July 1965 — VOL. 46, No. 7 —
Canada North of 60
Degrees
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Canada's Northland makes up more than forty per cent of the
total area of Canada. It includes the Northwest Territories,
the Yukon Territory, and 45,000 square miles of Quebec, all
lying above the 60th parallel of latitude.
This came to be the dividing line in 1905, when the provinces
of Alberta and Saskatchewan were created, with their northern
boundaries fixed at the 60th parallel. From there to the North
Pole is one of the last large under—developed pieces
of real estate in the world, embracing 1,557,000 square miles.
It was in 1870 that Canada took over this vast territory
from Great Britain and with sovereignty it assumed immense
responsibilities. One of the responsibilities attaching to
sovereignty is occupation, and the mass of the Arctic and
its islands cannot continue to lie dormant under the protection
of a mere assertion of ownership.
Four hundred miles north of the beginning of Canada's Northland
is the Arctic Circle, a line on the map marking the southern
limits of the area around the Pole where for at least one
day every year the sun doesn't rise, and for another day the
sun doesn't set. When you straddle the Arctic Circle you are
still 1,600 miles from the Pole.
It is not be thought that you pass in one step over an invisible
boundary line from a southern climate to the Arctic. The effective
boundary is the tree line, which at the Mackenzie River is
far north of the Arctic Circle and at Churchill, Manitoba,
is hundreds of miles south of it. Generally trees will not
grow where the average temperature of the warmest month of
the year is lower than fifty degrees Fahrenheit.
The Arctic Archipelago, a remarkable accumulation of islands
of vast extent, just now beginning to be explored, has mountains
as high as 10,000 feet. Northern Canada has more lakes than
all the rest of the world combined. Lake Hazen, which is about
as far north as you can go in Canada, is the largest body
of fresh water in the world so near the North Pole. It is
45 miles long and 900 feet deep.
The North
Having determined where the North is, it remains to tell
what it is. Is the Northland as foully dangerous as we have
been brought up to believe?
Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Manitoba—born explorer, who
wrote 24 books and more than 400 articles about the Far North
and its people, believed the Arctic to be a friendly, habitable
place with tremendous untapped resources. Major L. T. Burwash,
F.R.G.S., of Cobourg, Ontario, who explored Canada's Northland
between 1925 and 1930, said: "The Arctic climate is generally
kindly, but when it shows its teeth anyone caught unprepared
is in more than ordinary danger." And Mrs. Martha Louise Black,
F.R.G.S., who was swept over the Chilkoot Pass in the gold
rush of 1898 to make her home in Dawson City, Yukon, wrote
about "the gorgeous glory of the myriads of Yukon wild flowers."
She said in the Foreword to her book called Yukon Wild
Flowers: "Within twenty minutes walk of the heart of Dawson
even a fairly careless observer of Nature's handiwork may
gather at least a hundred varieties of flowers, ferns and
mosses."
The North is cold, but not constantly and intensely. We
know that since about 1900 the frigid top of the world has
been warming up at about the rate of one degree Fahrenheit
in ten years. Walrus and white whales are not travelling so
far south as in the old days, while halibut and other fish
are moving farther north. Glaciers are slowly melting: a few
of the smaller ones have almost disappeared.
It is still necessary to dress warmly, as Irene Baird warns
in the magazine North published by the Northern Administration
Branch of the Department of Northern Affairs and National
Resources. "Some of us," she said in describing an arctic
field trip last summer, "recently working in 93 degrees heat
in Ottawa, were a bit casual about bringing along parkas.
But not, fortunately, to the point of leaving them home. Forget
everything else if you have to." The North is a land of simple
pleasures, it has been said, and one of them is being warm
when you have been cold.
Spring comes with a rush, and long before the last drifts
of snow have disappeared the first flowers appear. In the
long nightless days of summer, growth is practically uninterrupted.
There may be as much growing time in one day as in two ordinary
days in the tropics. But growth is compressed into a few short
weeks, so that plant life is too sparse and too poorly developed
to make any significant contribution to the food supply of
man. Reindeer lichen grows less than half an inch a year.
But scientists are busy on the problem of adapting plants
to the Arctic. When Sir Charles Saunders developed Marquis
wheat he carried the arable area of Canada two hundred miles
farther north.
