SAVED FROM SOLITUDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21036, 21 November 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

SAVED FROM SOLITUDE.

WORLD'S LONELIEST MEN

LIFE IN FROZEN NORTH.

ADVENT OF AEROPLANES

An aeroplane service which is being started this year over thousands of miles of Canada's ice-bound land will at last bring the comforts of civilisation to scores of outposts of the Hudson's Bay Company, the work-centre of some of the loneliest men in the world. Engines of 800 horse-power will roar over frozen, wastes seldom traversed by man, andmachines travelling at 100 miles ,an hour will provide a link with the outside world for men who, in the past, have come in contact with it only once a year, when the company's steamer makes its annual trip from Vancouver through the Beliring Straits with 12 months' supplies. The first machine was to leave Edmonton, one of the last of the Canadian outposts, an'd it was to carry with it all sorts of dainties and comforts for the company's employees at far-flung trading posts along the Mackenzie River. Many of these posts, such as those at Herschel Island, Bathurst Inlet, Fort Brabant, Bernard Harbour and Baillie Island, are hundreds of miles apart. Ihey are normally" served by the company s ship which brings with it mail that may have been posted in some other part of the world more than a year before and newspapers and periodicals many months old. The vessel takes back/the year's haul of furs, brought to the posts from the far corners of the arctic regions by trappers who, at times, do not see another human being for months at a stretch. Now they will be within three days of the great cities of Canada. To these men, whose sole recreations are gramophone music and reading, the advent of aeroplane transport will mean luxuries hitherto undreamed of, the removal of intense hardship, and even the saving of life. In the past when these hardy citizens of the north have run short of supplies they have had to make long journeys with sledges and dog teams to exchange furs for flour and bacon. Often such a trip takes weeks to accomplish. Many such epic struggles to secure the bare necessities of life are talked about by men who have had experience of trapping in the Mackenzie River district. The air service will not only help to obviate these, terrible risks, but will also do away Willi long and arduous portages. _ On one part of the Mackenzie, rapids are so frequent that the canoes taking out stores or bringing in furs have to be unloaded and the vessels and their contents carried 16 miles over hilly country, where the slightest slip on the frozen ground may mean death. Often, in bad weather, portage at this section of the river takes weeks to effect. When the new air service starts the distance will be covered in as many hours as it now takes weeks, and will mean an immense saving in labour. The machines to be employed are owned by the Canadian Airways,, Limited. Skis are fitted to enable the machines to land on snow, and each will be capable of carrying three tons of furs or other freight. Their use means a constant supply of furs for the markets of Europe, instead of the winter haul being held up at the company's trading ports until the arrival of the yearly steamer.