Pistons to pipelines: the relationship between aviation, oil and the development of the North

Abstract

Infrastructure development in the North is tied directly to military and private explorations for oil, national defense, and the use of aviation that provided access to remote regions. World War II drove the initial infrastructure development in Northwest Canada and the North Slope of Alaska, which linked aviation to oil and provided access points for further Arctic development. The Cold War brought the military back to the Arctic, using existing infrastructure to construct the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, the largest construction project ever attempted in the North at that time. Aviation provided the transportation flexibility necessary to accomplish the project and expanded aviation infrastructure in the North. All of this coalesced with the exploration and discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay and the subsequent airlift that allowed rapid development of the oil field.