Canada's economy began as a source of commercial commodities for European masters, including the classic staples of fish as salt cod, fur, square timber, gold and wheat. Much of Canada's resource development has been with export in mind. Even today well over half of Canada's forest products are exported, as are 80% of its mineral products. However, resources are "soft sands" on which to build an economy unless developed with extraordinary care. Unfortunately this has not always been the case in Canada. Resource depletion is a mounting problem throughout Canada's forestry industry, and problems in the east coast fishery have become legendary (Clement and Williams, 1997: 43). Although many resource towns in Canada no longer exist as they once did, many are looking to other "resources" for survival.
The impacts of this economic situation on the settlement process are rather unique and can be considered as one of the characteristics of the Canadian urban landscape. Single resource towns have particularly developed in remote areas and/or as frontier settlements. What they have in common is that they often relate on one resource based activity that varies from one town to the next. Thus, these settlements have been described as "minetowns, railtowns, milltowns" etc. elsewhere (Lucas, 1971). Many of the tiny outports of the Atlantic or the Pacific coast are other examples.
The development of single resource towns is not only a phenomenon of the past in Canada. Resort centers such as Whistler [1] in British Columbia sprang up only a few years ago. Other tourist centers, such as Banff [2] and Jasper [3] in Alberta have developed as the administrative and commercial centers within the National parks of Banff and Jasper. Whether of old or recent origin, the general problem to these towns is identical. They are viable as long as the resource on which they depend is available. In case of economic change, market failures, depletion of the resource or concurrent developments elsewhere they can collapse within a short time period. In some cases they might be able to promote new activities. But there are many examples throughout Canada that former single resource towns turned into ghost towns once their economic basis vanished.
A first example of a typical Canadian resource town is Rose Blanche [4] in Newfoundland, a small settlement that was traditionally based on fishery like most of the many outports along the coast [5] of this province. However, for this town, fishing is an activity of the past [6], and tourism is one of its present focuses. Rocky terrain surrounds Rose Blanche, and its main tourist attraction is the old stone lighthouse [7]. No other structure remains from the earliest days of this community's history, but the lighthouse. Tourism is not its only strength. The area also promotes its strong community spirit, relaxed lifestyle and a close-knit community. It can no longer rely on the fishing industry, but instead must develop alternative initiatives and a new way of thinking.
Since Newfoundland's mainstay, cod fishery [8], collapsed in the early 1990s, many changes have occurred. Newfoundland's premier Brian Tobin feels that good things can and will happen to Newfoundland. His inspiration lies with Ireland. For most of modern history Ireland was a stagnant island on the edge of a great continent. Yet in just a few decades, Ireland has transformed itself into an economic powerhouse through a combination of information technology, manufacturing, tourism [9] and entrepreneurial grit. It is a model Tobin thinks he can import and customize to break Newfoundland's historic dependence on the fishery.
However, economically the situation is still bleak. Newfoundland depends on federal transfer payments: fully 40.6 percent of its current $3.3 billion budget comes from Ottawa. To further worsen the situation, Newfoundland suffered a net loss [10] of 5600 from 1998-1999. However, there is some hope that Tobin's vision will become reality. A new scaled down and richer fishery has emerged from the wreckage of the 1992 cod moratorium. Finally, great things appear to be looming on the horizon; following the example of Hibernia [11], the Terra Nova oilfield is scheduled to go into production in late 2000. Tobin's belief is that Newfoundland is in the beginning stages of a dramatic shift. Hopefully, his belief is correct in proving that typical resource towns can do more [12] than survive after their initial resource is finished.
Another example: The Northern Ontario city of Elliot Lake [13] was once the uranium capital of the world [14]. Unfortunately it was devastated by the closing of the uranium mines operated by Denison and Rio Algom. The closures and mass layoffs were first announced in 1990 and continued until June 1996. The city of 14,500 saw the loss of more than 3000 jobs in the last five years. This situation is very similar to the many fishing towns in Newfoundland. It is about a community's struggle to survive, and the shift in its economic base from mining, to one where retirement living for senior citizens, mine decommissioning, and a community based research facility are among the several economic survival strategies [15].
With a background in mining, engineering and related activity, the people and business community of Elliot Lake have a "rock" solid understanding of hard work and how to make the best of every opportunity [16]. Many new doors have opened since the city's economic dependency shifted away from the mines. New businesses are now active in telecommunications, light industry, waste management and environmental services, tourism and retirement living services. The situation of Elliot Lake looks somewhat more positive than that in Rose Blanche, at least for the time being. One of the advantages of this city is its relatively good location not too far from the Trans Canada Highway (at a distance of some 40 kilometers) halfway between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie (Michigan).
