Mark Kuhlberg
Biography
Mark was born and raised in Toronto. After accepting that his hockey career was not going to be a paying proposition, he turned to treeplanting for sustenance. It took only twenty seasons in the bush for him to realize that there were easier ways to make a living; he turned to academia. He is now a Full Professor and Director of the MA History/maitrise en histoire programs. His publications span many sub-fields of history, including the realms of business, environmental, political, and First Nations History. His fields of expertise are Ontario's forest history in particular and the history of Canada's woodlands in general, and he is very involved in contemporary forestry issues. Watching his kids' sports keeps him busy, biking to school year round keeps him fit, and being a hockey ref keeps him looking over his shoulders.
Education
- PhD (History) - York University
- MA (History) - York University
- Honours BA (History/Political Science) - University of Toronto
Academic Appointments
Adjunct Professor, Department of Forestry, University of Toronto
Cross-Appointed at Laurentian to: Masters in Science Communication and School of the Environment
Research
Mark is an award-winning author whose work intersects in myriad ways with Canada's forest history. His previous publications have examined everything from the mismanagement of First Nations' timber to the history of our country's first forestry school at the University of Toronto. His next book analyses Canada's pioneering work in using aircraft to drop deadly chemicals on forest pests from 1927 to 1930, and his current project is investigating Canada's role in the production and marketing of newsprint around the world during the first half of the twentieth century.
Awards
Scholarly Awards
M. Kuhlberg, In the Power of the Government: The Rise and Fall of Newsprint in Ontario, 1894-1932 (University of Toronto Press, 2015).
* Canadian Business History Association - Inaugural Prize for Best Book in Canadian Business History over previous three years ($2,000)
* Canadian Historical Association - Political History Group - Best Book for 2015
External Funding (largest awards listed here)
- 2019-2024 - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada - Insight Grant - $138,875
- 2017-2018 - Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation - Internship - $31,500
- 2014-2016 - Inter-American Institute for Global Change - Canadian representative on a six-nation committee studying bio-energy projects across the Americas - $34,010 (US$)
- 2010-2015 - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada - Standard Research Grant - $43,000
Teaching
Publications
Books
M. Kuhlberg, One Hundred Rings and Counting: Forestry Education and Forestry in Toronto and Canada, 1907-2007 (University of Toronto Press, 2009).
M. Kuhlberg, In the Power of the Government: The Rise and Fall of Newsprint in Ontario, 1894-1932 (University of Toronto Press, 2015).
M. Kuhlberg, Killing Bugs for Business and Beauty: Canada's Aerial War Against Forest Pests, 1913-1930 (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming).
Works Edited
T. Sarkka, M. Gutuerrez-Poch and M. Kuhlberg, eds., Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry, 1800-2018 (Cham, Swizterland: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2018).
The Forestry Chronicle (May/June 2014), Vol. 90(3) [the Canadian Institute of Forestry’s
journal].
Chapters in Academic Books
M. Kuhlberg, "Natural Potential, Artificial Restraint: The Dryden Paper Company and the Fetters on Adopting Technological Innovation in a Canadian Pulp and Paper Sector, 1900-1950, in Sarkka, Gutierrez-Polk and Kuhlberg, eds., Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry, 1800-2018 (Cham, Swizterland: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2018): 133-160.
Timo Sarkka, Miguel Gutierrez-Polk and M. Kuhlberg, “Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry: Introduction”, in Sarkka, Gutierrez-Polk and Kuhlberg, eds., Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry, 1800-2018 (Cham, Swizterland: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2018): 1-12.
M. Kuhlberg, T. Sarkka and J. Uusivuori, “Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry: Concluding Remarks”, in Sarkka, Gutierrez-Polk and Kuhlberg, eds., Technological Transformation in the Global Pulp and Paper Industry, 1800-2018 (Cham, Swizterland: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2018): 279-282.
M. Kuhlberg, “Sir William Howard Hearst”, in J. Chevrier, ed., The Premiers of Ontario (Montreal: New Federation House, 2016): 25-28.
