POLAR ROUTE TO LONDON

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28368, 29 August 1957, Page 10

POLAR ROUTE TO LONDON

Pan American To Use Arctic Airport An airport at Frobisher Bay, on the coast of Baffin Island, 676 miles south of the Arctic Circle, will be used by Pan American Airways when it opens its Polar route to London next month. The airport, lying about half-way between the Pacific coast of the United States and Europe on a Great Circle flight path, will be the sole refuelling point on the flight from San Francisco. Frobisher Bay is a deep indentation on the coast of Baffin Island and was name< after Sir Martin Frobisher, an early English explorer and naviga or who discovered it in 1576. It has a population of about 700. Construction firms are extending the runway from 6000 to 8000 feet and are also working on a distant early warning radar system. The airport is used by the United States Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force. It is administered by the Canadian Department of Transport. The population includes men. of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and there are two Eskimo villages in the area. One-hour Stop

Passengers on the Polar route will not see much of Frobisher Bay as the refuelling stop will take, only one hour. Mr J. B. Cooke, assistant operations manager for the Pacific-Alaska division of the airline, said recently after a visit there: “The country is snow-covered and the bay is frozen ten months of the year. Temperatures range from 44 degrees above zero in July to 18 degrees below in February. The coldest temperature ever recorded was 49 degrees below zero. Recreation facilities include nightly movies, fishing during the very brief summer season and plenty of ice skating. Pan American Airways has set up more bases in out-of-the-way places than any other airline. Bases were established before the Second World War on such tiny mid-Pacific atolls as Wake and Canton Islands. Already the company has a base at Fairbanks, Alaska, which is 66 miles closer to the North Pole than Frobisher Bay.