 Harold Innis 's interest in the relationship between empires and colonies was developed in his classic study , The Fur Trade in Canada : An Introduction to Canadian Economic History ( 1930 ) . The book chronicles the trade in beaver fur from the early 16th century to the 1920s . Instead of focusing on the " heroic " European adventurers who explored the Canadian wilderness as conventional histories had done , Innis documents how the interplay of geography , technology and economic forces shaped both the fur trade and Canada 's political and economic destiny . He concludes that the fur trade largely determined Canada 's boundaries adding that the country " emerged not in spite of geography but because of it " . 