“‘Pulpwood is the Only Thing We Do Export’”: The Myth of Provincial Protectionism in
Ontario’s Forest Industry, 1890-1930”, Smart Globalization: The Canadian
Business and Economic History Experience (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2014).
“An Accomplished History, An Uncertain Future: Canada’s Pulp and Paper Industry Since the
Early 1800s” (pp. 101-134), The Evolution of Global Paper Industry, 1800-2050
(Germany: Springer Press, 2012).
“An Acute Yet Brief Bout of ‘returned-soldier-it is’: The University of Toronto’s Faculty of
Forestry after the First World War” (pp. 51-70), Cultures, Communities and
Conflict: Histories of Canadian Universities and War (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2012).
“‘as the Indians were wards of the Dominion Government’: The Anishinabe of
McIntyre Bay in the Hepburn-King Constitutional Battles”, Framing Canadian Federalism: Historical
Essays in Honour of J.T. Saywell (University of Toronto Press, 2009).
Articles (in refereed journals)
Kuhlberg, Mark. “‘A forestry program that cannot be equaled in Canada:’ Kimberly-Clark’s Extraordinary Silvicultural Project in Northern Ontario, 1928-1976,” Ontario History, Vol. 112(2), Autumn 2020: 230-254.
Kuhlberg, Mark and S. Miller, “‘protection to the Sulphur-Smoke tort-feasors’:
The Tragedy of Pollution in Sudbury, Ontario, the World’s Nickel Capital, 1884-1927”, Canadian Historical Review 99(2) June 2018: 225-257.
Pischke, E.C., J.L Knowlton, C.C. Phifer, J. Gutierrez Lopez, T.S. Propato, A. Eastmond, T.M. de Souza, M. Kuhlberg, et al., Barriers and Solutions to Conducting Large International Interdisciplinary Research Projects, Environmental Management, December 2017 60(6): 1011-1021.
Kuhlberg, Mark, “James Arthur Little”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XVI (1931-1940), (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017).
Kuhlberg, Mark, “Charles Alfred Riordon”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XVI (1931-1940), (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017).
Kuhlberg, Mark, “Edward Wellington Backus”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, XVI (1931-1940), (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).
Kuhlberg, Mark. “‘An Eden that is practically uninhabited by humans’: Manipulating Wilderness in Managing Vancouver’s Drinking Water, 1880-1930”, Urban History Review, Vol. XLV, No 1 (Fall 2016 automne): 18-36.
Kuhlberg, Mark. “‘Deliberately and Properly Framed’: The Origins and Early History of the Port Arthur Pulp Company, 1916-1921”, Thunder Bay Museum Historical Society’s Papers and Records, Vol XLIV (2016): 29-41.
Kuhlberg, Mark. “An American Forester, A Canadian Company, and the Spanish River”, Forest History Today, Spring/Fall 2016: 14-22.
Halvorsen, K. et al., including Mark Kuhlberg, “A Case Study of Strategies for Fostering International, Interdisciplinary Research”, in Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, October 2015: 1-11.
Kuhlberg, Mark, “In the Power of the Government – The Rise and Fall of Newsprint in Ontario: If a Tree is Sold in the Forest, How Do You Write About It”, The Forestry Chronicle (April 2015), 91(02): 105-109.
“Reading the Rings of our Forest History” (Guest Editorial), The Forestry Chronicle (May/June
2014), Vol. 90(3), 263-5.
“‘Perfect Cooperation’: Taking the Campaign Against the Spruce Budworm in Ontario to New
Heights, 1927-29”, The Forestry Chronicle (May/June 2014), Vol. 90(3), 296-300.
“‘Mr. Burk is most interested in their welfare’”: J.G. Burk’s Campaign to Help the Anishinabek
of Northwestern Ontario, 1923-1953”, Journal of Canadian Studies (Winter 2011),
Vol. 45(1), 58-89.
