Administration of the Canadian North

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EA-Canada: General
(C. Cecil Lingard)

ADMINISTRATION OF THE CANADIAN NORTH

The history of Canadian administration of this northland had its beginnings
in the passage on June 22, 1869, of an Act by the Dominion Parliament for the
"temporary government of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory when
united with Canada." The British Government transferred both these territories
to Canada, by Order-in-Council dated June 23, 1870, and in 1880 transferred like–
wise all British-claimed islands in the North American Arctic. Administered until
1869 by the Hudson's Bay Company, the "North-West Territories" in that year com–
prised "Rupert's Land" — the area of the Hudson Bay watershed claimed by the

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Company under its Charter of 1670, and the "North-Western Territory" — the
western Indian country held by the Company under license of 1821 and renewed
for 21 years in 1838.

The Northwest Territories suffered their third loss of territory in 1905
as a result of the unprecedented flood of immigration into the Canadian prairies.
In September of that year the two provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan were
created, embracing the first four above-mentioned provisional districts and ex–
tending from Manitoba on the east to British Columbia on the west. Their southern

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and northern boundaries were fixed at the 49th and 60th parallels of north
latitude respectively.

The provisional District of Yukon, created in the Northwest Territories
in 1895, mushroomed into world prominence with the Klondike gold strike of 1896
on Bonanza Creek (a tributary of the Klondike River). While Inspector Constan–
tine and a detachment of North West Mounted Police were at this time in the re–
gion to report on the need for law and order and to represent various departments
of the federal government, the in-rush of fortune-seekers during the succeeding
two years necessitated the appointment of a customs officer and a gold commis–
sioner and the removal of the recording office from Fortymile to the fast-grow–
ing town of Dawson. Although a member of the Executive Council of the Northwest
Territories spent several months in the District enforcing local government regu–
lations respecting the importation and sale of intoxicating liquor while his col–
leagues in Regina (N.W.T.) memorialized Ottawa to leave the then Northwest Terri–
tories intact, the arrival of tens of thousands of people in the Klondike region

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during the gold rush of 1897-8 led the federal authorities to pass the Yukon
Territory Act in June 1898, transforming the Yukon District into a separate
Territory.

The Act of 1898 did not provide for popular representation in the Yukon
Council because of the uncertainty on the part of the federal government respect-

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ing the nationality and political experience of the inhabitants of the pioneer
community. The members of the appointed Yukon Council during the year 1898–
1900 were government employees in the Territory and included the Superintendent
of the North West Mounted Police, the Judge of the Territorial Court, the regis–
trar of lands, the legal adviser, and the gold commissioner. In 1899, however,
an amendment to the Yukon Act was passed giving male British subjects in the
Territory the right to elect two representatives to the Council for a term of
two years and requiring its sessions to be open to the public. Furthermore, the
Commissioner and his Yukon Council were empowered to make regulations respect–
ing shops, taverns, public health, and local improvements, to impose license
fees and other charges connected therewith following the seating of the two el–
ected representatives, and to bestow upon any elected municipal corporation the
authority to levy taxes upon the inhabitants for local purposes.

Although the question of granting parliamentary representation was debated
in the House of Commons in June 1900, legislation was not enacted until 1902.
While the leaders of the Conservative opposition urged immediate provision for
Yukon representation, the Prime Minister, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, favored delay

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until the census of 1901 would determine the actual condition of the population
and the Territory. Moreover, the request for two members was, in the Govern–
ment's judgment, not in accord with Canada's unit of representation, which at
the time was one representative for every 22,000 electors. However, the Yukon
Territory Representation Act of 1902 constituted the Territory a federal elec–
toral district with the right to return a single member to the House of Commons.
Every male British subject (exclusive of Indians and Eskimos) of 21 years of age
with 12 months' residence in the Territory received the franchise. Mr. James H.
Ross, who resigned the office of Commissioner to contest the seat, was elected
the first Member of Parliament for the Yukon in December 1902.

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Going into force on May 1, 1909, this Act of 1908 provided for a wholly
elective Council of ten members with full legislative powers within certain
defined limits. The Council was required to meet separately from the Commission–
er in short annual sessions for a three-year term, although the latter might order
a dissolution and a new election at any time. While all money bills for the

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appropriation of any part of the Territorial revenue or for the imposition
of any tax must originate in the Council, no such bill, vote, or resolution
might be adopted unless it had been first recommended to Council by message
of the Commissioner. Provision was also made for a sessional indemnity of
$600 and actual traveling expenses of each member of the Council; the audit–
ing by the Auditor-General of Canada of all receipts and expenditures of Terri–
torial funds and of appropriations of Parliament for the Territory as authorized
by the Commissioner to be expended with the advice and consent of the Yukon
Council; the appointment by the Governor-in-Council of an Administrator to ex–
ecute the functions of the Commissioner during his absence or inability; and the
like appointment of a Public Administrator as official guardian in and for the
Territory.

In 1918-19, the federal government took steps to reorganize and reduce the
administrative machinery of the Territory in the interests of economy. Justify–
ing its policy by reference to the decline in mining population, the government

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abolished the office of Commissioner — whose duties were transferred to the
Gold Commissioner and later to the Controller — reduced the number of mining
officials, and contemplated the replacement of the existing Yukon Council by
an appointed council of two or more members. However, after conferring with
the Yukon member of Parliament and the Commissioner, the government decided
to maintain the elective feature of the Yukon Council while reducing its member–
ship. Consequently, Parliament passed another Yukon amendment Act in 1919,
which provided for an elective Council of three, the reduction of the sessional
indemnity to $400, and the extension of the local franchise to women.

The principal fields of local administration in the hands of the Yukon Coun–
cil during the first decade [: ] r two of this frontier mining community, as illus-

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trated by its ordinances, embraced such matters as the protection of miners,
employers' liability, pollution of streams, ferries, the construction and re–
pair of local roads and bridges, hotels and road houses, forest fire preven–
tion, licenses, succession duties, fur export, and the poll tax. Subsequent
legislation in the early 1940's had to do with the changed economic conditions
brought about by the aeroplane, the Alaska Highway and associated projects, which
called for ordinances respecting highway traffic, the imposition and collection
of taxes on income, gasoline and fuel oil, the work of scientists and explorers,
the prevention of venereal diseases, and the maintenance of the children of un–
married parents.

