Stormy Weather: Cyclones, Harold Innis, and Port Alberni, BC

Abstract

This paper uses the work of the Canadian economic historian, Harold Innis, to reflect on the nature of resource economies and the single-industry towns that form their backbone. For Innis resource or staple economies are subject to extreme spatial and temporal disruptions that are both creative and destructive. Single-industry towns are on the front line of both that creativity and that destructiveness. They enjoy rapid growth when a new resource is found, but are equally hastily abandoned when resources run out, or prices fall. Innis used the metaphor of the cyclone to depict this pattern of staples accumulation and consequent crisis. This paper will, first, elaborate on Innis's general cyclonic scheme that joins space, time, and staples production, and second, provide a case study of the forest-industry town of Port Alberni, British Columbia, to exemplify his argument.