Canadian Military Geography 1867-2002

Abstract

Military geography enjoyed some level of popularity in Europe during the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. In Canada, though, no systematic and deliberate attempt was ever made in that direction. This is largely because most of the thinking in that field was already done by others: Great Britain until World War II, and the US later on. The Canadian Army and Air Force took a large part in the surveying and mapping of the country, particularly in the vast northern areas. The Canadian Forces are still very good at mapping today, but geography is nearly absent from the curriculum at the Royal Military College, and trained geographers are hard to find at the Department of National Defence. This paper's first objective is to present a survey of the relationship between military and geography in Canada since the Confederation of 1867, and then to try to explain the Canadians' disregard for military geography.