NATS 1840 Lecture 15 - Nature Resists Commodification and Technology Fights Back:
Aerial Surveying and Mineral Resources
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Natural resources as fiscal tools for the state, technological extraction of natural
resources, treating resources in a single way, private and public development of resources
Geography Gets in the Way
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Canadian Shield approximately 8,000,000 square kilometers of Precambrian rock,
meteorite impact craters, extinct volcanoes, minerals: nickel, gold, silver, zinc, sulfides,
diamonds and copper, southern reaches covered in forests
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The shield is marked by, “…rolling, rocky hills, muskeg bogs, and innumerable lakes,
rivers, and creeks”, difficult to traverse, large size
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1920’s Canadian mining companies adopted plane for surveying
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Post WWI economic slowdown, aerial surveying techniques (interpretation of aerial
photographs)
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Government (Royal Canadian Air Force and Department of the Interior) dedicated
resources to techniques
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Canadian mining industry and Canadian government, method for transforming aerial
photographs into geological data, speed and efficiency over accuracy
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Approach common to Canadian technology, “national style” of developing technology,
“…concern with practical application, collection of economically useful information,
reliability, useable results, and speed above accuracy.”
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Canadian approach to technology, political attitudes to science and technology,
conditions of Canadian geography
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Technological development associated with frontier technologies, as Cronin puts it,
o “…those technologies that exist at the point where a technologically developed
infrastructure meets the wilderness and an established society meets a new
environment. Neither the American nor Canadian frontiers were uninhabited, nor
were they void of preexisting technologies. Rather, those frontiers represented the
points at which the established European-based industrial society met an
environment not yet integrated into the dominant society.”
Photography and Mapmaking
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Photography recent development (19th century), application to surveying and mapmaking
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Photography from places of high elevation, topographic maps
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Orthographic projection, representing a three dimensional object in two dimensions
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WWI aircraft survey enemy positions, ranges and positions for artillery
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Scientific interest in Canadian north, “…information that would help them administer,
control, and assert ownership over the land and its resources”
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Mapping Canadian north and elevation
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Late 1920’s aerial surveyors could “identify geological types from the air”, geological
types correlated with minerals
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Photographs not sufficient, photograph quality, techniques for interpreting photographic
evidence
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Aerial surveying: faster collection of information, greater area covered in less time
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Numerous bodies of water, landing strips for floatplanes
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Aerial surveying did not replace ground investigation, expanded scope
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Accuracy of aerial photography, stability of planes, experience of pilots
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Aerial photography and accuracy, long term corrections
Local Adaptation to New Technologies
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Following WWI: metal prices declined (decreased demand), labor disputes and mine
closings, general economic downturn and decreased demand for manufactured products
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Mid-1920s a surging American economy, demand for Canadian minerals
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Vertical and oblique photography
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Vertical photography: camera parallel to the ground, photos combined into composite and
re-photographed into mosaic image
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Challenges associated with vertical aerial photography:
o Gaps in photo record, re-photographing very expensive
o Altitude changes and photo scale, aircraft altitude impacted by: consistency of
pilot, accuracy of altimeter, “rise and fall” of the terrain, etc.
o Tilting of camera could obscure image
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“Control points”, spots in surveyed areas where geographic information known
Vertical photography and details, prospecting
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Vertical photography, accuracy and size
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Oblique photography: tilted camera towards horizon, captured more area, variations in
altitude, low elevation areas (horizon and reference), sacrificing detail for scope
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Technical development: transferring information from photographs onto topographical
maps, grid laid over photographs
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Grids designed for individual cameras at particular altitudes, customized
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Preset grids, calibrated to particular set of focal lengths, angles, and altitudes
Institutional Support for Aerial Photography
- Canadian government and aircraft industry, competition with railroad industry, public
support
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Government fiscal restraint , duplication, scarce resources, cooperation and coordination
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Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), survey techniques, private sector
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RCAF, demand for aerial photographic surveying, private sector
Canadian Technological Development
- Cronin argues that,
o “The history of aerial surveying in Canada confirms certain patterns in the history
of Canadian technology, namely the adoption of outside technologies that are then
subjected to a process of indigenization, along with an overarching concern with
practical utility and the collection of useful information.”
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Economic demands and technological development, adoption of external technologies,
adaptation to local needs, orientation to practical needs
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Frontier technologies: focus on practical results over accuracy in the process of
incorporating the resources of unexplored territories into the fiscal structure of the state
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One technology not enough, technology not enough, to solve practical problems
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Multiple technologies, institutions (government and private sector), skills (piloting,
surveying) and new techniques (grids), natural resource management
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Conquest of nature for economic gain a process, extended through time, required
multiple innovations
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Science and technology crucial to our ability to harness natural resources, work necessary
to make nature legible