ICE CONQUERED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22627, 15 January 1937, Page 6

ICE CONQUERED

CANADIAN TRANSPORT TRACTORS IN NORTHLAND . EPIC GOLD JOURNEY PRIVATIONS AND DANGERS [from our own correspondent] VANCOUVER, Dec. 0 The colourful clog teams of the Northland are passing, as far as freight hauling is concerned. They have given way to heavy' transport aeroplanes, and these, in turn, have been replaced by tractors, or "cats" as they are known, in Northern parlance. The train of sleighs they draw is called a "swing," its driver a "skinner." The saga of "'cat-skinning" has created a new Vocabulary.

The first "cat" appeared four years rgo, when a prospector named Jowsev struck gold in the Hudson Bay sector. He was 132 miles from a railway, which deposited 1100 tons of machinery and mining equipment at the nearest point. There was neither road nor trail. Under the Northern Lights, the "skinners" climbed into their cabs, the motors were started, and the first heavy "swings" were on their way. Each carried 30 to -10 tons. They trundled on, smashing down brush, rattling over rocks, crawling circumspectly along the ice of many lakes. Great Task Completed Where the ice was thin, the trail was "slushed." This operation consisted of mixing snow and water, and spreading the mixture on the thin ice. As soon as it was spread it froze, and in some places the ico was thickened as much as five feet. "Bunting" poles, great pieces of pine, eight inches thick, were fastened between the sleighs, to preveut them from running up on each other when the "swings" struck pitch holes, in the trail. In the bitter cold, these poles snapped like matches, but the crew carried on. In spite of a hundred setbacks, the first large "cat haul" was pronounced a success. The entire tonnage was delivered over trackless .wilderness in two months. Tractors Crash Through Ice

The new industry was fraught with many dangers. A "cat" went through .the "ice of a lake, and, although the "skinner" escaped, the machine vanished in eight feet of water, continuing down through 28 feet of muskeg. The insurance company sent out a diver, who went down through a large hole cut in the ice. Ho fought his way through the black ooze until he reached the "cat," and fixed a hook to the drawbar. Eventually, it was salved. Another still lies under SO feet of muskeg. Norway House, in Northern Manitoba, received 1400 tons of mining machinery, consigned to Island Lake, 175 miles distant. It was being transported by a group of "cats" when the ice gave way under one with a load of 45 tons. The cargo was mine hoists, and could not be The diver found tho water too cold. Northern ingenuity came to his aid. The air pump was placed beside a red-hot stove in the caboose. Boiling water was poured on the valve of his helmet as he descended. The machinery was salvaged. Unrolling the Map

Tough men, these "skinners," but the toughest of all is a foreman operating out of the Pas, Northern Manitoba. A heavy machine went through the ice. Before it could reach the colder depths, he plunged in, without •waiting for a diving suit to be heated, fie stayed under for two minutes, during which he was able to make a line fast. The "cat" was salved. To-day, the "cat" trainß roar over Northern trails, behind a huge tank sleigh, which ices the road for them. Forty ton "swings" have grown to 300 tons. The largest hauls 36 logging sleighs, with a total pay-load weight of 1400 tons. Whole settlements are transported on "cats." They take social life in with them, too, for at the gold mine camp at God's Lake you ■will find ladies, attired in Paris gowns, gracing functions in a frontier community, with electric light in every home, a central steam-heating plant serving the whole settlement. "Cats" are playing their part in unrolling the map of Canada into the frozen Arctic.