The Northern vision of Harold Innis

Harold Innis, Canada's pre-eminent social scientist in the inter-war period , developed a northern vision for Canada in the 1920s. Through field resear ch and study of communications, the fur trade and mineral production, he de veloped an understanding of the North as an industrial frontier and as a bi nding agent for national unity. This paper examines Innis' engagement with an imagined North by assessing the various cultural and intellectual impuls es that focussed his attention on the region. It re-reads his fieldnotes as cultural texts inscribing a gendered and racialized North, and considers h is portrayal of the region to southern audiences.