Under the Yukon Act the Yukon Council possessed authority to make ordinances
respecting education, including the right of a majority of the ratepayers of any

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portion of the Territory to establish such schools as they desired and to fix
the necessary rates; and the equal right of a minority of the ratepayers in
any district or portion of the Territory to erect Protestant or Roman Catholic
separate schools, with the accompanying liability of paying only such rates as
they imposed upon themselves. The School Ordinance, administered by the Con–
troller, had since 1902 provided for a Council of Public Instruction with powers
to prescribe textbooks, courses of study, and standards of instruction, and a
Superintendent of Schools to regulate and inspect the schools and perform such
other duties as were assigned to him by the above authorities. Financed by
funds of the Territorial administration and a grant from the Indian Affairs
Branch of the federal government, the eight state-supported schools included
in 1945 high, public, and separate schools at Dawson, public and high schools
at Whitehorse, a public and an Indian residential school at Carcross, and a
public school at Mayo. Apart from the Indian residential school and the mission
schools operated by the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church at a
number of Indian settlements, educational facilities in the Yukon were thus
largely adapted to the needs of the white and half-breed children. The kind of
education available for Indian children at the hands of the churches was most
inadequate and not unlike that which prevailed in the Northwest Territories (see
below).

As might be expected in a frontier mining community lacking responsible
government and provincial institutions, the federal government retained a large
share in the administration of Yukon affairs. Prior to December 1,1936, the
Department of the Interior had charge of the general administration of the Yukon.
On that date, the Department of Mines and Resources came into being, and its
Lands, Parks and Forests Branch, with its Bureau of northwest Territories and
Yukon Affairs, has since then been responsible for business arising from the

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general administration of the Territory under the Yukon Act and the ordinances
passed by the Territorial Council; for the disposal of lands and timber under
the Dominion Lands Act; for the administration of the Yukon Placer and Quartz
Mining Acts; and for the collection of revenue in the Territory. However, the
Department of Mines and Resources, represented at Dawson by the Controller of
Yukon Territory, was not the only federal department with interests in the North.
The Departments of Transport, National Defense, Public Works, National Revenue,
Post Office, Justice, Fisheries, and Agriculture co-operated in the appropriate
fields of government and frequently the Controller and head of the territorial
administration served also as their representative in the Yukon.

While the history of transportation and communication is outside the scope
of this article on administration, it perhaps should at least be observed that
various departments of the federal government played a significant role in the

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evolution from dog-team and cance to highway, steamboat, railroad, and aircraft
transport — of the utmost importance in the development of a frontier mining
country. From the earliest years, the Ottawa government voted annual, though
perhaps inadequate, grants to the Yukon Council for the construction and main–
tenance of mining roads in the Territory, while its yearly appropriations for
postal and telegraph services frequently exceeded $150,000 and $275,000, respec–
tively. The federal government's telegraphy system, inaugurated in 1899, con–
nected Tagish, Whitehorse, and Dawson with points in British Columbia, while
the Yukon and Northwest Territories radio system, operated by the Royal Canadian
Corps of Signals, Department of National Defence, provided communication between
Whitehorse, May9, Dawson, and Edmonton. During the early 1940's a telegraph line
was constructed along the route of the Alaska Highway (of which an account is
given below). The government provided air-mail services daily except Sunday be–
tween Vancouver and Whitehorse, and between Edmonton and Whitehorse, as well as
less frequent ordinary mail services by steamer, rail, etc., to Skagway, White–
horse, Dawson, and other centers.

From the earliest days of the gold strike, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
and the judicial system established in the Y [: ] n rendered life and property as
safe as in the older law-abiding communities in the nation. With the establish–
ment of the Yukon as a separate Territory in 1898 provision was made for the con–
tinued application of the laws and ordinances relating to civil and criminal mat–
ters in force in the old Northwest Territories until repealed or altered. The
year 1898 witnessed the establishment of a Territorial Court of three judges (re–
duced to one in 1912) barred from holding other office except that of membership
in the then appointed Yukon Council. In 1899 the British Columbia Court of Appeal
was constituted the Court of Appeal for Yukon Territory, and three years later an

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amendment permitted appeals to the Supreme Court of Canada in mining cases
amounting to $2,000 or over. The Yukon Act laid down court procedure, pro–
vided for places of confinement, and gave to the Yukon Commissioner (or Control–
ler), each member of the Council, and each commissioned officer of the R.C. M.P.
the powers of a Justice of the Peace in the Territory. Provision existed for
summary trial by a judge without the intervention of a jury in offences of
theft, wounding, indecent assault, and resisting a public officer. In case of
tr ai ⇑ ia l by jury six jurors only were required. A significant safeguard against
hasty execution of the death penalty by a judge or stipendiary magistrate ex–
isted in the requirement that he forward full notes of the evidence to the Sec–
retary of State and await the pleasure of the Governor-General.

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Thus the Northwest Territories embraced the three administrative districts
of Mackenzie, Keewatin, and Franklin whose boundaries were delimited as now ex–
isting by an order-in-council of March 16, 1918, effective on January 1, 1920.
Mackenzie District, the portion enjoying the greatest development to date, em–
braced that part of the Canadian mainland lying between the Yukon Territory and
the 102nd meridian of longitude. Keewatin District included that paet of the
mainland, with the exception of Boothia and Melville peninsulas, lying between

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Mackenzie District and Hudson Bay, together with all islands in Hudson and
James bays. Franklin District included Boothia and Melville peninsulas and
the islands in Hudson Strait and in the Arctic Archipelago, except those ad–
jacent to the coast of the Yukon Territory.

