Avalanche

Abstract

This essay examines how skilled Mountain West railway workers in Canada and the United States incorporated environmental problems into their work culture. Through experience they developed methods of predicting snow slides and embraced customs that compelled them to work even under the most dangerous conditions. These informal practices, rather than written work rules, guided the decisions they made to offset risk for both their co-workers and train passengers. I argue that living and working in Avalanche Country meant railway workers gained an intimate knowledge of their natural surroundings that clashed with accepted corporate and legal interpretations that saw slides as unforeseeable acts of God. Comparing three avalanche disasters in two countries provides persuasive evidence that occupation and experience influenced notions of risk. Importantly, the significance of my argument lies in its refusal to see industrial workers as detached from nature and for what it suggests about workers in other places and occupations who also likely developed job-specific practices in response to environmental dangers.