The Government of Natural Resources explores scientific and technical activity in Quebec from Confederation until the eve of the Second World War. Scientific and technical personnel are an often quiet presence within the state, but they play an integral role.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the provincial government created geology, forestry, fishery, and agronomy services. These new services drew from recently established university technical programs to amass a corps of skilled employees to support their mission: exploiting resources and occupying territory. Stéphane Castonguay traces the history of mining, logging, hunting, fishing, and agriculture in Quebec to reveal how territorial and environmental transformations thus became a tool of government.

By helping to define and shape such interventions, scientific activity contributed to state formation and expanded administrative capacity. The lessons that this thoughtful reconceptualization of resource development offers reach well beyond provincial borders.

Stéphane Castonguay's profile page

Graeme Wynn is a professor of historical geography at the University of British Columbia and editor of BC Studies. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada and lives in Vancouver.

Graeme Wynn's profile page

Kathe Roth was born in Montréal and now lives in Saint-Lazare, Québec. She has been a literary translator and editor for more than twenty-five years. Her work includes over thirty translated books and essays of literary non-fiction on various subjects, including art, architecture, economics, history, and sociology, as well as fiction. She was a finalist for the Governor General Award for literary translation in 1993 for “The Last Cod Fish” by Pol Chantraine. She is a member of the Literary Translators Association of Canada.

Käthe Roth's profile page

The author provides great detail on the history of technical and scientific advances in the four natural resource areas of Quebec from 1867 to 1939.

Choice Connect

In meticulously detailed chapters devoted to the development of mining, forestry, wildlife conservation, and agriculture, Casonguay shows how Quebec took control of its resources.

Literary Review of Canada