Although the Commissioner-in-Council received the same powers to make
ordinances as were on August 31, 1905, vested in the legislative Assembly of the
old Northwest Territories, these specifically included the following classes of
subjects as were from time to time designated by the Governor-in-Council or in
instructions from the Minister of Mines and Resources: direct taxation within
the Territories to raise revenue for territorial or local purposes, establish–
ment and tenure of territorial offices, appointment and payment of officers,
establishment and maintenance of prisons, municipal institutions, road allow–
ances and new highways, local licenses for shops, taverns, auctioneers, etc.,
incorporation of companies with territorial objectives excepting railway, steam–
boat, canal, telegraph, and irrigation companies, solemnization of marriage,
property and civil rights, administration of justice, expenditure of territorial
funds and certain moneys appropriated by Parliament for the Territories, and
generally all matters of a local or private nature in the Territories, Copies

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of all ordinances, of course, were required to be laid before Parliament, where
they were subject to disallowance at any time within two years by the Governor–
in-Council.

An examination of the Territorial ordinances passed by the Northwest Terri–
tories Council during its first decade (1921-31) reveals few significant enactments.

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Apart from an ordinance of 1926 requiring scientists and explorers to obtain
a license from the Commissioner to enter the Territories for the purposes of
practising their professions and to present the federal authorities with a
statement of their scientific discoveries resulting therefrom, and another
ordinance of 1930 protecting Eskimo ruins through the regulation of excavation
and of the collection of articles of archaeological and ethnological importance,
early legislation dealt with administration of justice, mortgages and sale of
personal property, the conduct of billiard rooms, the care and control of digs,
the export of furs, the registration of births, marriages, and deaths. Of course,
the geneaal ordiances of the old Northwest Territories (in force September 1,
1905) remained in force in the present Territories unless repealed or amended
by the Territorial Council.

A sampling of the ordinances of the following decade indicated a growing
Concern on the part of the Territorial Council for social and economic matters
in the far Northwest. A medical profession ordinance (1936) provided for the
licensing of duly qualified medical practitioners, while another guaranteed com–
petent chemists and druggists (1938). Other ordinances provided for the recovery
of small debts, the licensing of such businesses, trades, and occupations as
physicians, dentists, merchants, bankers, hotel keepers, freighters, contractors,
blacksmiths, etc., the regulation of the sale of liquor with fitting protection
of Indians and Eskimos, the conservation of game, the provision of workmen's
compensation, and protection against the spread of venereal diseases. Especially
significant was the Sanitary Control Ordiance (1940) which safeguarded the health
of the residents of mining, timber, petroleum, and construction camps by govern–
ing the selection of camp sites, guarding against pollution of lakes and streams
and the contamination of food, regulating camp drainage and living conditions in

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bunk and cook houses, and by making employers responsible for first-aid and
emergency hospital equipment. In camps employing over 50 men the employer was
required "to contract with a legally qualified practitioner for medical aid"
to his employees.

The over-all responsibility for the administration of various acts, ordin–
ances, and regulations pertaining to the vast Canadian Northland rested with
the Director of the Lands, Parks and Forests Branch of the Department of Mines
and Resources, who held also the post of Deputy Commissioner of the Northwest
Territories. A Superintendent for the Mackenzie District and another for the
Eastern Arctic facilitated department administration at Ottawa, while a number
of outside departmental agents served in numerous capacities. For example, as
the result of financial stringency on the part of the federal government and the
lack of a progressive program for the North, the years 1939-1944 witnessed the

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Mackenzie public administrator at Fort Smith endeavoring also to perform the
duties of agent of Dominion lands, superintendent of Wood Buffalo National Park,
crown timber agent, mining recorder, stipendiary magistrate, and marriage com–
missioner. At Port Radium a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police assumed
the additional duties of Dominion land agent, timber agent, and mining recorder.
Even the department medical officers at eight or more scattered territorial
points frequently were called upon to perform a variety of administrative duties
which doubtless interfered with the proper discharge of their initial assignment.

The judicial machinery, as provided under the Northwest Territories Act of
1905 and its amendments, was adapted to the requirements of a small and scatter–
ed population. Enforcement of law and order in accordance with the common law
of England, the statutes of the Canadian Parliament in so far as they were ap–
plicable to the Territories, and the local ordinances of the Territorial Co [: ] ncil
was in the hands of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the stipendiary magistrates,
and justices of the peace. In the absence after 1905 of a supreme court of the
Northwest Territories, five stipendiary magistrates exercised the powers and
functions of the judge of such a court, while the superior courts of the provinces
adjoining the Territories exercised therein the same jurisdiction in civil mat–
ters respecting persons, property, suite, and proceedings as they possessed
within their own territorial limits. The stipendiary magistrates tried in a
summary manner such charges as minor theft, unlawful wounding, and certain types
of assault, with the intervention of a jury unless the accused elected otherwise.
The justices of the peace, appointed by the Gpvernor-in-Council, possessed in
large measure the jurisdiction and powers of a magistrate. All commissioned
officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police served at strategic points as
justices of the peace, and during their winter and summer patrols to distant

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and widely scattered posts enforced law and order and performed various other
administrative functions.

The Department of Mines and Resources, including its Bureau of Geology and
Topography, contributed greatly to the development of mining in the Northwest
Territories, whose mineral production (exclusive of pitchblende products) to
the close of 1943 was valued at over $20,000,000. The development of resources
of oil at Norman Wells (since 1920), of pitchblende at Labine Point on the east
side of Great Bear Lake (since 1930), of gold and silver in the vicinity of
Yellowknife on the north shore of Great Slave Lake (since 1935), and the inves–
tigation of other mineral deposits, led to increased appointments of mining and
other administrative officials to meet the needs of new mining settlements and
enlarged mineral production. The recording of mining claims, the issuing of
miners' licenses, and the enforcement of mining regulations comprised the major

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duties of the outside administrative staff of the Department.

