ARCTIC HOLIDAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22719, 4 November 1935, Page 5

ARCTIC HOLIDAY

—*• IDEAL HEALTH RESORT The vision of Arctic holiday resorts with skiing, big hotels, and sanatoria, '. conjured up by Professor P. Debenham, was one of the main topics of conversation among the scientists assembled at t Norwich recently for the British Association’s meeting (says a writer in the- > Daily Telegraph). - Professor Debenham, in his presiden- : tial address to the geographical section, ? said that even before the war there were pleasure cruises to the north. It was just as feasible that these cruises would developi into summer holidays on land in the Arctic. ‘ “ Nor is it too wild a forecast,” he continued, “to say that in time there may , be a Brighton in Spitzbergen—a resurrec- ; tion, in fact, of the Smeerenberg of two • ( centuries ago, when each summer a large township established itself in Spitzbergen ‘ ’ for the whaling. The township will be ' a city of rest and holiday instead of a city of gx-easiness and blubber.” Professor Debenham, who was with Scott on his second Antarctic expedition, *>r told me after the lecture that he did not think his vision of the future was at all- J fantastic. “ The Arctic is more suitable and accessible for a holiday resort than the J Antarctic,” he said, “and the weather v there is not at all what it is popularly ■ r supposed to be. Spitzbergen during the summer has a dry exhilarating atmosphere, and from June to August the ternperature ranges up to 60deg. In winter, <i of course, there are six months of dark- . • ness, and the place would probably have to close down.” _ i In his paper Professor Debenham said ' that the polar regions were definitely the most healthy part of the earth’s surface, - ■* for the simple reason that the ordinary disease-bearei's, whether rodents or in- ‘ sects or minute bacilli, find the conditions either impossible for existence or inhibitive. “ It seems likely that residence in a ter-ritox-y free from germs or the conditions j for_ their transport must be better than - o residence in an alpine region, which is- •• surrounded by, and is merely above zones ■■ teeming, with possibilities of. disease,” he e added. I asked a pi'ominent medical man who y is here for the meetings his opinion of Professor Debenham’s suggestions. “ Undoubtedly cool dry air has curative properties in cases of pulmonary ~ trouble,” he said. “That is why we send people high up in the Swiss mountains. ..." While the polar air during the summer might prove especially beneficial—al- -j though we should like to experiment first —there would obviously have to be fully equipped sanatoria and easy and frequent means of transport. But the idea is certainly within the bounds of possibility.”