NORTHERN CANADA

Evening Star, Issue 19272, 10 June 1926, Page 3

NORTHERN CANADA

GREAT POSSIBILITIES STEFAHSSON STATES A CASE The following article, which first appeared in the ‘Christian Science Monitor ’ (Boston), is from the pen of Vilhialrmir StoFausson, t.hc notod Arctic explorer, author of ‘The Friendly Arctic’ and ‘The Northward Course ol Empire,’ and a unlive of Manitoba:--The dispute about iho climate, resources, and potentialities of the lands and seas beyond the Arctic Circle did not bcoin. as some now seem to suppose, with a book by me called ‘The Friendly Arctic,’ published in lu-’l. The erudite can trace it back to classic Creek times, when there was conflict between those who thought no life present nr possible within the Arctic Circle and tho others who located there the country of the .Hyperboreans, with a sub-tropical climate. ft ' But those were disputes of theory. It was enither continued nor settled by the Irish when they discovered Iceland about 700 a.d., or by the Icelanders when they discovered Rpitzbergen and colonised Greenland. For the Vikings were not scholarly enough to understand or even know about tho disputes of the Greeks, and most of them were too matter of fact to report anything except what they saw. . . Skipping the Norsemen of the Middle Ages, wo may say the Greek disputes of theory wore resinned as disputes ol fact bv* the Elizabethan navigators. Their narratives differed amazingly. Speaking approximately, those who made on!v one voyage brought hack the least favorable accounts, and those who made many voyages brought back more favorable accounts the oftoner they went. Again, those who failed usually emphasised the terrible conditions as an explanation of their failure, while those who succeeded were more inclined to describe optimistically the conditions they had met. CLIMATE AND RESOURCES. It would surprise anyone but a sociologist to find the great influence of motives and of temperament on the opinions held, even by Canadians and even to-day, as to tho general climate and resources of the Arctic and subArctic parts of the Canadian, mainland and the islands and seas to the north. The unfavorable South Canadian opinion of Northern Canada is, in my opinion, rather due to shortsightedness than to outright lack of knowledge. The merchant of Toronto, who knows there is vacant Government land within trading distance of his city, resents the idea that colonists should bo induced to settle far away. Rut it is only a few Canadians who as yet realise that Montreal, on the St. Lawrence, is going to profit similarly by iho development of the Mackenzie River. Canada is too big for most Canadians to visualise as a unit, I*ew Canadians are for all of Canada; most are for one part against tlie rest. All but the farsighted and unselfish are against tho north, because tho north is even farther off in their imagination than it is in real miles. Nevertheless, slowly and in part reluctantly, Southern Canada is coming to the views of Arctic climate and resources which John Davis held and expressed some 300 years ago. TROPICAL TEMPERATURES.

If you can find a place in Arctic North' America or Arctic Siberia that is sheltered from ocean breezes, yon may got what arc called “ tropical ’ temperatures in midsummer. There is onlv one weather bureau station so located in Alaska. This is Fort Yukon, where temperatures of BUdcg in the shade are common and 9Udcg in the shado fairly frequent. Even KKkleg in tho shade has been recorded under weather bureau observation conditions, there is no weather bureau station in Canada similarly sheltered Jrom ocean "winds. At Fort Macpherson, for instance, in the Arctic delta of the Mackenzie, sea breezes prevail much of the summer, and temperatures above BOdeg in the shade are uncommon. Still, you must remember that even in New York anc. Montreal people will begin complaining about the heat whenever it goes above 80deg; and it does go to SGdeg at Macpherson. . In the clays before Dakota and Manitoba were colonised, even natural scientists used to argue—and that with apparently irrefutable _ logic —that the blizzards were so terrible in winter and the cold so intense that no ordinary people would ever bo willing to live there. Tint now Winnipeg lias a population of 300,000. who do not complain more loudlv' about their climate, on 1 1)3 average, than do the people of Chicago. . . . . , Large and promising mineral-bearing areas have been found in Arctic and Sub-arctic Canada, with coal, iron, and copper. There are already flowing oil wells on the Mackenzie • ear the Arctic Circle, and indications of oil were lonr.d bv nn' last expedition on the north coast of Melville Island, more than 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle and the present wells. Tho United States navv has set aside a vast oil reserve on the arctic coast of Alaska. That, by analogy, means something to Canadians, who have their oil fields to tne east. 'THE REINDEER. INDUSTRY:. Rut what will mean most to Canadians when they come to realise it is the phenomenal success of the reindeer industry in Alaska. Bo tween 1392 and 1902, 1,230 domestic reindeer were imported from Siberia. These have more than doubled every three years since then, so that hv the end of the calving season of May His vear there will be more than VJ m OU. The public docs not hear much about this industry because up to the present no advertising has been necessary in order to sell the meat, the demand tsceeding the supply. . Geographers and natural Ecienti.ws generallv are becoming agreed on the ‘‘ Friendly Arctic.” But there does not seem to be any prospect that_ Canada will do anything on a national scale for some ten or twenty years to profit by this revived Elizabethan truth.

THE AMERICAN SAHARA. Southern Canada is opposing the development of the north lor the same reason that the Eastern United States opposed the development ot Iho Vest 'TOn'veJVrs a "or Porh-aps-tb® Americans wore wise, and perhaps the Canadians are wise, in making haste slowly. But it is, nevertheless, true that the arguments used to bolster up that wisdom in both cases were and are fallacious. The Americans, out of small patches of real desert, created the fearsome bogy of the American .Sahara, or Great American Desert, which was supposed to occupy nearly half of the present United States, including even what we now consider the most fertile parts of the wheat and corn belt, and w-mch successfully kept the easterners in the East for several decades. The arguments used to keep Southern Canadians in Southern Canada are not fundamentally different. Manitobans who are used to the worst blizzards in Canada are told that they could never endure the blizzards of the Arctic. People who know about the successful operation of tLo transcontinental railways through the heaviest snow in Canada are led to believe that railways could not be built or operated in the Far North because of tho snow. And S .° The dispute over one Canadian term, the “Barren Ground,” summarises the whole situation. A small minority who believe in conveying only correct impressions about the northern half ot Canada and letting people judge for themselves what they want to do about it maintain that the terra “Barren Ground ” should not be used, and suggest instead various words, such as “Arctic Prairie,” “Northern Grasslands,” “ Northern Plains,” etc. Royal Commissions have gathered testimony

about the country called the “ Barren Grounds,” which shows that the word “ barren,” in that connection, really means nothing except ,the absence of trees and could have been applied with* equaf justice to tho prairies of Illinois or Manitoba. . There is no questioning the sincerity or patriotic intent of those Canadians who sincerely believe in the wisdom of managing, by hook or crook that all the southern half of tho country is settled before any of the northern half. But I believe they overlook the great national value that resides in pride of country. There is, in mv opinion no single thing which could do so much to lift Canadians out of their gloom ns the successful spreading of actual knowledge about the resources of that part of their country which the majority have hitherto considered, worthless.