The general health and welfare of the 12,000 Indians, Eskimos, and indigent
white and half-breed populations of the Northwest Territories was until late in
1945 among the numerous and varied responsibilities of the Department of Mines
and Resources. Its Indian Affairs Branch stationed a number of full-time medi–
cal officers at Fort Resolution, Fort Simpson, and Fort Norman, while the Council
of the Northwest Territories provided medical officers at Fort Smith and Aklavik.
The medical services which these men were able to render were seriously curtailed
not only by inadequate facilities but also by additional duties of an administra–
tive character. In the Eastern Arctic, the Territorial Administration stationed
medical officers at Chesterfield on the west coast of Hudson Bay and at Pangnir–
tung on Baffin Land, and arranged for one or two medical officers to accompany
the annual Eastern Arctic patrol. The latter work of examining the Eskimos at
all ports of call was, however, usually cut short by the need of the Nascopie

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to complete its tour within a single season. In addition to the medical health
officers of the Department of Mines and Resources, the mining and petroleum com–
panies employed medical men during recent years at such points in the Mackenzie
Valley as Norman Wells, Port Radium, and Yellowknife.

Nonetheless, the health and welfare program of the government was most in–
adequate. The government was singularly negligent in failing to assume full re–
sponsibility for the location, construction, equipment, and services of the north–
ern hospitals, and in failing to provide adequate funds and skilled medical atten-

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tion to combat epidemics of contagious diseases and especially tuberculosis
among the northern natives whose susceptibility to many diseases was attribut–
able to their high degree of malnutrition resulting from the encroachment of
the white man's civilization. However, following a health survey of the Mack–
enzie Valley in 1944 by Dr. C. J. Wherrett, of the Canadian Tuberculosis Assoc–
iation, the federal government transferred native health from the Department of
Mines and Resources to the newly created Department of National Health and Wel–
fare on November 1, 1945, and plans were soon taking shape for reorganizing and
vastly improving the health services in the North.

Closely linked with health and welfare, the education of the white, native,
and half-breed children was the responsibility of the Department of Mines and
Resources, through its Indian Affairs Branch and its Northwest Council. Never–
theless, this Council in Ottawa failed to enact a single educational ordinance
during the years 1905 to 1945. While the school ordinance and regulations of
the old Northwest Territories of pre-1905 were presumably legally applicable to
the North, it was clear that few of their provisions were in active operation.
The truth was that, apart from two public schools opened at Yellowknife and Fort
Smith in 1939 and 1940 largely for the benefit of white children, grants made in
support of education by the Department, and arrangements for secondary education
through correspondence courses offered by the provincial authorities of Alberta
and Ontario, the actual provision of educational facilities in the Territories
rested with the Roman Catholic and Anglican Church missions which operated day
and residential schools, largely for native children at such centers as Aklavik,
Fort Resolution, Fort Providence, Fort Smith, Fort Simpson, and Hay River. De–
spite the conscientious efforts of the missionaries, native education, left large–
ly to the rival churches whose chief purpose was the conversion of souls to Chris-

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tianity, was not a success owing to the limited financial grants, the lack of
government policy or supervision, and the inadequate curriculum that made very
little provision for the sort of educational facilities or courses likely to
equip the native children for successful living and leadership in their northern
environment.

The annual Eastern Arctic Patrol shared with numerous field forces the im–
portant work of scientific research in the North. The R.M.S. Nascopie , a 2,500–
ton vessel specially constructed for arctic service and operated by the Hudson's
Bay Company, sailed annually from some Canadian Atlantic port on its mission of
inspection, scientific investigation, and administration. Used by the Canadian
government for its annual patrol of R.C.M.P. posts, post offices, radio and met–
eorological stations, trading posts, and missions, the Nasco [: ] ie carried govern–
ment officials, scientists, doctors, police, other personnale, mail and suplies
to ports of call in northern Quebec, the Canadian Eastern Arctic mainland, and
the islands in Hudson Strait and Bay and in the Arctic Archipelago. The patrol

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gave the appropriate officials opportunity to observe living conditions among
the natives and to minister to their needs.

Largely owing to the lack of concentrated settlement in the reorganized
Northwest Territories, it was not until October 1, 1939, that the Commissioner–
in-Council of the Territories established the first local self-governing body in
the said Territories. Set up under authority of the local Administrative Dis–
trict Ordinance, the Yellowknife Administrative District embraced an area of
slightly more than 38 square miles around the mining community of Yellowknife
on the north arm of Great Slave Lake. The local governing body, known as the
Trustee Board of the Yellowknife Administrative District, commenced to function
on January 1, 1940. Its membership of five was in 1945 increased to seven, three
of whom were elected by the citizens and four, including the chairman, appointed
by the Commissioner. The Trustee Board was empowered to pas by-laws governing
the raising of local revenues by taxation on real and personal property, by poll
tax, and by licensing occupations, the prevention of cruelty to animals, relief
of the poor, the appointment of health officers and the protection of public
health, the appointment of local officials, the establishment of a fire depart–
ment, the construction and maintenance of roads, streets, sidewalks, sewers, the
regulation of traffic, and the support of schools. The elected school board of
three members administered the local school district and employed a teacher to

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carry on the educational program in accord with the Alberta curriculum.

The revolutionary development of aerial transport facilities, the strategic
position of the Arctic with respect to the world's populated land masses, and the
history of World War II and its aftermath combined to bring the polar regions of
Canada into world prominence. Urgent military necessity to stem the Japanese
aggressive advance in the Pacific and to provide material aid to hard-pressed
European allies, during 1939-45, led to the co-operative marshalling by Canada
and the United States of the necessary pioneering spirit, engineering skill, and
financial resources for the wartime construction of such enormous undertakings

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as the Northwest Staging Route of airports, the Alaska Military Highway, the
Canol oil pipeline, the Catel telephone system, and numberous other arctic air–
ways projects, all of which placed Canada in a vital position with respect to
the shorter transpolar air routes between the North American continent and the
principal centers of Europe and Asia. Of special importance in developing aerial
transport facilities with Alaska, the Soviet Union, and Britain was the construc–
tion of large landing fields in the Mackenzie District at Fort Smith, Fort Reso–
lution, Hay River, Yellowknife, Fort Providence, Fort Simpson, Wrigley, and Nor–
man Wells and under joint defense auspices along the so-called "Crimson" air
route from southern Alberta to the shores of Davis Strait.

