So this is what I worked on for six years... My PhD research on Moosonee

Below is a link to my PhD thesis entitled "Moosonee, Ontario: A Model of Cold War Change."
This link will bring you to a pdf of the thesis on Laurentian University's website (go to the bottom of the page that appears for the pdf). This research examined the impact on the Town of Moosonee of having a Cold War radar base constructed right beside the town.

https://zone.biblio.laurentian.ca/handle/10219/2631

I can't find a 1964 Planning report on Moosonee

In 1963 the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission hired Project Planning Associates to prepare a Community Development Plan for Moosonee. The report was released to the ONTC and to the provincial government of Ontario in 1964.  I cannot find this report anywhere. I have checked the Ontario and federal archives and any ONR/ONTC files that I could access. Also, Project Planning Associates is no longer operating as a planning firm, so I can't ask them about their archives.
I wonder if anyone else has heard of this report?

Last summer in Moosonee

Before I went up to Moosonee last summer, everyone I talked to said "You'll see a lot of changes. Things have changed. etc." Some of the comments seemed to say that Moosonee would "look worse" to me. The people telling me this either lived in Moosonee or visited there from time to time so I was quite curious what I would see.  I had been to Moosonee about 30 times between 1993 and 2006 but I hadn't been up there in seven years.

What was my overall impression of mid-August Moosonee? It seemed pretty quiet. The train going both ways had lots of people on board, but Moosonee itself seemed peaceful--read 'quiet'. The Polar Princess was closed down so I guess that was a main reason why there didn't seem to be a lot of tourists coming back and forth downtown. Even the streets in Moose Factory seemed almost deserted--or at least the part around the old Hudson's Bay Company. I know there are at least 2,000 people living on the Island and 2,500 or more on the mainland but we were the only ones walking around the HBC post at about 10:30 in the morning on a Thursday.  Actually I need to remind myself that people were already at work by then or even away on vacation. A woman drove by and then stopped to ask if we needed directions--which was really nice of her. She also said that we were a bit early in the day for tourists.

What about the town of Moosonee itself? The yards looked really tidy and some had nice flowers. The waterfront /shoreline area was the best I'd seen it in a long time. It was good to see that the shoreline rehabilitation seemed to have worked and that people were walking by and sitting watching the river and the water taxis coming and going. When we first got there I couldn't wait to get on the river and go over to the Island--it's always so nice to be buzzing along the Moose river in a freighter canoe.

Ontario Archives are proving to be a really valuable source on Moosonee

I've been to the Ontario Archives twice this summer and I have to say that the staff are terrific and the files are really comprehensive.  There is lots of information on Moosonee for the time period that I'm looking at-1955 to 1975.  There are memos, maps and photos. It isn't a matter of scrambling to find 4 or 5 files. It's more an issue of deciding how much I can possibly hope to review and analyze. I'm back to the archives at the end of this month and looking forward to seeing more files.

Moosonee and NICHE

Here'a new link to a short article that I wrote via the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NICHE)--great site for a huge range of environmental history research.
http://niche-canada.org/2013/11/03/the-cold-war-in-the-near-north-moosonee-and-the-pinetree-radar-line/

Hope you enjoy the article-it's on the Cold War era in Moosonee, a small town on the Moose River (just south of James Bay).

Good Environmental History Conference

I went to my first American Society of Environmental Historians Conference last month.  It was inspiring-flat out! (I mean it was 'Great'--just to be sure I'm clear on this).  The ASEH doesn't normally meet in Toronto but I'm glad they did this year. Some of my favourite sessions dealt with northern issues, but the range was quite broad.  Joy Parr chaired a session called "Keeping Calm and Carrying on in Contaminated Communities." It covered Youngstown, Ohio to Asbestos, Quebec. The Asbestos presentation by Jessica van Horssen was pretty shocking (not a 'fancy' word but it definitely describes how I felt hearing about that town).  At another session Matthew Farish spoke about the DEW Line and Arn Keeling about oral history challenges.  Great stuff! 

I brought a poster of my research on Moosonee and handed out page size copies.  I hope it helps encourage more research on the Pinetree line.

Another part of the conference which was totally worth the four hours was the tour of the Don Valley.  There were three facilitators who took us back several hundred years to the time when the Don Valley had a naturally curving river (picture oxbows).  We started at an historical mill site and ended up at Lake Ontario. I had anticipated one or two people showing us around, but three experts who carried historical maps with them was a treat. In particular, Jennifer Bonnell and Wayne Reeves made this tour the highlight of the conference for me.

Back to reading....

Yes, still studying the Pinetree Radar Line and Moosonee

I've been pretty busy with school work (read "Marking Geography papers") but by May 1st I should be focusing again solely on Moosonee and the Pinetree Line. I have never lost interest in this project (which will hopefully someday be a completed PhD thesis). There has been a lot of material written on the Distant Early Warning Line (D.E.W. Line) but I still have not found a group of researchers studying the Pinetree Line--the one radar line that was closest to many of us who live in northern Ontario.