Description
Book SynopsisIn the latter half of the twentieth century, legions of industrial pioneers came to northwestern British Columbia with grand plans for mines, dams, and energy-development schemes. Yet many of their projects failed to materialize or were abandoned midstream. Unbuilt Environments reveals that these lapsed resource projects had lasting effects on the natural and human environment. Drawing on a range of case studies to analyze the social and environmental impacts of unfinished projects, Jonathan Peyton considers development failure a productive concept for northwestern Canada. He looks at a closed asbestos mine, an abandoned rail grade, an imagined series of hydroelectric installations, a failed LNG export facility, and a transmission line and finds that these unrealized developments continue to shape contemporary resource conflicts.
Trade ReviewUnbuilt Environments is an enthralling book … [and] a great contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary narrative on resource development conflicts in northwest British Columbia, a region that is currently the site of intense mining exploration and controversy over energy projects. Drawing on fieldwork throughout northwest British Columbia and on research which is both eloquent and honest, Unbuilt Environments is a practical, accessible, and reliable resource from a respected emerging researcher. I strongly recommend this book for the expert and non-expert.
-- Rajiv Thakur, Missouri State University, West Plains * Polymath *
Unbuilt Environments provides an even-handed discussion of development in a region that remains relatively aloof from capital investment and integration into the global economy. -- Gordon Hak * NiCHE, Network in Canadian History & Environment *
Jonathan Peyton by bringing to light the history of these spasmodic industrial developments in the north has done an immense public service. His research is comprehensive, his analysis precise, his tone moderate and dispassionate. Indeed, there are moments when the reader, overwhelmed by Peyton’s revelations, the scale of the corruption, the extent of the folly, the aggregate waste of tax payers’ wealth, almost wishes for a more emotional reaction from the author. Yet the great strength of the book is its restraint, for the facts and history alone provide sufficient indictment. -- Wade Davis * The Ormsby Review *
Table of ContentsForeword: How Shall We Live? / Graeme Wynn
Introduction: The Stikine Watershed and the Unbuilt Environment
1 Cassiar, Asbestos: How to Know a Place
2 Liberating Stranded Resources: The Dease Lake Extension as the Railway to Nowhere
3 Corporate Ecology: BC Hydro, Failure, and the Stikine-Iskut Project
4 “Industry for the future”: Dome Petroleum and the Afterlives of “Aggressive” Development
5 Transmission: Contesting Energy and Enterprise in the New Northwest Gold Rush
Conclusion: The Tumbling Geography
Appendix; Notes; Bibliography; Index
