LANDSCAPES IN CHANGE: EXPECTATIONS ‘forventning’ break down the absolutes denordification leftover spaces multiplicities trajectories genus loci i mappe mund
Case Study
I have in the back of my mind a trip from 2006 which took me to the subarctic in Quebec/Newfoundland. So my mental map of the artcic is painted by my experiences on that trip. We went to the abandoned moining town of Schefferville, or Kawachikimak. Although I expect the difference in the perception and inhabitiaiton of the north is very different in Norway from Canada, I can’t help but expect similair issues are at work. McGill Subarctic Reearch Station, Schefferville
THE ‘FRONTIER’ The preconcieved idea of the ‘great north’ a frontier of ‘wild nature’ is in line with what Doreen Massey calls the single narrative and it definitley still hangs around in the Canadian north. The perspective of the ‘hinterland’ of these northern areas that are to be plundered and ‘conquered’ is one that is inevitably to change. The importance of the Arctic as a global balancer of climate through ocean currents, fishing ecologies as dicussed by Paul Wassmann are only going to become more of an issue in the near future. Northern Norway and the Kola Peninsula seems to deal with similar issues as northern Quebec such as : the plundering of natural resources, the lack of interest/data in the local cultures and ecologies , lack of regulations, existence of a local peoples with local customs, who are not part of the same mentality as the rest of the country, just to name a few. I am interest to experience the Norwegian north with an already existing preconception of a Canadian ‘north’ in order to break down some preconceptions and establish some new ones.
Abandoned Iron Ore Mine, outside Schefferville
Holt pointing at Schefferville from our study area