The Russians are far ahead of Canadians in development of
the north, but basic conditions are different. Thousands of
square miles of Canada's Northland were scraped bare by the
ice age glaciers, whereas the Russian Arctic has plenty of
soil. The tree line in Russia is about 500 miles north of
Canada's; the Gulf Stream pours warm Atlantic water into the
Polar Basin and along the shores of Norway and north Russia,
providing a year—round route to the western part of the
Russian Arctic; northern Russia has a whole series of navigable
rivers flowing north, whereas in Canada there are only two
well—marked natural transportation routes, Hudson Bay
and the Mackenzie River. As a consequence of these favourable
conditions the native races of northern Russia number 800,000
compared with northern Canada's 19,000 Eskimos and Indians.
Wartime and post—war defence activities brought a spurt
of life to the Canadian north. The Alaska and Mackenzie Highways
were constructed, airports and radar stations were established,
and these improved communications gave an impetus to mining
exploration. As a result, Canada has become conscious of her
Northland, and its potential economic value.
Living in the North
Citizens of well—settled towns like Yellowknife, N.W.T.,
and Whitehorse, Yukon, live in frame houses with central heating,
indoor plumbing, and electric refrigerators. In some of the
newer sub—divisions the houses are identical to those
in southern Canada and the living conditions almost the same.
In the Fort Smith district, just north of 60 degrees in the
Northwest Territories, there are more than 500 motor vehicles.
Pine Point, on the south shore of Great Slave Lake, is a
completely planned community. Its town plan has been arranged
to make the best possible use of the land, and essential services
have been provided for. Inuvik is a model town 150 miles inside
the Arctic Circle, with city comforts. Frobisher Bay, far
to the east on Baffin Island, has schools, a hospital, a branch
of The Royal Bank of Canada, stores, an hotel, taxi and bus
services, and modern homes. It has a Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation radio station and telephone communication with
southern Canada. There is another branch of the Royal Bank
in Elsa, thirty miles from Mayo in the Yukon, a silver mining
centre.
In these communities men of south and north live side by
side and benefit by the experience. R. Gordon Robertson wrote
in The Unbelievable Land: "I venture the prediction
that the North will prove to be the first part of Canada in
which we really drop our colour line. Communities are now
growing up where people of white race, of mixed blood, and
of Indian or Eskimo race live side by side in the same type
of house, with their children playing together and going to
the same school."
Building a settlement in Canada's Far North is not the simple
project it is in the more temperate areas. Where the surface
of the ground is not solid rock, it is underlain by permafrost.
The ground is frozen, sometimes to a depth of a thousand feet,
and only the top few inches thaw in summer. What appears to
be a solid foundation may turn to mud when a heated building
is erected on it. Water supply and sewage disposal are difficult.
In some places, water, steam and sewage lines are connected
to buildings through conduit boxes laid on the surface of
the ground. The boxes are lined with heavy building paper,
the pipes are wrapped in paper, and the boxes are filled with
wood shavings.
Even permafrost has some advantages. Very little rain or
snow falls in the north, and water might become scarce in
summer if the permafrost did not prevent it from seeping away.
If it were not for this conservation of water at the roots,
plants would not grow, and the high Arctic would be a lifeless
desert.
The weather in all parts of Canada is dominated to a large
extent by the coming and going of Arctic air, so for many
years observation stations have been operated north of 60
degrees. As far back as 1882, eight nations co—operated
in setting up fourteen polar stations, of which three were
in Canada, one of them in northern Ellesmere Island. In 1957
the Defence Research Board chose the Lake Hazen area, about
a thousand miles north of the Arctic Circle, as a field of
operation during the International Geophysical Year. Since
1961 an automatic weather station on Axel Heiberg Island has
transmitted every three hours information on temperature,
wind direction, wind speed, and barometric pressure. Other
observatories are within 450 miles of the North Pole.
Yukon Territory
Yukon Territory takes in the extreme northwestern part of
the mainland of Canada, 207,076 square miles. It is generally
mountainous, with many stretches of rolling country, with
wide fiats in the river valleys.
Fur trading brought the Hudson's Bay Company into the country
in the mid—1800's. Then in the 1870's and '80's a few
adventurous prospectors began to infiltrate the Yukon valley
in search of gold. On August 17th, 1896, the strike that was
to make the Klondike region of the Yukon world—famous
was made on Bonanza Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River.
It was the most fantastic gold stampede the world has ever
known. Pacific coast ships landed thousands at the Alaskan
ports, and from there the fortune seekers climbed the forbidding
Chilkoot and White Passes, pressed on to the headwaters of
what is now the Yukon River, constructed primitive rafts,
and journeyed more than 500 miles to the mouth of the Klondike.
