ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the idea of improvement as a principal driver and key logic of settler colonial dynamics in the context of Alberta’s oil sands. Examining the oil sands industry and the city of Fort McMurray through the frameworks of white settler colonialism, the author argues that it is possible to understand how destructive industrial projects can be justified as productive uses of resources and land. Analyzing this place and the industry that sustains it, the chapter demonstrates that whiteness and particular forms of Canadian nationalism are crucial in creating oil as a foundational resource for both the Canadian economy and national imaginary.
