Wise Men Scan the Land

Wise Men Scan the Land explores the boundaries of military action in Canada. The project examines the link between Canadian defence production, land use and the environment. Initially interested in water contamination in a small town south of Toronto, Ontario, the project quickly expanded to examine the breadth of Canadian defence production. In this small rural farming town, Uniroyal Chemical produced Agent Orange, a military herbicide widely used during the Vietnam War. The facility caused significant water contamination and over 30 years later, environmental remediation efforts are ongoing.

Archival images, from the Library and Archives of Canada, examine military action in Canada. Specifically, the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, a series of radar installations stretching between Alaska, Canada, and Greenland was built during the Cold War in response to the perceived threat from the Soviet Union. The installations, whose goal was to detect and respond to potential attacks from the north, left significant soil and water contamination leaving behind a legacy of harm, not protection. Beginning in the early 1990s, the DEW line cleanup project was one of the largest engineering projects in the world when it was finally completed in 2014.

These images are shown on a series of digital collages showing these specific sites through the use of remote sensing technology. The perspective of the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), an imaging tool used in battlefield intelligence, contrasts with the view of the landscape images. I encourage the viewer to reflect on the visibility, and scale of the environmental consequences of war. The project turns the camera back on the land, providing a new perspective on the sites of defence production and military installations in Canada.

As viewers engage with the images, they are invited to examine the intrinsic link between the landscape and the environmental impact of military action.