Julian Rioux is an honours student in history completing his bachelor’s degree at the University of Saskatchewan in Spring 2025. He is a recipient of the 2025-2026 DePOT MA Fellowship at Concordia where he will be attending this fall. With a keen eye on the ongoing concerns in his hometown of Estevan, SK around the expected closure of the coal industry, Julian looked to other instances of closure and has since been interested in the history Uranium City and the surrounding area. He currently lives in Saskatoon with his partner.
Project Statement:
Leaving Eldorado: Indigenous Responses to Uranium Deindustrialization and Settler Recession
Uranium mining and subsequent decommissioning in northern Saskatchewan has significantly shaped the region and its residents. The post-war boom in uranium demand brought an influx of capital and settlement into a region long populated by various Indigenous communities. Uranium demand then declined, ore veins depleted, and mines closed, leaving settlers and Indigenous peoples north of Lake Athabasca behind to navigate the ramifications. Uranium mines came online in other parts of northern Saskatchewan but Uranium City, SK provides a unique context to explore one community’s reaction to mine closure. Prior to uranium mine openings in 1952, Métis, Cree, and Dene communities inhabited the lake’s northern shore but receive little acknowledgement in the history of uranium development in that region. This MA history thesis will examine the effects of settler colonialism and deindustrialization on the economy and landscapes of Uranium City and surrounding communities following the decommissioning of uranium mines beginning in the 1960s, but especially following the closing of Eldorado’s Beaverlodge Mine in 1982. Focus will be placed on the experiences of Indigenous labourers and community stakeholders implicated in this history as collected through oral history methods.
