Cold Colonialism : Modern Exploration and the Canadian North

Adcock, Tina

ISBN 10: 0774870133 / ISBN 13: 9780774870139

Published by University of British Columbia Press, 2026

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 52030863-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cold Colonialism : Modern Exploration and the Canadian North
• Publisher: University of British Columbia Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0774870133
• ISBN 13: 9780774870139
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Sheds light on the impact of twentieth-century northern expansion in Canada.

Exploration has long been pivotal to southern engagements with northern Canada, but it is most often associated with the nineteenth century or earlier. A Cold Colonialism offers the first extended examination of twentieth-century exploration in the Canadian North. Modern exploration helped Southerners establish and maintain distinctive kinds of colonial and settler colonial power over northern Indigenous homelands.

Who explored the North between 1918 and 1965? What forms did exploration take? What did it mean to explorers and others affected by it? Tina Adcock focuses on four representative explorers with richly documented careers: mining engineer George Douglas, surveyor Guy Blanchet, ethnologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and filmmaker Richard Finnie.

Despite limited experience in and knowledge of the Canadian North, these explorers helped southern militaries, industries, and governments exert control over northern peoples and their lands. Each also claimed belonging in and authority over the North in ways that still resonate among southern settlers in Canada today.

About the Author

Tina Adcock is assistant professor of history at Simon Fraser University. She is the co-editor of Made Modern: Science and Technology in Canadian History.