Archives Speaker Series - Feb. 27, 2019 - Dr. Frank Leonard - Axel Wenner-Gren's BC Project
Channel: Northern BC Archives
Date: 2019-02-28

On February 27, Dr. Frank Leonard, Adjunct Associate Professor, Dept. of History at University of Victoria will provide a presentation on The Axel Wenner-Gren BC Project, 1956-61, which proposed a massive development in the Rocky Mountain Trench between Swedish financier Wenner-Gren and the W.A.C. Bennett Government. Drawing on archival research undertaken in Sweden, Dr. Leonard suggests that the misfortunes of the "Swedish Midas" in British Columbia offer a fascinating case study in a much larger story of business failure.  

Dr. Leonard is a historian of infrastructure development in western Canada and the United States. His book, A Thousand Blunders: The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and Northern British Columbia (1996), has received several awards. For eight years, Dr. Leonard taught at the College of New Caledonia in Prince George, and during the 1970s, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of History at Uppsala University.