Abstracts Transportation

“Ontario’s Development Road”: The Ontario Northland Railway and Provincial Colonialism, 1901-1995

by Thomas Edwy Blampied

In this dissertation I investigate the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway (known as the Ontario Northland Railway after 1946, or simply the ONR) in the Moosonee and Moose Factory region of Northeastern Ontario as a means to examine how provincial colonialism manifested through the railway’s actions. Railway infrastructure is an active agent of provincial colonialism. In Northeastern Ontario, the provincial government used the ONR to impose colonial control over the lands and waters of Omushkegowuk people by granting the railway power over land administration, resource development, and transportation infrastructure. In the Omushkego-Aski (James Bay Lowlands) in particular, the ONR was the first permanent provincial government presence and remained one of the most significant for decades. Industrial and natural resource development proposals, championed by the Ontario government, by the ONR, and by private enterprise show this colonial mindset in practice. Racially motivated indifference and outright discrimination exacerbated the railway’s unresponsiveness to the local situation. These actions demonstrated that, despite the relationship established in Treaty 9, the provincial government’s priorities did not include the local, primarily Omushkegowuk, population. In later years, tourism and leisure activities reinforced the railway’s imposed racial division and also further entrenched colonialism in the region. The Ontario government and ONR were willing to exploit the Omushkegowuk for their own ends, as producers of crafts for sale to tourists and as guides for elite sport hunters. In Northeastern Ontario, the ONR was a key agent of provincial colonialism, even as Omushkegowuk people developed their own complicated relationship with the railway that became a significant transportation link.