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Canada's Middle North: Some Problems for Development

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.