Unbuilt Environments

This book looks at the long-term social and environmental effects of imagined, abandoned, and failed resource-development schemes in northwest British Columbia.

Jonathan Peyton is an assistant professor in the Department of Environment and Geography at the University of Manitoba. His work has appeared in Geoforum, Antipode, the Journal of Historical Geography, and Environment and History.

Gordon Hak:
Unbuilt Environments provides an even-handed discussion of development in a region that remains relatively aloof from capital investment and integration into the global economy.

Rajiv Thakur, Missouri State University, West Plains:

Unbuilt Environments is an enthralling book … [and] a great contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary narrative on resource development conflicts in northwest British Columbia, a region that is currently the site of intense mining exploration and controversy over energy projects. Drawing on fieldwork throughout northwest British Columbia and on research which is both eloquent and honest, Unbuilt Environments is a practical, accessible, and reliable resource from a respected emerging researcher. I strongly recommend this book for the expert and non-expert.

from the Foreword by Graeme Wynn:
Unbuilt Environments is a product of its time in that it is, most basically, a history of the present. The past of the Stikine is invoked here, not so much for its own intrinsic value but to comment on contemporary circumstances. Peyton does his work cleverly and eschews strict narrative chronology for an approach that tacks back and forth through time, to tie past and present together and challenge readers to reflect critically on contemporary circumstances.

Liza Piper, Associate Professor of History, University of Alberta:

Unbuilt Environments is an exciting and critical work of scholarship that explores the diverse environmental and social legacies of northern resource development. Focused on northern British Columbia and the Stikine, this work gives readers new ways to think about the industrial history of Canada’s North.