Forgotten Places of the North

Across the broad expanse of Canada’s North there are few physical reminders of the rich history of the land and its people. Forgotten Places in the North examines three rare cases where heritage structures have withstood the ravages of time and unforgiving climate. YORK FACTORY was the key staging area of the Hudson’s Bay Company for over two hundred years. From its construction in 1830, the “Depot” warehouse held a wealth of trade goods that lured the trappers of the Northwest. HERSCHEL ISLAND, off the north coast of the Yukon, became the unlikely winter home to hundreds of Yankee whalers in the 1890s. The buildings of this abandoned settlement still remain. The MID-CANADA LINE was an electronic Cold War bastion that stretched the length of Canada’s 55th parallel. This national project stood against American ambition to the south and the Soviet threat from the north.

S.R. (Sandy) Gage is a freelance photography and writer. He studied photography at the Visual Studies Workshop (Rochester, N.Y.), Ryerson and OCAD.