Nature’s Past Episode 77: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North

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NP Logo 1x1 12 July 2016

Episode 77: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North

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When one thinks of exploration and the North American Arctic, it might conjure images of Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated 1845 expedition to the Arctic and the disappearance of the two vessels, the Erebus and the Terror. The discovery of the wrecks of both vessels in 2014 and 2016 respectively continue to keep a particular image of northern exploration present in the minds of Canadian southerners.

But exploration of what is now the Canadian North continued beyond the so-called heroic voyages of exploration in the nineteenth century. Southern explorers continued to travel through the lands of northern Indigenous peoples for many decades afterward well into the twentieth century and, indeed, into the present.

Exploration of northern Canada from the end of the First World War to the 1960s is considered a period of modern exploration, one distinct from earlier generations, but nonetheless bound by similar impulses, ideas, and traditions. This is the subject of A Cold Colonialism: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North by Professor Tina Adcock and published by UBC Press last year. In this book, Professor Adcock examines modern northern exploration through the lives of four southern men whose careers very much focused on the north as they traveled through, thought about, and wrote about northern environments and peoples.

Tina joined us to share more about this history and its meanings for the present.

Guests:

Tina Adcock

Works Cited:

Adcock, Tina. A Cold Colonialism: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2025.

Music Credits:

“Guitar dance” by savasamarin

“The Folk Acoustic” by forestmusic

“Happy Acoustic Guitar” by Alex Grohl

Photo Credit:

Photo credit: Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Richard Finnie. Source: Evelyn Stefansson / Library and Archives Canada / Richard S. Finnie collection.

Citation:

Kheraj, Sean. “Episode 77: Modern Exploration and the Canadian North” Nature’s Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast.

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Sean Kheraj

Associate Professor and Vice-Provost Academic at Toronto Metropolitan University
Sean Kheraj is a member of the executive committee of the Network in Canadian History and Environment. He's a professor in the Department of History and Vice-Provost Academic at Toronto Metropolitan University. His research and teaching focuses on environmental and Canadian history. He is also the host and producer of Nature's Past, NiCHE's audio podcast series and he blogs at http://seankheraj.com.

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