Kheraj, Sean. “Episode 52: Hydro-Power and War.” Nature’s Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast, March 22, 2016. MP3, 51:26 http://niche-canada.org/2016/03/22/11595/.
What fuels war? The total war of the Second World War placed enormous demands on the resources and environment of Canada. Manufacturing equipment for the war and harvesting natural resources for production were some of the most substantial contributions Canadians made to the war effort on the home front. And most of the electricity that powered that effort came from falling water. As Matthew Evenden writes in his new book Allied Power: Mobilizing Hydro-Electricity During Canada’s Second World War, “Canada’s war economy was mobilized on the banks of rivers as well as people.”
During the course of the Second World War, the federal government, provinces, and private corporations coordinated in the expansion of Canada’s hydro-electric capacity. By the end of the war, Canada was a hydro-electricity superpower. (From Nature’s Past)
Music credits: “Ride Out of Town” by spinningmerkaba, “Meditation on Jazz in Blue” by Doxent Zsigmond, “Bilinsky” by rocavaco
Nature’s Past podcasts are posted on a monthly basis on the website of the Network in Canadian History & Environment / Nouvelle initiative Canadienne en histoire de l’environnement (NiCHE). The podcasts contain discussion about the environmental history community and research in Canada. They are hosted by Sean Kheraj, an assistant professor in the Department of History at York University in Toronto, Canada.
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