The Multiple Glaciation Debate¹ The Canadian Perspective, 1880-1900

While geologists in the United States were engaged in a debate about the multiple glaciation of the North American continent, geologists in Canada were still debating the more basic concept of continental glaciation itself. Inhibited by the political setting of Canada, with western development well behind that of the United States, and by the British allegiance and dominating personality of Sir William Dawson of McGill, the Canadians were decidedly behind their American colleagues in their interpretation of glacial phenomena. Only with a younger generation of Canadians utilizing American periodicals and ideas in the early 1890's did Canadian glacial geology come into agreement with the ideas used in the United States.