 the south and transected along favored north-south transport routes, but perception of it as a development entity susceptible to a regional approach has been slow to arise. Identification of a "middle north" (moyen nord) emerged in the early 1960s, largely through the work of Louis-Edmond Hamelin of Laval University. (1 ) He developed an index of nordicity by which places may be rated against certain criteria of "northness." The sum of a place's ratings, each established on a percentile scale, constitutes its polar value (valeur polaire), or VAPO. (2) The middle north, defined in terms of nordicity, corresponds closely, though not perfectly, with the boreal or subarctic zone (Fig. 1-A) . It also bears some resemblance to the habitable "pioneer zone" recognized by Griffith Taylor three decades earlier, bounded by the July isotherms of 640F on the south and 56°F on the north (Fig. 1-B). (8) Hamelin remains a "fiery" advocate of a rational approach to the development of the middle north, arguing for a "northern" point of view which he sees as generally lacking. (4) His ideas have gained numerous adherents, at least among academics. Outside of academic circles, the concept of a middle north has stemmed largely from the efforts of Toronto lawyer and writer Richard Rohmer, whose book The Green North, appearing in 1970, spelled out his ideas for a Canada of the future. (5) Described as a "flaming visionary, a dreamer of extravagant dreams," Rohmer promoted the idea of an integrated approach to the economic development of what he termed "mid-Canada," a kind of subarctic lebensraum to accommodate perhaps 50 million people a century hence. (6) He suggested that such development would give Canada "a new nation-wide purpose , a national goal that might offer it a sense of identity and free it from excessive dependence upon the United States." (7) A noteworthy feature of the Rohmer scheme was the Mid-Canada Development Corridor, envisioned as a number of widely separated and permanent growth points surrounded by "aureoles" of secondary, less permanent, centers, all linked by new transcontinental lines of communication ( Fig. 1-C ) . (8 ) The corridor would in effect constitute a...