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As a natural consequence of the publicity given these wartime projects and
the growing realization by the Canadian people of the strategic position and
potential wealth of the North, the federal authorities in the early post-war years
commenced to institute more progressive and energetic administrative programs.
An indication of an awakening to the realization of the significance of the Yukon
and Northwest Territories was the dispatch in 1944 of numerous survey parties
into the North by the Department of Mines and Resources to investigate wild life
soil, forests, geology, education, health and welfare, etc. With the appointment

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of Dr. H. L. Keenleyside as Deputy Minister of the Department of Mines and
Resources and as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories Council, early in
1947, came greatly increased financial appropriations, scientific investigations,
improved services, and the beginning of important administrative changes.

In 1947 and 1948 increased attention was being given Canada's northern

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regions by various departments of the Federal Government. The welfare of the
Indian, Eskimo, and indigent white and half-breed population of the Northwest
Territories remained the responsibility of the Department of Mines and Resources,
while medical care and hospitalization were transferred to the Indian Health
Services of the Department of National Health and Welfare on November 1, 1945.
Indians and Eskimos in the Territories were receiving family allowances in kind
under the administrative control of the Department of Mines and Resources follow–
ing their registration for this purpose by the R.C.M.P. While granted to the
Eskimos chiefly to provide nutritive food, provision was made whereby family
allowances could be used to improve their living standards through the purchase of
such items as rifles, fish nets, and boats. Also a new 40-bed Red Cross hospital
was put in operation at Yellowknife.

The Northwest Territories continued to be servec chiefly by water and aerial
transportation facilities. Nonetheless, truck and tractor roads suitable for
motor traffic existed in the vicinity of settlements and mining communities,
and between strategic points to facilitate the freighting of supplies, while an
important new road was reaching completion, connecting the railhead at Grimshaw,
Alberta, with the Lower Hay River Post at Great Slave Lake. Post-war aerial
transport improvements included the development of a number of all-weather air–
fields, the construction of landing strips to facilitate mining operations, and
the modernization of Yellowknife airport to accommodate large passenger land freight

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planes.

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Although it appeared desirable in the immedi [: ] post-war years that Canada
and the United States should cooperate, as above, in the development of scientific
interprises in the Canadian Arctic and neighboring Alaska as a natural corollary
of the cooperative defense enterprises which the two nations carried out under
Permanent Joint Board of Defense arrangements during World War II, the strategic
position of the Canadian North and the critical state of United States-Soviet
Union relations in the summer of 1948 gave Canadian people cause for considerable
concern. While Canada and the United States engaged in joint arctic research

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and cooperated in the establishment of arctic weather stations, and while Can–
adian personnel accompanied United States polar flights and American military
personnel participated in the Canadian Army's "Operation Muskox" and its exer–
cises in the vicinity of Churchill, the Soviet Union's Igvestia charged that
the United State was "covering the North American segment of the Arctic, plus
Greenland and Iceland, with a network of military bases and airfields." There
was growing suspicion in Canada that is government was being pressed unduly by
United States air-minded military leaders to concede military bases in Canada's
northland and thereby make it the "front line and military proving ground" for
possible war with the U.S.S.R. Nevertheless, there existed a staunch hope that
the Canadian Government would display great wisdom, tact, and determination to
prevent its strategic "undefended roof of North America" becoming a cause for
war and that an energetic development program of peaceful enterprises in the
Canadian Northland would eventually serve to reconcile divergent interests,
dissolve mutual suspicions, and develop understanding and respect among all the
races and nations that share the roof of the world.

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Canada Debates of the House of Commons . Ottawa, annually.

Dawaon, C. A. (Ed.) The New North-West . Toronto, 1947.

Department of
the Interior The North West Territories . Ottawa, 1930.

Department of
Mines and Re–
sources An Outline of the Canadian Eastern Arctic. Ottawa, 1944.

----. The Northwest Territories . Ottawa, 1944.

The Globe and Mail. Toronto.

Hopkins, J. Castell The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs . Toronto.

Lingard, C. C. Territorial Government of Canada . Toronto, 1946.

Lloyd, Trevor "Canada's Strategic North." International Journal. April 1947.

The New York Times

Ordinances of the Yukon Territory. Ottawa.

Canada Report of the Department of Mines and Resources . Ottawa,
annually since 1937.

Statutes of Canada . Ottawa.

Weigert, Hans W.
& Stefansson, V. Compass of the World . New York, 1947.

The Yukon Territory . Ottawa, 1944 & 1947.

Health Services in Northern Saskatchewan

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EA-Canada: General
(C. G. Sheps)

HEALTH SERVICES IN NORTHERN SASKATCHEWAN

The health services available in the "far north" are a reflection of the

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EA-Canada: General. Sheps: Health Services in Northern Saskatchewan

health program of the province as a whole. With respect to the distribution
and accessibility of health facilities and technical personnel, the people of
Saskatchewan have for many years been making steady progress in the collective
provision of medical and hospital services. Much progress has been made since
1944, with the election of a new government formed by the Cooperative Common–
wealth Federation. This is a Canadian farmer-labor party patterned after the
Labor Party in Britain. One of the basic planks in its platform is the expan–
sion of health and welfare services. There has been a movement forward, as
rapidly as possible, toward a provincial system of health services, by which
it is intended that every resident, regardless of income and location, will have
the benefit of scientific medicine and health services when he needs them.

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These are the basic improvements which have recently been made. Medical
services, both preventive and curative, have been made more easily available,

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EA-Canada: General. Sheps: Health Services in Northern Saskatchewan

and the burden of their cost has been lightened by the use of subsidies from
general tax funds and the use of the insurance principle. The further develop–
ment of health services in this area is hampered by the fact that the Provincial
Government is responsible for only one-half of the population, the whites and
the metis, while the Dominion Government is respons bi ⇑ ib le for the other half, the
Treaty Indians.

