RUSSIAN ARCTIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 3, 3 July 1937, Page 10

RUSSIAN ARCTIC

A LAND OF WEALTH

WONDERFUL. DEVELOPMENT

COAL, OIL, FUR, AND FISH

(From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, June 9.

Canada and the United States, both actively engaged in unrolling the map of civilisation and progress in the Arctic, have been'watching, with close interest, similar development in the Russian Arctic, which has reached its zenith in establishing a scientific post within 20 miles of the Pole.

Franz Josef Land, which is the base of Russian Polar expeditions, is approximately on the same latitude as the Canadian and American farthest north settlements, at Bache Peninsula, in the North-west Territories, and Point Barrow, Alaska. From the latter point, Sir George Wilkins made his dash by air, across the Pole to Spitzbergen. From the last-named Amundsen made his famous flight in the dirigible Norge, landing in Alaska, and Ellsworth made a quick dash to the Pole and back, without attempting to land.

A scant twenty miles separates American and Siberian territory on either side of Bering Strait. Far to the south-west is Attu Island, the most westerly of American possessions in the Aleutians, and nearer to Khabarovsk, the capital of the Soviet Far Eastern area, than to any American settlement. Russian development on the Pacific and in the Arctic is proceeding so rapidly that Khabarovsk, a few years ago a wilderness outpost of a hundred souls, has now a population of 100,000; Vladivostok, the supply base for the Far North, is now as large as Vancouver.

The natural resources of Arctic Siberia are tremendous. The Tungus coal basin has an estimated reserve of 400,000,000,000 tons, while, the oil deposits in the same sector and in the southern interior are said to be sufficient to supply the entire Soviet Union. Once holding complete supremacy in the field of fur trading* Russia is now developing rich furbearing territory in Siberia. Fishing off the Kamchatka coast rivals that of Alaska waters. Last year, the Red whaling fleet caught more than 600 whales.

The real development began with the opening of the Northern Sea route from Vladivostok to Murmansk, near Finland, the most northerly ice-free port in the world. Sixty-five freighters were sent over it last summer; nineteen permanent stations, en route, were established. From the Trans-Siberia Railway, now a double track to the Pacific, spur lines have been piercing the north for hundreds of miles. Day and night shifts are driving the steel rails into regions where the temperature drops to 50 below zero. Weekly airway schedules are operated between Siberia and Moscow. Forty-six exploring parties, numbering 330 men, were sent north last year by the Soviet Arctic Institute to develop the Far North and organise transportation. All these activities visualise the possibility of war in the Far East or the Pacific.