Cross-currents: The development of the hydro-electric system in northeastern Ontario, 1911-1966.

Examining hydro-electric development, as it occurred in northeastern Ontario, sheds a new and different light on the history of technology and development in Canada. The northeastern Ontario hydro-electric system (Mattagami and Abitibi watersheds) developed over a period of fifty years. It developed through a process of interaction between technology and the environment, native and non-native relations, metropolitan business and political interests and northern natural resources. Once Aboriginal rights and environmental obstacles had been removed through treaty negotiations and technical innovations, early hydro-electric development took place under private auspices by individual entrepreneurs such as Frank Cochrane or big concerns such as Nesbitt Thomson, operating out of Montreal. Their activities, for the most part, established a series of independent generating stations serving specific customers in northeastern Ontario, with some interconnection with Quebec. After 1944, with the entry of Ontario Hydro into northeastern Ontario and the elimination of Nesbitt Thomson and other private developers, the amalgamation of the northeastern Ontario system into the southern Ontario system began in earnest. Amalgamation resulted from the interweaving of various factors not the least of which was continued drought in the northeast rendering the system incapable of supplying the region's power needs. Studying the influence of rivers on the development of technical systems proves that nature does interact with technology and therefore should not be ignored. In the example provided by this dissertation, the river influences the shape of the hydro-electric system significantly. Studying the interaction between hydro-electric developers, the environment and First Nations illustrates that, even though they are harmed by development, the latter two actors are not helpless. To portray them as victims denigrates their ability to shape development and adapt to adverse conditions. Also, studying the interaction between the metropole and the northeastern region demonstrates that the hinterland is more than a backdrop to metropolitan development. It too influences the decisions of the metropolitan systems builders. Because the hinterland, the environment and the First Nations retain their own identity and shape the system's development, the metaphor used to describe systems development should acknowledge turmoil or conflict but additionally convey an image of adaptation and continuity; hence the metaphor of cross-currents. Turmoil occurs when cross-currents intersect in a river's course but this act of intermingling also includes adaptation thus allowing for continuity. Including the rivers themselves in the study of hydro-electric development also illuminates a feature of development that has rarely been discussed: co-operation. In the northeast, co-operation in certain areas proved necessary to allow and further the hydro-electric system's growth. This element of co-operation is a timely characteristic to note. In today's environment of limited energy resources, increasing criticism of the ideology of "Progress" and increasing respect for First Nations' rights and the environment, co-operation is a more acceptable approach to development than conquest and domination. (Abstract shortened by UMI.