Something like 10 or 15 years ago, I mentioned to someone on this forum that I had an old National Geographic with an article on the construction of Kitimat and I could scan it if anyone wanted to see it, and one of the Canadians here (I forget who) said they'd be interested in seeing it.
Well, better late than never! Here it is.
It wasn't always easy scanning this magazine on my scanner, sorry if a few pages got cut off on the side a bit.
Kitimat never came remotely close to the vaunted projections of being the third largest city in the Province.
In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, Kitimat had a population of 8,236
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
Interesting they mentioned the urban design of Kitimat townsite, and in particular the arrangement of houses towards walking paths instead of vehicle streets. A friend of mine lived there briefly and mentioned that most of the houses have since renovated to put the "front" back towards the street and fenced off the yard facing the communal path. The 1950s Canadian vision for a Garden City never really played out...
James Bond Agent 007, thank you very much for taking the time to scan and post this piece. Incredible.
I grew up reading National Geographics and loved these old long-form narrative pieces about infrastructure and major civil projects. This was not only fascinating, but made me feel nostalgic for curling up with a stack of National Geographics from a yard sale and spending a rainy day reading them from cover to cover.
My wife worked in Kitimat for a short time as part of her education and I visited her up there. Very neat town and it was absolutely hopping at the time as LNG Canada had just completed all of the staff infrastructure and was beginning work with the full workforce on Phase 1 of the LNG facility. The hustle and bustle back when the town was being built must have been something else.
__________________ VANCOUVER | Beautiful, Multicultural | Canada's Pacific Metropolis
I grew up reading National Geographics and loved these old long-form narrative pieces about infrastructure and major civil projects. This was not only fascinating, but made me feel nostalgic for curling up with a stack of National Geographics from a yard sale and spending a rainy day reading them from cover to cover.
Ah, the story of my childhood. My father had them going back to the 1940s. We only had the last decade out in the family room, but one day back in the late 1970s, while hunting for some camping gear in the furnace room, I came across huge boxes of old National Geographics. The first issue that I opened up had a long article on New York City (1964, as I recall). Changed my life.
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
I have a large collection of old National Geographics, I'd say 150 or so, the oldest of which is dated March, 1928. I had saved some from the late-60's to early-80's that I grew up with since my parents had a subscription for a while, but the older ones I used to buy from certain Half Price Books stores around Seattle. But not even Half Price Books carries many of them anymore, at least not the ones here around KC.
We had a subscription growing up and I slowly expanded the collection back to the early 60s, with a scattering of much older ones, including one from 1941. Ultimately, I couldn't keep moving them around with me, so I made the tough decision to donate the whole collection to a thrift store.
Before I did, though, I went through everything and saved a couple dozen that were my absolutely favourites. There were some amazing cover stories like The Space Shuttle (before it flew), China (after Nixon reset relations), The Digital Revolution (introducing the internet as a concept to John Q Public), or The Titanic (when it was finally found). There is one where the whole cover was a hologram. Another was a special report about the climate change (in the late 70s or early 80s - sounds like we should keep an eye on that). Then there would be individual stories, like one on Vancouver just before Expo 86, or the science of air crash investigations, or commercial nuclear power on its 25th anniversary, or agriculture in the Soviet Union. Etc. Etc. All just fascinating time capsules from a former titan of a medium that doesn't exist anymore.
__________________ VANCOUVER | Beautiful, Multicultural | Canada's Pacific Metropolis
I purchased a complete CD-ROM collection of all national geographic magazines from 1886 to 2009 or thereabouts. I don't know if the format will still work on my newer computers...I do have an old laptop from back then which I can still use, when I have time to lose. Alas, it ain't the same as leafing through (very dusty) physical media.
National Geographic reached its peak from the 1960s-1990s. I don't know what happened to it after 2010s, but I found myself increasingly disappointed with the direction the magazine had taken (far fewer articles on specific places, for one).
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. (Bertrand Russell). Sweet Loretta fart thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan. (John Lennon)
I wonder how many of us read our parents NatGeos growing up! My dad had full collections going back to the 60s and I’d go through looking for articles about cities. I remember there was a 90s(?) article about skyscrapers which turns out was pretty formative!
One of my fave bars in Chicago (Map Room) has shelves of them and when my friends and I used to go every summer for pitchfork music festival we’d hang out there the last day to decompress over beers and check out old articles.
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