Anti-Colonial Science: A Course Journal. Vol. 3, 2025. https://ojs.library.dal.ca/acs/

Colonialism and Rocket Launches in Churchill, MB

Leah Chambers

People have looked to the sky for generations and around the world, using the stars for navigation and mythology. Since the 1950s, space sciences (astronomy, aerospace engineering, planetary sciences, and more) have been inextricably linked to political and corporate interests. My reflection provides a short history of the colonial history of space science. It examines two potential futures for space science, one that continues perpetuating hegemonic narratives of domination and another that centres Indigenous geographies and scientific knowledge.

Itty Abraham’s “Science and Secrecy in Making of Postcolonial State,” describes the coexistence of colonial and postcolonial state forms in India using the example of nuclear energy. The method of analysis that Abraham uses questions claims that science and technology in an independent India are postcolonial by problematizing the stark distinction between colonial and postcolonial. He says, “I argue that the primary contradiction lies in the coexistence of the colonial and postcolonial state forms, specifically in the gap between the anti-colonial mobilisation of the Indian people and popular acceptance of the authority of the independent state.”¹ He describes this coexistence with the term post/colonial to explain the unchanged structure of the state with indigenous political leaders.² In periods after independence, colonialism and postcolonialism existed simultaneously, and Abraham demonstrated this with an example of state secrets during nuclear energy projects. I will use Abraham’s reading of the Cold War, science and technology, and colonialism and postcolonialism to provide a short history of space sciences.

The Cold War is primarily characterised as a period of significant geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, with the ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation. Science and technology research, including research into nuclear technology and space exploration, were used as ideological and potentially real weapons. In “The Settler Logics of (Outer) Space,” Deondre Smiles, an Ojibwe geographer, argues that the inextricable link between space exploration and state hegemony can be traced to the Cold War.³ He says that “US and Soviet space programs were born partially out of military utility, and propaganda value—the ability to send a nuclear warhead across a great distance to strike the enemy via a ICBM.”⁴ According to Smiles, the logic of settler colonialism is prevalent in how we talk about and do space science, using the example of the United States. A narrative myth in how space exploration is discussed claims it represents “another ‘unknown’ to be conquered and bent to America’s will.”⁵ Space exploration, according to Smiles, is another way that dominant science perpetuates colonial violence.

During the Cold War, a rocket range in Churchill, Manitoba, was used for military and scientific research, with more than 3,500 rockets launched during that time.⁶ The location of most rocket test and launch sites during the Cold War occurred in the United States. However, the unique location of Churchill made it valuable to Arctic security – for Canada and the United States. There are a few reasons why Churchill is an ideal location for a rocket site. C.J. Taylor describes them, saying, “Scientists were drawn to the Churchill area because it was in a zone of auroral activity, it lay near the magnetic pole, the atmosphere was relatively thin at this latitude, and there was a military base nearby that could provide logistical support.”⁷ The site was staffed by American and Canadian military personnel and was important for scientific advancement in both countries. It closed in 1985, and it is an interesting example of a synergy of interest in space for scientific and military purposes.

Scientists have called research centres in Churchill, MB, home for the past 75 years, raising questions about integrating Indigenous knowledge and Western science. Churchill is primarily made up of Indigenous residents and visiting scientists, with 64% of residents identifying as Indigenous on the most recent census.⁸ A recent piece about science in Churchill, the hub of Canadian arctic research, said, “Scientists from the south can easily miss the textures and priorities of the tight-knit town. When a researcher descends on Churchill, they seclude themselves in the centre, only visiting the town and its people intermittently.”⁹ The disconnect between outsider scientists and the Cree and Chipewyan peoples highlights how there continues to be a tension between colonial science and Indigenous scientific knowledge. In “Copper Stories: Imaginative Geographies and Material Orderings of the Central Canadia Arctic,” Emilie Cameron says, “contemporary Arctic geographies are shaped by histories of imperialism and colonialism, by the racialization elaborated in Canadian settler societies, by historical and contemporary flows of capital and resources, by state and missionary activities in the region, and by Inuit and other Indigenous political movements.”¹⁰ In “Churchill at a Crossroads,” Cree knowledge keeper Georgina Berg tells journalist Matteo Cimellaro that she wants to see scientists interact with the community more.¹¹ The alienation of Indigenous knowledge and experience is highlighted in the way that scientific research, like that done at the Churchill research range, fails to engage in a meaningful way with Indigenous knowledge.

Abraham describes India as a post/colonial state after independence from Britain in 1947, and the scientific research conducted at that time is one example of the complex relationship between colonialism and post/colonialism. For scientific research to continue in Churchill, researchers need to interact with the people, animals, and land before they begin to conduct research. Max Liboiron provides some insight into how to conduct anticolonial science, which they describe saying, “Anticolonial here is meant to describe the diversity of work, positionalities, and obligations that let us ‘stand with’ one another as we pursue good land relations, broadly defined.”¹² With increasing discussions about the Arctic, space capabilities, and military research in these domains, conversation and practice must ‘stand with’ as Liboiron suggests.

Bibliography

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1. Itty Abraham, “Science and Secrecy in Making of Postcolonial State,” Economic and Political Weekly 32, no. 33–34 (August 16, 1997): 2137.

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2. Abraham, “Science and Secrecy in Making of Postcolonial State,” 2137.

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3. Deondre Smiles, “The Settler Logics of (Outer) Space,” accessed February 28, 2025, https://www.societyandspace.org/articles/the-settler-logics-of-outer-space.

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4. Smiles.

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5. Smiles.

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6. Matteo Cimellaro, “Churchill at a Crossroads: The Long Road of Integration between Western Science and Local Knowledge | Canada’s National Observer: Climate News,” December 24, 2024, https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/12/24/analysis/churchill-integration-western-science-Indigenous-knowledge.

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7. “Exploring Northern Skies: The Churchill Research Range - ProQuest,” accessed March 2, 2025, https://www.proquest.com/docview/235982232?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals.

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8. Statistics Canada Government of Canada, “Census Profile, 2016 Census - Churchill, Town [Census Subdivision], Manitoba and Manitoba [Province],” February 8, 2017, https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=CSD&Code1=4623056&Geo2=PR&Code2=46&SearchText=Churchill&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=Aboriginal%20peoples&TABID=1&type=1.

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9. Cimellaro, “Churchill at a Crossroads.”

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10. Emilie Cameron, “Copper Stories: Imaginative Geographies and Material Orderings of the Central Canadian Arctic,” in Rethinking the Great White North: Race, Nature and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada, ed. Andrew Baldwin, Laura Cameron, and Audrey Kobayashi (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011).

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11. Cimellaro, “Churchill at a Crossroads.”

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12. Max Liboiron, Pollution Is Colonialism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2021), 28. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dal/detail.action?docID=6527589.

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Copyright (c) 2025 Leah Chambers

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