Editing Harold Innis (section)

==Staples thesis==
Harold Innis is considered the leading founder of a Canadian school of economic thought known as the staples theory. It holds that Canada's culture, political history and economy have been decisively shaped by the exploitation and export of a series of "staples" such as fur, fish, wood, wheat, mined metals and fossil fuels.<ref name = "Staples" /> Innis theorized that the reliance on exporting natural resources made Canada dependent on more industrially advanced countries and resulted in periodic disruptions to economic life as the international demand for staples rose and fell; as the staple itself became increasingly scarce; and, as technological change resulted in shifts from one staple to others.<ref name = "Neill" /> Innis pointed out, for example, that as furs became scarce and trade in that staple declined, it became necessary to develop and export other staples such as wheat, [[potash]] and especially lumber. The export of the new staples was made possible through improved transportation networks that included first canals and later railways.<ref name = "Fur Trade" />

==="Dirt" research===
In 1920, Innis joined the department of political economy at the [[University of Toronto]]. He was assigned to teach courses in commerce, economic history and economic theory. He decided to focus his scholarly research on Canadian economic history, a hugely neglected subject, and he settled on the fur trade as his first area of study. Furs had brought French and English traders to Canada, motivating them to travel west along the continent's interlocking lake and river systems to the Pacific coast. Innis realized that he had to search out archival documents to understand the history of the fur trade and also travel the country himself gathering masses of firsthand information and accumulating what he called "dirt" experience.<ref>Creighton, pp. 49–60. The reference to "dirt" experience appears in Watson, p. 41.</ref>

Thus, Innis travelled extensively beginning in the summer of 1924 when he and a friend paddled an {{convert|18|ft|m|adj=on}} canvas-covered canoe hundreds of miles down the [[Peace River (Canada)|Peace River]] to [[Lake Athabasca]]; then down the [[Slave River]] to [[Great Slave Lake]]. They completed their journey down the [[Mackenzie River|Mackenzie]], Canada's longest river, to the [[Arctic Ocean]] on a small [[Hudson's Bay Company]] tug.<ref>Creighton, pp. 61–64.</ref> During his travels, Innis supplemented his fur research by gathering information on other staple products such as lumber, pulp and paper, minerals, grain and fish. He travelled so extensively that by the early 1940s, he had visited every part of Canada except for the [[Western Arctic]] and the east side of [[Hudson Bay]].<ref>Berger, Carl. (1976). ''The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing: 1900–1970.'' Toronto: Oxford University Press. pp. 89–90.</ref>

Everywhere that Innis went, his methods were the same: he interviewed people connected with the production of staple products and listened to their stories.<ref>Watson, p. 124.</ref>

===Fur trade in Canada===
{{main|The Fur Trade in Canada}}
[[File:Beaver-Szmurlo.jpg|thumb|North American beaver, ''castor canadensis''. Innis argued that it is impossible to understand Canadian history without some knowledge of the beaver's life and habits.]]

Harold Innis's interest in the relationship between empires and colonies was developed in his classic study, ''The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History'' (1930). The book chronicles the trade in beaver fur from the early 16th century to the 1920s. Instead of focusing on the "heroic" European adventurers who explored the Canadian wilderness as conventional histories had done, Innis documents how the interplay of geography, technology and economic forces shaped both the fur trade and Canada's political and economic destiny.<ref>Berger, Carl. (1976) ''The Writing of Canadian History''. Toronto: Oxford University Press, pp. 94–95.</ref> He argues that the fur trade largely determined Canada's boundaries, and he comes to the conclusion that the country "emerged not in spite of geography but because of it."<ref name = "Fur Trade">Innis, Harold. (1956) ''The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History''. Revised Edition. Toronto: [[University of Toronto Press]], pp. 383–402.</ref>

In line with that observation, Innis notably proposes that European settlement of the Saint Lawrence River Valley followed the economic and social patterns of indigenous peoples, making for a Canadian historical and cultural continuity that predates and postdates European settlement. Unlike many historians who see Canadian history as beginning with the arrival of Europeans, Innis emphasizes the cultural and economic contributions of First Nations peoples.<ref>Dickason, Olive; McNab, David. (2009) ''Canada's First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times''. Fourth Edition. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press, p.ix.</ref> "We have not yet realized," he writes, "that the Indian and his culture was fundamental to the growth of Canadian institutions."<ref>Innis (Fur Trade), p. 392.</ref>

The Innisian perspective on the development of Canadian political, economic and social institutions was an early form of [[neo-institutionalism]], which became an accepted part of the Canadian political science tradition well before American and European counterparts.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Lecours|first1=Andre|editor1-first=André|editor1-last=Lecours|title=New Institutionalism: Theory and Analysis|date=2005|publisher=University of Toronto Press|location=Toronto|doi=10.3138/9781442677630|jstor=10.3138/9781442677630|isbn=9781442677630|s2cid=142049066 }}</ref> ''The Fur Trade in Canada'' concludes by arguing that Canadian economic history can best be understood by examining how one staple product gave way to another—furs to timber, for example, and the later importance of wheat and minerals.<ref>Berger, pp. 95–96.</ref> Reliance on staples made Canada economically dependent on more industrially advanced countries and the "cyclonic" shifts from one staple to another caused frequent disruptions in the country's economic life.<ref name = "Neill">[[Robin Neill|Neill, Robin]]. (1972) ''A New Theory of Value: The Canadian Economics of H.A. Innis''. Toronto: [[University of Toronto Press]], pp. 45–46.</ref>

''The Fur Trade in Canada'' also describes the cultural interactions among three groups of people: the Europeans in fashionable metropolitan centres who regarded beaver hats as luxury items; the European colonial settlers who saw beaver fur as a staple that could be exported to pay for essential manufactured goods from the home country, and First Nations peoples who traded furs for industrial goods such as metal pots, knives, guns and liquor.<ref>Watson, pp. 152–53.</ref> Innis describes the central role First Nations peoples played in the development of the fur trade. Without their skilled hunting techniques, knowledge of the territory and advanced tools such as snowshoes, toboggans and birch-bark canoes, the fur trade would not have existed.<ref>Innis (Fur Trade), p. 10-15</ref> However, dependence on European technologies disrupted First Nations societies. "The new technology with its radical innovations," Innis writes, "brought about such a rapid shift in the prevailing Indian culture as to lead to wholesale destruction of the peoples concerned by warfare and disease."<ref>Innis (Fur Trade), p. 388.</ref> Historian Carl Berger argues that by placing First Nations culture at the centre of his analysis of the fur trade, Innis "was the first to explain adequately the disintegration of native society under the thrust of European capitalism."<ref>Berger, p. 100.</ref>

===Cod fishery===
{{main|The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy}}

After the publication of his book on the fur trade, Innis turned to a study of an earlier staple, the [[cod]] fished for centuries off the eastern coasts of North America. The result was ''The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy'' published in 1940, 10&nbsp;years after the fur trade study. Innis tells the detailed history of competing empires in the exploitation of a teeming natural resource, a history that ranges over 500&nbsp;years. While his study of the fur trade focused on the continental interior with its interlocking rivers and lakes, ''The Cod Fisheries'' looks outward at global trade and empire, showing the far-reaching effects of one staple product both on imperial centres and on marginal colonies such as Newfoundland, [[Nova Scotia]], and [[New England]].