Anne Millar (7baac@queensu.ca) – Queen’s University

This session will present two interlinked projects aimed at historical research in mining and metallurgy and preserving contributions of individuals who had significant impact on Canadian mining, metallurgy, and material sciences: University of Waterloo’s Women of Impact, and CSTMC’s Mining and Metallurgy Legacy Project. Women of Impact, conducted by Dr. Mary Wells, from the Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department of the University of Waterloo and Anne Millard, PhD Candidate at the Department of History, University of Ottawa, aims to preserve the impact of female leaders in mining, metallurgy, and materials, which is still largely unrecorded, to help inform current policy making and advance knowledge in engineering by understanding the different approaches used by women to excel in their careers. Mining and Metallurgy Legacy Project, underway at the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation in cooperation with MetSoc, consists of a historical and exhibition research, and a series of oral history interviews with a generation of individuals who have advanced and asserted Canadian mining and metallurgy globally. The goal of the project is to build a body of interpretive material and primary research sources on technologies and socio-politics of these sectors, and to create documentation fundamental to the development and management of the national metallurgy and mining collection and complementary educational activities. Understanding, preserving and interpreting the history of technology in mining and metallurgy is challenging. Available information is often exoteric and the impact of technologies difficult to assess without strong scientific background. It is even harder to interpret mining, metallurgy, and material sciences to the general public that rarely understands relation of these fields to everyday lives. In this session the presenter will discuss the goals, challenges, approaches, and results of their projects.

William McRae, Oral Historian, will be talking about his experience working on the Mining and Metallurgy Legacy Project. For the past year, William has interviewed many important figures in the mining, metallurgy and petroleum industries across Canada. His practice in oral history has shined light on many inventions, changes and advancements in these fields that would otherwise be exoteric to outsiders of these industries. The project helps highlight, in laymen’s terms, technical and scientific accomplishments through a personal scope. William will share some of his interviews and elaborate on key questions along with trending answers throughout the project.

Collections of scientific objects offer a unique view into the production of scientific knowledge. They permit us to explore the technical skills of the workers (notably glassworkers, engineers, and machinists) who create the tools of scientific research. They also provide a basis for exploring those skills (notably model making and conservation techniques) employed by academics in fields such as museology and STS/ HPS who interpret and represent scientific tools and practices. Of particular interest are those practices that cross borders between science, trades, arts, and humanities. These include the use of locally made models in scientific education, the recreation of scientific effects by historians, and the increasing use of art to explore and disseminate scientific ideas. This paper will draw on examples from the University of Toronto Scientific Instruments Collection (UTSIC).

“The Endless Possibilities of the Aeroplanes Above”: Aviation in Greenland, 1928-1969.

This talk traces the history of aviation in Greenland from the first snow landing on Greenland's ice sheet in 1928 to the 'opening' of the ice sheet in 1969. In doing so, it presents Greenland as a transnational space: one that caught the attention and interest of a resurgent Germany in the interwar period; a bold France in the immediate post-World War II years; an assertive and militarily powerful USA during the Cold War; a hesitant European cooperation during the International Polar Year; and a quiet, concerned Denmark throughout the period in question. By telling these stories through the lens of aviation and flying, I examine the airplane in the contexts of the taming of nature, the assertion of epistemic authority, and the performance of sovereignty in the Arctic world. The talk is based on new archival research in five countries.
Sean Seyer (seanseyer@ku.edu) – University of Kansas

The Tension between Imperial Unity and Technological Practicality: Canada and the 1919 Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation

This paper analyzes how Canadian aeronautical policy influenced the development of an American regulatory ideology for aviation that culminated in the 1926 Air Commerce Act. In response to the airplane’s use in World War I, Allied governments drafted the Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation as part of the Versailles Conference. The convention’s ties to the League of Nations precluded U.S. ratification and constitutional uncertainty resulted in legislative inaction. Meanwhile, the Canadian Air Regulations of 1920 drew directly from the convention and Canadian officials—under British pressure—ratified the convention in 1923. The need to ensure regulatory compatibility between the two nations profoundly shaped the debate within the United States and consequent legislation. The border thus served as a conduit through which international regulatory standards permeated southward, even in the absence of convention ratification.

How does Canada’s imaginary status as a cold-weather nation change the way we tell stories about our technologies? The Canadian cultural association with northern-ness and coldness is rooted in Early Modern biological racism and climatic determinism, but it is largely imagined in its modern iteration. Confederation-era Canadian politicians saw Euro-Canadians as superior to the temperate British and “tropical” Americans, and Euro-Canadians have continued to reach towards their imagined northernness whenever their national identity must necessarily be compared to those southern and overseas neighbours. My paper will use Canada’s aviation history to show that technological mythmaking has reflected the ways Canadians talk about their climate-based national identities. From Canada’s first flight, which, fittingly, took place in winter, to modern concerns with “snowbirding” to warm destinations, Canadians have used their aviation technological creation narratives to both bolster and subvert what I call cultural nordicity: climatic identity increasingly divorced from actual climate.

Southwest Quebec, the area between the Richelieu and St. Lawrence rivers and north of the border with New York State, was only settled after the War of 1812. From this fairly obscure part of Quebec came three important millwrights. David Craik was a traditional frontier millwright who built saw and grist mills in both Quebec and New York State. After the publication of his millwrighting book, he left for Minnesota. Charles Proper started out as a millwright on the sawmills of the Ottawa Valley and eventually became a specialist in the design of large-scale sawmill complexes. Thomas Pringle worked extensively with water power on Lachine Canal and became a professional engineer and established one of the first consulting engineering firms in Canada. The paper will look at what they did as well as the evolving world of mills, water power and manufacturing.

There is a vast geometric network of lines and markers that make up the surveyed landscape of Canada. These markers are deeply embedded in our heritage and way of life. The Canada Science and Technology Museum houses 137 historic survey markers known as the Canadian Landmarks Collection. Some are monuments, some are common markers. They come from across Canada, and from different periods in Canada's history from 1762 to 1973. They are made of several varieties of stone, wood and metal, and carry revealing markings and inscriptions. In this paper, I describe three periods of history related to these historic markers and associated survey instruments – when and how Dominion surveyors originally posted them, when and why surveyors collected them, and how university students used them in a collection-based digital history seminar.