The Department of National Health and Welfare

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EA-Canada: General

(Department of Nat'l. Health & Welfare - G.F. Davidson, Minister)

THE DEPARTMENT OF NATIONAL HEALTH AND WELFARE

The Honourable Brooke Claxton was appointed first Minister of the
new Department. Major-General Brock Chisholm, was appointed Dep [: ] ty Minister

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EA-Canada: General. Davidson: The Department of National Health and Welfare

of Health, and Dr. George F. Davidson, Deputy Minister of Welfare. In 1946
Mr. Claxton assumed the portfol ⇑ i o of National Defence and the Honourable
Paul Martin became Minister of National Health and Welfare. On the appoint–
ment of Dr. Chisholm as Executive Secretary of the Interim Commission of the
World Health Organization, Dr. G.D.W. Cameron became Deputy Minister of
Health.

Food and Drugs Directorate: (1) The Food and Drugs Division maintains
five laboratories to test the quality and purity of domestic and imported
goods, and to prevent adulteration and misbranding. (2) The Proprietary

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and Patent Medicines Division reviews applications for registration and
licensing of all secret formula non-pharmacopoeial medicines. (3) The
Advertising and Labels Division determines policy in regard to the control
of advertising in various media and labelling of food, drugs, and proprie–
tary medicines.

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The Public Health Laboratories inspect and control the manufacture of
all chemical products used for injection into humans; test the potency of
all biological products for the same use and investigate [: ] diseases peculiar
to Canadians. The laboratorieshave also improved and standardized public

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health techniques and introduced special diagnostic measures.

The Old Age Pensions Division administers the Dominion responsibilities
in regard to the Old Age Pensions Act, and regulations concerning old age
pensions and pensions for blind persons. Pensions are administered by the
provinces on a means test basis. The Dominion pays 75 per cent of the

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pension cost, while the provinces contribute the other 25 per cent, together
with provincial administration costs.

Canada: Indian and Eskimo Health Surveys

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EA-Canada: General
(Department of National Health and Welfare)

CANADA: INDIAN AND ESKIMO HEALTH SURVEYS

Heading the medical group of the research party was Dr. F. F. Tisdall,
professor of pediatrics at the University of Toronto. Special scientific
studies were done by Dr. W. H. Sebrell of the United States Public Health Service;

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Dr. William C. McIntosh of the Royal College of Dental Surgeons, Toronto; Dr.
P. E. Moore, Director of Indian Health Services, Department of National Health
and Welfare; Dr. Elizabeth Chant Robertson of the Hospital for Sick Children,
Toronto; Dr. Charles Macmillan of the Department of Health and Social Medicine,
McGill University; Gordon Stockley, Toronto, X-ray technician loaned by the Ontar–
io Health Department; Dr. Gordon Brown, Profesor of anthropology at the Univer–
sity of Toronto, and Michel Sym, scientific photographer of Winnipeg.

Medicine in the Canadian Arctic

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EA-Canada: General
(Department of National Health & Welfare - G.F. Davidson, Minister)

MEDICINE IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

The conception of and treatment of diseases by the Eskimos was, and
still is to a large degree, similar to that of the Indian aborigines of
the North American continent, and closely parallels that of Europe in the
pre-Reformation [: ] . It is on a par with other human groups in a similar
cultural state. Wounds and disorders, the causes of which were evident,
were regarded quite rationally and were so treated. Because of the climatic
limitations of vegetation they lacked any knowledge of the art of concoctions

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made from various animal tissues — bones, bone marrow, teeth, liver,
heart, etc. They had no knowledge of the usual extracts, tinctures, wines,
cathartics, antifebriles, and tonics. Narcotics and sedatives did not
enter into the Eskimo pharmacopoeia.

There was no established systematic surgery; nevertheless medicine
men and special healers were more or less adept in treating wounds, in
bone setting, and in the reduction of dislocations. They had a knowledge
of the use of sutures made from sinew for closing gaping wounds and con–
trolling haemmorrhage. Haemostasis by cautery was not unknown. Maggots
were considered beneficial in the treatment of chronic ulcers and bone
disease. Blood-letting was a common practice. The healing art of the

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Eskimos could be summed up as a combination of primitive art, empirical
practice, and psychiatric treatment.

From what can be gleaned from reliable recordings it is correct to
state that epidemic diseases much as whooping cough, measles, scarlet fever,
diphtheria, smallpox, and venereal diseases were unknown in the Canadian
Eskimo Arctic prior to their introduction by white visitors. With the
intrusion of the commercial fur trade, however, many communities were
ravaged by epidemics, and, lacking a natural resistance or knowledge of
treatment, the results were serious. In both eastern and western Arctic
typhoid fever became endemic and was controlled only by the wholesale
inoculation of the districts involved. With the opening up of Yukon
Territory toward the close of the 19th century, by the discovery of gold
in paying quantities, there came a migration of prospectors and miners
and what had been an almost unknown arctic region became a swarming hive

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of gold-seeking whites. The public health problem became acute and was
met by health officers attached to the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.
These doctors rendered notable service to the natives, as well as to the
invaders, by the enforcement of public health measures.

Sir John Rae, F. R. C. S. in his expeditions in 1846-47 up the west coast
of Hudson Bay and into the Committee Bay region remarked on the robust
health of the natives and on their peaceful cooperation. He received a
report from a wandering Eskimo from the Igloolik area of an epidemic disease
that had caused the deaths of 29 adults. Children were not seriously affected.
He concluded that the condition must have been influenza. The same native

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had wooden and metal pieces from the wreck of the Fury , of the Parry expe–
dition. The infection may have been introduced by British sailors, but,
if so, Presumably by more recent visitors than those of the Fury .

