In the western part of the north there was the Klondike; and more recently, a few mining developments, notably at Yellowknife and Radium, combined with the Alaska Highway and Canol projects; and the general business of war exposed the northerners to some moderately large technologies. It also exposed some southerners to the character of [120] the north. In the words of one, it was ‘miles and miles of just miles and miles.’ Phenomena such as the Athabaska Tar Sands were known, and there had even been some puttering with extraction processes, but for the most part the western Territories in the 1940s were a sleepy backwoods compared to the rest of Canada. For the native inhabitants, life was still very much oriented to the resources of the lands, and the big annual social event for the Indians was the gathering for payments of treaty monies ($5 per person per year).
ex Peter Larkin, “Science and the North : An Essay on Aspirations,” in Northern Transitions Vol. II, Second National Workshop on People, Resources and the Environment North of 60°. Robert F. Keith and Janet B. Wright, eds. (Canadian Arctic Resources Committee, Ottawa, Ont., 1978) : 119-127 (120)
borrowable at archive.org : link
The two volumes are conference proceedings, Northern Transitions, 20-22 February 1978, Edmonton, Alberta.
Larkin’s paper evidently first appeared in Science Forum 9:6 (1976) : 17-24
21 May 2026