Dawson, which sprang up where the rivers joined, mushroomed
to a city of 25,000. In 1900 it was three times the size of
Edmonton. Between 1897 and 1904 more than $100 million in
gold was obtained from the placers of the Klondike creeks.
Many hill claims, taken up after the stream—beds had
been staked, turned out to be immensely rich, and made fortunes
for their owners.
The Yukon's arable land is estimated at 250,000 to 500,000
acres, the wide disparity being due to lack of organized soil
surveys. Only 1,000 acres are under cultivation in scattered
ranches and in vegetable gardens. The average frost—free
days number 78 at Whitehorse and 64 at Mayo, contrasting with
112 at Saskatoon. Summer is short, but pleasantly warm, with
an average daily temperature at Mayo in July of 58 degrees.
The federal agricultural experimental station on the Alaska
Highway has successfully raised barley, oats, spring—wheat,
alfalfa, potatoes, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes
and other vegetables.
Yukon forest resources have been estimated to include 45,000
square miles of forest of normal productivity, of which ten
per cent is composed of merchantable timber. White and black
spruce and jack pine are the principal tree species.
It is a mistake to think of all the placer gold deposits
in the Yukon as having been worked out. The value of gold
produced is running at more than $2 million a year. The cumulative
total from 1886 to 1963 was $259 million. Other minerals include
silver, lead, zinc, cadmium, copper, coal, tungsten, platinum
and antimony.
Fur trapping continues to be a mainstay of the Indian population.
Trappers received $168,227 for 86,082 pelts in the season
1963—64. The principal furs are marten, beaver, muskrat,
mink and squirrel.
The Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories, divided for administrative purposes
into Mackenzie, Keewatin and Franklin, contain the mainland
portion of Canada lying north of the 60th parallel of latitude
between Hudson Bay on the east and Yukon Territory on the
west, together with the islands lying between the mainland
and the North Pole. The area is 1,304,903 square miles. This
is the last of North America's great frontiers.
These territories are sparsely populated. All the population
of Mackenzie could squeeze into a down—south football
stadium. The people are scattered from the southern boundary
to the shadow of the Pole, They are trappers, miners, missionaries,
police, traders, storekeepers, or government employees. Some
Eskimos live a primitive and hard life in isolated trapping
and fishing camps, while some Eskimos, Indians and Euro—Canadians
work for mining companies and live in settlements where almost
"normal" life is enjoyed.
There are eighty communities in the Northwest Territories,
ranging from a few buildings clustered around a trading post
or a weather station to Yellowknife, with a population of
3,500. Hay River is the centre of a multi—million dollar
commercial fishing industry, producing whitefish for markets
in southern Canada and the United States. Fort Smith is the
administrative centre for the Western part of the territories.
Eastward from Inuvik the Arctic tundra stretches for twelve
hundred miles to the shores of Hudson Bay.
During this century, cultivation has pushed farther and
farther north into high latitudes, though small—scale
farming and gardening have been carried on in Mackenzie District
since the earliest days of settlement. Experimental stations
operated by the Department of Agriculture at Fort Simpson
and Yellowknife conduct tests designed to improve the quality
and variety of the vegetables grown.
Summers range in length from a scant two weeks on northern
Ellesmere Island to two and a half months around Great Slave
Lake. In the northeastern region the average temperature of
the warmest month is lower than 50 degrees and the average
winter temperatures are all below 32 degrees. Precipitation
is low. In the Mackenzie Valley it includes 40 to 50 inches
of snow, which is only about half the snowfall of the Great
Lakes, St. Lawrence and northern New England regions.
Trapping is the oldest industry, and in terms of income
to Eskimo and Indian residents it is still the most important.
In many settlements furs sold at the trading post provide
almost the entire income for men who prefer to continue their
life on the land. The subsistence value of fish and game taken
in the N.W.T. runs to about two million dollars annually.
There is no forest industry, but such forest growth as there
is should be sufficient to meet the needs of the residents
in perpetuity. The timber stands in the Mackenzie District
are of value chiefly as a source of building materials and
fuel, and as favourable environment for fur—bearing and
game animals.
Minerals in the North
There is a treasure of mineral wealth north of 60 degrees,
but it is not to be easily obtained. It demands keen prospecting,
hard work, and adequate venture capital, in an area where
risks are great and stakes are high. As Phillips and Parsons
say in This is the Arctic: "There may come a day when
some of Canada's biggest mines will be among the igloos."