Elliot Lake witnessed the end of the uranium mining era and with it saw a need for a new future based on change and diversity. Elliot Lake is in the process of developing a balanced and diversified economy. It intends to do so by building upon its strengths and by preserving and enhancing the quality of life of its present and future residents. For example, the Elliot Lake Retirement Living Program attracts more than 4000 retirees to the city annually and has attracted more than 3000 new residents to the community. More recently they have begun to establish the community as a center for research and development related to mine reclamation and decommissioning. Efforts are underway to establish Elliot Lake as a recognized center for Environmental Rehabilitation and Management related to mining and industrial operations. These initiatives compliment and support CANMENT, a federal mine and energy related research facility already located in Elliot Lake [17].
In 1994, the Elliot Lake and North Shore Business Development Corporation was established to promote the diversified development of businesses [18] that generate wealth in the Elliot Lake region. The Corporation provides both financial and technical assistance to businesses in the Elliot Lake region with the goal of creating 1000 jobs by the year 2000. Another advantage of Elliot Lake is its modernity. Apart from the land, trees and lakes, nothing is much more than forty years old [19]. Beyond all these developments, Elliot Lake is focussing its efforts on retaining and diversifying existing manufacturing operations; energy efficiency; human resources development and training. This proves like the Newfoundland example that uranium production was not the only industry or activity that could or will sustain Elliot Lake into the future.
Some resource towns in British Columbia are in a slightly different position than the two previous examples. Many of these towns depend on forestry and forestry products, as the examples of Prince George or Quesnel illustrate. Both cities developed, similar to many others, along the few road connections that run across the province and which were built in order to provide access to the resources in the remote areas of the country. The resource problems of Rose Blanche and Elliot Lake occurred in the past and now they are developing other initiatives for a hopefully prosperous future. But British Columbia is currently facing many resource problems in its forestry industry. Sawmills are closing, earnings are plummeting and thousands of workers are facing layoffs. Canada's biggest forestry company, MacMillan Bloedel (in 1999 it was taken over by the Weyerhaeuser Company [20]), has had four consecutive quarterly losses, and is considering a radical restructuring. Forestry is British Columbia's primary industry, and its exports totaled more than $9 billion in 1996. However, a large portion of these exports goes to Asia where markets are in disarray. Even if the Asian financial crisis eased, the forestry firms face other serious problems. The contention is that high provincial taxes, tough environmental rules and high fees for the right to log on public land have made logging in the province twice as expensive as elsewhere.
The market failures of the forest industry are not new. Five Commissions on Forestry have been developed to address perceived problems within the forest sector. Some Commissions have suggested community forestry as an effective means of addressing some problems observed in the forest sector [21], but to date there has been no concerted effort to facilitate the establishment of community forests within the province. One market failure [22] arises from the forestry sector having no mechanism to clear or handle the exchange of forest services such as recreation, wildlife habitat, tradition, water quality or aesthetic values.
Another market failure originates from forest-based industries frequently forming the primary industry for a rural community and being driven by a profit motive, with no incentive to factor in, or consider the importance of community or regional socio-economic well being or concerns. A third market failure results from the mismatched profit and investment horizons of the public and private sectors. Capital market imperfections, such as environmental costs and the relatively short time horizons of private planners, lead to forest firms investing in silviculture at a rate below the social optimum. A final forest market failure stems from the lack of competition within the British Columbia timber market, with the supply of timber and demand often involving the same or closely related forestry firms. This lack of competition results in pricing which is arguably lower than it should be.
The examples described above have in common that the respective towns have tried to develop alternatives for the vanished resource they relied on. Efforts of this kind are not always successful, as many examples across Canada have shown in the past. There are many resource towns, prosperous at one time, that have disappeared totally or only survived as ghost towns. A good example is Barkerville [23] in British Columbia, named after Bill Barker who discovered gold in the Caribou region in 1861. Within 48 hours he found gold more than 1000 dollars worth (10 times as much in today's value). Once the discovery was known, adventurers from all over the continent rushed towards Barkerville and made it within only a few month the biggest city of North America east of Chicago and north of San Francisco.
The boom did not last. Already by the early 1870s most of the gold had been exploited, the gold seekers headed for other places and left Barkerville as a ghost town behind. Bill Barker died without a penny to his name. Today, Barkerville is one of the great tourist attractions of British Columbia due to its reconstruction as an open air museum [24] that recalls the gold rush of the 1860s. One might even still find some gold dust in the pan that can be rented in the many souvenir shops that now flourish. As a resource, tourism has replaced gold in Barkerville, but not all resource towns would be able to follow the example.
What can be seen from the examples described is that there is not a reliable strategy of how to prevent resource towns from decaying if their economic basis starts to diminish. It is hoped that the forestry industry of British Columbia will learn from the other two examples about managing resource-based towns. Identifying some of the problems is an important step in reaching possible solutions and conclusions. One difficulty with the Newfoundland fishery was the fact that no one could agree upon what the problem really was in terms of the declining fish stocks. If British Columbia can agree upon, and identify the difficulties surrounding the forest industry, then perhaps it will not experience the same challenges as Rose Blanche and Elliot Lake.
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