-GEOGRAPHY 



133 



north of the Dominion is being exploited not only for furs but for metal 

 mines ; the latter in part by air-transport. Agriculture has covered most 

 of the inland prairies, and will extend north (and into the Clay Belt) as 

 indicated by the crosses. Manufactures have spread along the 

 St. Lawrence from Montreal to Ottawa and Windsor, in large part owing 

 to the bountiful water-power (Taylor i936d). 



But while there have been these striking advances and changes in the 

 type of industry, man has not really been a free agent. His advance from 

 fur-hunting to wheat-growing is only possible where rain and sun and 

 soil are satisfactory. All the fur country cannot be utilised for wheat, 

 even if man so wishes. Using a foreign example, we shall never see 

 hydro-electric^ power or coalfields leading to the development of factories 





Fig. 17. — The evolution of the social groups in Europe is almost wholly deter- 

 mined by the environmental controls of Climate, Topography and Coal ; as 

 shown in the Insets. Figures are density per sq. mile. 



in that half of the southern continent known as ' Empty Australia,' how- 

 ever much man may wish to replace the sparsest of pastoral occupation 

 by better-paying industries. On the other hand, it seems clear to the 

 writer that in the future the immense coal resources of Alberta must 

 inevitably be utilised, as the more accessible coalfields are used up else- 

 where. Man may very probably some day ' choose ' (as the ' Possibilist 

 School ' would say) to give up ranching in the drier parts of Alberta, and 

 turn to manufacturing based on the almost inexhaustible coal. But he is 

 none the less controlled by his environment. 



Exaggerating somewhat, I feel that Man's part in the programme of 

 a country's evolution is not unlike that of a traffic policeman. He can 

 accelerate, slow or halt the traffic, but he does not alter its direction. 

 This ' Stop and Go Determinism ' has no supporters among the historians, 

 and not many even among geographers. But it expresses something of 

 the conclusions that I have arrived at from my lengthy study of the 

 difficult environments of Australia and Canada. 