The federal government is doing its part to encourage and
assist private enterprise by legislation favourable to mineral
exploration, construction of development roads and airstrips,
and by geological surveys and aerial mapping. The indications
are that mineral resources are sufficiently rich to offset
any disadvantages of northern operations. There are vast reserves
of water power awaiting harness. The headwaters of the Yukon
River are estimated to have a potential of four and a half
million horsepower, and a large water power potential around
Great Slave Lake should have tremendous value in developing
mineral resources.
Of course it will cost more to develop northern minerals
and to send them to market than in the case of similar but
more accessible resources farther south. To meet this the
resources must be of exceptional quality. To attract people
to go to the north to work, wage rates must be higher than
in the south.
The chief problem is transportation. Even where the facilities
exist, the great distances from markets and sources of supply,
and the small, unbalanced volume of traffic, make transportation
the largest single cost item in mining and other industrial
operations.
Gold mines have been able to operate in remote places because
the cost of incoming freight is not a critical factor and
the cost of shipping out the gold is negligible, but base
metal mines have a bulky product demanding the provision of
cheap transportation.
There is, say some, the prospect of underwater carriage
from the northern coast. United States submarines have demonstrated
the feasibility of passage under Arctic ice, and a speaker
at a northern development conference pictured submersible
tanker barges towed by atomic submarines to carry oil from
Canada's Northland to southern markets and to Europe.
That is still in the future, and the great mineral discoveries
of the past few years remain earthbound. In 1962 very large
iron deposits were found in the eastern part of the Yukon
Territory. In 1964 it was announced by the Minister of Northern
Affairs and National Resources that a tremendous deposit of
some of the richest iron ore in the world had been found on
Baffin Island. The strike is estimated to contain 180 million
tons of ore, with 69 per cent iron. "It is so pure," said
the Minister, "and of such quality it can be fed directly
into furnaces." Milne Inlet, a good ore—loading site,
is being connected to the mining location by road and two
airstrips are being built. But Milne Inlet is free of ice
only about six weeks. Icebreaker service might lengthen this
to twelve weeks.
There is oil in the Arctic. The first report came from Alexander
Mackenzie in 1789, when he saw oil seepage on the bank of
the Mackenzie River at what is now Norman Wells. Private interests
have spent about $75 million in oil exploration and drilling
in the north in the past five years.
This is the Arctic reports the belief of geologists
in a great north—south belt of oil—bearing rock
formation which may extend from southern Alberta through the
Mackenzie Basin to the most northerly islands of Canada's
Arctic Archipelago, and adds: "If this is true, the Far North
may become a new Middle East in terms of oil production."
The problem of moving oil offers three solutions: rail,
pipeline and tanker. As developers see it, the answer in the
North may be to get the oil to the coast, presumably by pipeline,
and move it to market by sea. Construction of pipelines offers
no insurmountable impediment.
The future of the North
There are two ways of accommodating to the North, which
seems singularly forbidding in its determination not to accommodate
itself to southerners. One is that of the Eskimos, seeking
only subsistence; the other depends upon lifelines to the
south, supplying the wants of people accustomed to the trappings
of southern life. This second way has become possible because
of advances in technology.
Research will provide answers to many problems - of cost,
of living conditions, of transportation. There is much yet
to learn about Canada North of 60 degrees. We neglected it
from the time it was handed over to us in 1870 until a few
years ago. Today we are using new geophysical instruments
to list its resources, where they are, what their quality
is. Tomorrow we must move on to ascertain if there are markets
for them, what it will cost to make them available, and how
to get them out. We need to be imaginative, so as to take
into consideration the submarine tugboats and the applications
of hovercraft, which can move over water, land, and ice, and
can operate during break—up and freeze—up as well
as in summer and winter. Scientists and engineers at the Alberta
Research Council have found that they can move solid metal
up to 500 pounds in weight through a pipeline.
Many question marks hang over the Arctic, but no one will
suggest that if we have the urge and the energy we cannot
find the answers.
There are many publications about Canada's Arctic available
from the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources,
Ottawa. A list will be sent by the Department upon request.
This is the Arctic, by R. A. J. Phillips and G. F.
Parsons, is a good summary. It was revised in 1958, and reprinted
almost yearly since then. Queen's Printer, Ottawa, 54 pages,
35 cents.
The Unbelievable Land, edited by I. Norman Smith,
has 26 chapters by competent writers dealing with many aspects
of life in northern Canada. Queen's Printer, Ottawa, 140 pages,
$2.50.
A bi—monthly magazine North, published by the
Northern Administration Branch of the Department of Northern
Affairs and National Resources, is available from the Queen's
Printer, Ottawa, for $3 a year.
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