Heinbecker carried out a thorough survey on both expeditions of
oral bacilli from Eskimo throats. In no instance did he find evidence
of sore throats, past or present. The buccal flora he reported as similar
to that of the average American community. He remarked on one case of

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dental caries in a young Eskimo girl at Dundas Harbour, Devon Island.
This child was the daughter of an Eskimo family employed at the R. C. M. P.
post and had been living largely on police rations.

On the Eastern Arctic patrols of 1946-47 the Canadian Institute for
the Prevention of Blindness directed the services of ophthalmologists and
optometrists. These specialists rendered treatment where indicated and
supplied glasses where required. The over-all visual findings discloses
that serious ophthalmic disabilities are rare, apart from occasional injuries
due to accidents. The most useful service was that of supplying well-fitted

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glasses to the elderly people to assist in sewing and reading. When it is
considered that for a considerable portion of the year the natural light is
dim at the best and that the lighting of the native igloo or tent is wretched,
it is remarkable that there is little evidence that the Eskimo way of life
has caused deterioration of visual acumen. Transient disability due to
snowblindness does not appear to cause permanent ophthalmic damage.

An analysis of birth statistics for the Arctic shows that fertility
is highest in the late spring, as disclosed by the higher birth rate in
December, January, February, and March. These are the cold, stormy, dark

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months when basic native foods are hard to come by and when traveling is
most difficult. Infant deaths also run highest during these severe months.
The over-all death rate for Eskimo children under five years old is about
fifty percent of all deaths. The chief cause assessed is malnutrition.
The expectant mother is ill-nourished and is the one to suffer most in the
near starvation period. The newborn child is weak and undernourished because
of the depleted nutrition of the mother. The child of a year or more
suffers from malnutrition during the critical periods of weaning and first
dentition when proper auxiliary foods are not available because of isolation.

Organized medical service in the Canadian Arctic, Yukon Territory
excepted, was inaugurated in 1926 with the establishment of denominational
hospitals at Aklavik, in the Mackenzie River Delta, by the Anglican and
Roman Catholic churches. Both these institutions were subsidized by the
Canadian government and medical and nursing personnel paid from the same

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source through the Department of the Interior, the administrative body at
that time. In the Eastern Arctic the same pattern was followed, the
religious bodies taking the initiative. A hospital was established at
Pangnirtung, Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island, in 1928 by the Anglican
Church. In 1931 the Oblate Fathers of the Roman Catholic Church erected
a hospital at Chesterfield Inlet. Both these institutions maintain homes
for the aged and infirm. The Canadian government assumed financial support
as in the cases of the Aklavik arrangements.

Any summary of arctic medicine would be inadequate and incomplete without
Proper acknowledgment of the unselfish and wholehearted contribution of the
scattered white population of these remote regions of Canada. Missionaries,

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traders, trappers, explorers, scientists, R. C. M. Police, and government
officials of the several departments, have since the earliest history of
the North, been keenly interested in the health and welfare of the Eskimos.
A great deal of the accumulated knowledge of the needs of these primitive
people toward improved health and economic and cultural development has
been provided by the day-to-day service rendered and the intimate association
of our arctic pioneers with the receptive natives. Any anticipated extension
of medical aid and preventive health will still depend to a large degree on
the active cooperation of laymen and women domiciled at arctic outposts.

With the establishment of strategically placed signal stations and the
remarkable development of successful weather forecasting, aviation in
Arctic Canada has become the accepted mode of travel. With the recognition
of the importance of the Arctic to military continental defense there has
been a rapid development of arctic aviation. This has resulted in the
possibility of allowing the medical services to extend prompt aid both in
the [: ] transportation of skilled medical personnel and the transfer of patients
from remote areas to places where modern facilities for the treatment of

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diseases and injuries are available. A new vista for the extension of
arctic medical service has been opened by the inventive genius and courage
of manking. We are on the threshold of a vastly improved opportunity to
take modern science to these primitive deserving people.

Family Allowances in Northern Canada

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EA-Canada: General
Canada: Dept. of National Health & Welfare (G.F. Davidson, Minister)

FAMILY ALLOWANCES IN NORTHERN CANADA

Although 75 per cent of Canada's Indian population receive payment of
the allowances by cheque, in the same manner as the white population, a

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EA-Canada: General. Davidson: Family Allowances

payment in kind system has been adopted for the northern Indians and
Eskimos because of their nomadic life and the limited trading and banking
facilities available to them, and because of the benefits that can be
obtained by guiding the purchases of persons still unfamiliar with many
of the foods and other commodities that would be most useful to them.

Another important consideration has been the increasing deterioration
in the diet of the native peoples. With the advance of the white man into
the north there has been a tendency for the Indian and Eskimo to adopt
the diet of trappers and traders more interested in easily portable foods
than in balanced nutritive values. Tea a [: ] d bannock had come to be used to
such an extent as seriously to unbalance the native diet. Milk was generally

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used only as a flavor for tea, and powdered milk had never been used to any
great extent. Because of lack of opportunity to acquire a taste for such
nutritive foods as powdered milk and fruit juices, there had been no demand
for them and consequently they were not stocked by traders.

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This system has had a profound and far-reaching influence by providing
encouragement for traders to stock these items formerly considered a poor
risk and by educating the Indian people, both young and old, in the use of
these foods and their proper preparation. The first results are already

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evident in the greatly increased use of approved food and clothing and
through the cooperation which is being extended to this scheme by traders.
While it is still very early to evaluate the effect on the health of the
Indian children, an improvement has been noted by medical observers which
may be attributed at least in part to Family Allowances.

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As the Eskimo is essentially a hunter and fisherman, and as the well–
being of his children depends almost entirely on his ability to find a
living within the limits of his own environment, the allowances may be

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used in any way which helps him to carry on his work. Whaling boats and
hunting and fishing supplies are thus among the many articles which may be
purchased from Family Allowance credits. Study has indicated, however,
that small Eskimo children would benefit substanti c ally from the addition
to the normal native diet of the high nutritive values contained in
powdered milk and pablum. Special arrangements have therefore been made
for these foods (which have the great advantage of being easily and safely
stored under arctic conditions, by both the trader and by the native, when
more perishable articles such as b [: ] tter are liable to deterioration) to be
supplied so that they can be constantly used.