“‘under moral obligation to stay’: Herbert R. Christie and the Origins of Forestry Education at
the University of British Columbia, 1910-1933”, Historical Studies in Education (Spring
2010), Vol. 22(1), 82-102.
“Edward Wellington Backus”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. XVI (forthcoming)
“James Arthur Little”, DCB Vol. XVI (forthcoming)
“Charles Alfred Riordon”, DCB Vol. XVI (forthcoming)
“The Trials and Tribulations of Canada’s First Dean of Forestry: Bernhard Fernow”, The
Forestry Chronicle, July/August 2007, 452-455.
“‘Eyes Wide Open’: E. W. Backus and the Dangers of Investing in Ontario’s Pulp and Paper
Industry, 1902-1932”, Papers of the Canadian Historical Association, 2005, 201-
34.
‘The Pulp and Paper Industry’, Oxford Companion to Canadian History, 2004, 518-520
“‘Nothing it seems can be done about it’: Charlie Cox, Indian Affairs Timber
Policy and the Long Lac Reserve, 1924-40”, Canadian Historical Review 84
(1) March 2003, 33-64.
‘By just what procedure am I to be guillotined?’: The Fight for Academic Freedom in the
Toronto Forestry Faculty between the Wars, History of Education
31 (4) July 2002, 351-70.
“A Failed Attempt to Circumvent the Limits on Academic Freedom: C. D. Howe, the Forestry
Board, and ‘Window Dressing’ Forestry in Ontario in the Late 1920s”, History of
Intellectual Culture Vol. 2, 2002, 1-23
“Isaac Weldon”, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XV (Toronto/Quebec City: University
of Toronto Press/Universite Laval, 2005).
“‘We are the pioneers in this business’: Spanish River’s Forestry Initiatives After the Great
War”, Ontario History, 93 (2) Fall 2001, 150-178
“‘Nothing but a cash deal’: Crown Timber Corruption in Northern Ontario, 1923-1930”, Thunder
Bay Museum Society Papers, 2000, 3-22
“‘We have ‘Sold’ Forestry to the Management of the Company’: Abitibi’s Forestry Initiatives in
Ontario, 1919-29”, Journal of Canadian Studies 34(3) Fall 1999, 187-210
“Ontario’s Nascent Environmentalists: Seeing the Foresters for the Trees in Southern Ontario,
1919-1929”, The Forestry Chronicle 74(4) July/August 1998, 533-540.
“Ontario’s Nascent Environmentalists: Seeing the Foresters for the Trees in Southern Ontario,
1919-1929”, Ontario History, 88 (2) June 1996, 119-143.
Articles (in non-refereed journals)
Forestory (The journal of the Ontario Forest History Society)
Vol 5(1), Spring 2014, “Helping to Preserve Our Forest History”
Vol. 5(1), Spring 2014, Chairman’s Address, “Big Shoes to Fill, But We Are Up to the Task”
Vol. 2 (2), Fall 2011, Archives Corner – “Seeing the Forest and the Documents: Focus on the
Archives of Ontario”, 24.
Vol. 1 (1), Spring 2010, “Frank Archibald MacDougall: Ontario’s Reluctant – Yet Remarkable –
Career Government Forester”, 11.
Book Reviews
S. J. Pyne, Awful Splendour: A Fire History of Canada, in Canadian Historical Review, June 2009.
Stephane Castonguay, Protection des cultures, construction de la nature: Agriculture, foresterie
et entomologie au Canada, 1884-1959, in Canadian Historical Review, March 2006
Peter Baskerville, Sites of Power: A Concise History of Ontario for H-List [History Website], January
2006.
Hammish Kimmins, Balancing Act: Environmental Issues in Forestry, in Left History June 1995.
Published conference proceedings (papers, reports, summaries, abstracts):
Refereed:
“Disturbing Synergy Between Inspector and Inspected: The Gull Bay Case, 1916-1932”, Papers
of 35th Algonquian Conference 2004 (University of Manitoba Press, 2004)