While the method of payment of Family Allowances to the Indian and
Eskimo has thus diverged from practice in other parts of Canada, it is felt

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that a comprehensive basic welfare scheme has been adapted with consider–
able success to isolated and nomadic peoples, and that the major difficul–
ties encountered have been successfully overcome.

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Wildlife Preserves and Sanctuaries in Arctic and Sub arctic Canada

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EA-Canada: General
(C. H. D. Clarke)

WILDLIFE PRESERVES AND SANCTUARIES IN ARCTIC AND SUBARCTIC CANADA

Information on the destruction of game that was accompanying the opening
of the North was responsible for the passing by the Canadian Parliament of the
Northwest Game Act of 1917. To a considerable extent it was the work of Dr. C.

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Gordon Hewitt, author of The Conservation of the Wild Life of Canada and made
provision for full-scale wildlife management, as understood at that time, with
close season and licenses but containing no provision for sanctuaries.

The depletion of musk oxen, some herds of caribou, beaver, marten, and lynx
recalls the fact familiar to readers of Mason's Bourgeois de la Compagnie du
Nord-Ouest , that beaver were depleted along the Mackenzie in the early years of
the last century. The biological resources of any arctic or suberctic area can
be exploited to the full only when there is an adequate fund of scientific infor–
mation. The increment of plants and animals is slow. Where knowledge is deficient

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and there is a threat of depletion, the only way to maintain the resource is
to play safe. The responsible Canadian authorities were keenly conscious that
the natives of the territories were dependent upon game. They were also motivat–
ed by Canadian and outside interest in native welfare, and in the preservation
of wildlife. Under pressure, therefore, from missions, police, administrators,
and even traders who were protagonists of native welfare, in 1923 the "sanctuary"
proviso of the Northwest Game Act was used to establish by Order-in-Council,
241,800 square miles of preserves where only native Indians, Eskimos, and half–
breeds were allowed to hunt.

The settlement of Resolution has since been excluded from the Slave River

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EA-Canada: General. Clarke: Wilflife Preserves and Senctuaries in Arctic Canada

Preserve. The Peel River Preserve has been brought up to 7,300 square miles
by the inclusion of an area in Yukon. In 1926, the Banks, Victoria, and Back
River preserves were merged with a much larger area to form the Arctic Islands
Preserve, including all the watershed of the arctic mainland, Melville and Boothia
peninsulas, the northwestern part of Baffin Island, and all the islands lying
to the north and west. This was enlarged again, in 1942, to include the islands:
Southampton, Coats, Nottingham, Salisbury, Resolution, Loks Land, and Bylot, and
the remainder of Baffin Island. In 1945, the mainland south to Chesterfield In–
let was included.

There are a number of trading posts in these preserves. The declared policy
of the administration has been to license posts inside preserves only where the

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welfare of the natives is advanced thereby.

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The musk ox lived comparatively unmolested in its tundra fastnesses until
the commercial extinction of the bison on the western plains, about 1880. It
was then found that musk ox robes could be marketed in large quantities at the
top prices brought by bison skins during the years when the public knew that
they would soon be unavailable. Musk ox robes immediately became the prime ob–
jects of trade of the Hudson's Bay Company and of the Hudson Bay and Western
Arctic whalers. The principal posts were Churchill, Brochet, Resolution, Rae,
Good Hope, and McPherson for the Hudson's Bay Company, and Herschel and Marble
islands for the whalers. A whole generation of Indians on Great Slave Lake took
other furs only as incidentals. This continued until 1916, after which it was
stopped by law — a little too late, for this time there was only a remnant of
musk oxen left on the mainland and the more southern islands. At one stage,
during the first 10 years after protection, it became doubtful if there were
any left at all. Then, in 1925, John Hornby and Captain J. C. Critchell-Bullock

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crossed the tundra from Great Slave Lake to Hudson Bay by the Thelon route,
unused since the ill-fated Radford and Street expedition, and found that the
musk ox was still holding out in this isolated spot. This information was
conveyed at once to the Canadian authorities. The ease with which the Thelon
area could be protected, the fact that the exclusion of hunting did not affect
the natives, and the general suitability of the region for the preservation
of the tundra fauna led to its establishment, in 1927, as the Thelon Game Sanc–
tuary. The regulations which forbid all hunting,entry, and even flying over
the preserve without special authority make it one of the few places in the
world that will qualify for what ecologists call a "strict wilderness preserve."

One of the peculiarities of the Thelon is the occurrence of clumps of trees
in its valley, remote from all other tree growth. As a vegetational element
the area they cover is insignificant but they have been of great importance to

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native and white travelers. Eskimos from Bathurst Inlet used to visit the river
to get wood and on its lower reaches met the inland natives from the Keewatin
area who cold trade goods from Churchill. The trees grow in sheltered loca–
tions on sandy soil produced from the level strata of Athabaska sandstone lining
the banks of the main river. This unusual geological formation also means that
the sanctuary is of no interest to prospectors.

Aerial Photography in Northern Canada

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EA:Canada, General. Finnie, Aerial Photography

AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN NORTHERN CANADA

The pioneer aerial mapping expedition in northern Canada was headed
by F. J. Mawdesley, with Harry winny second in command. They flow an open
cockpit Vickers Vedette and a Fairchild cabin monoplane, each equipped
with a Fairchild camera. In those days flight altitudes were commonly two
to five thousand feet, and to cover as much ground at a time as possible
oblique photography was used. At best, it was only moderately accurate.

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EA:Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

Accompanied by Colin MacDonald, a Dominion Land Surveyor, Mawdesley and
Winny flew down the Slave River, across Great Slave Lake to the North Arm,
and thence to Great Bear Lake, the Coppermine River and Coronation Gulf.
They also flew via the Great Bear River to the Mackenzie and as far as
Aklavik, at the Delta. In all, they traversed 12,000 miles through the
Mackenzie District.

Because mainland areas had higher priority, the Arctic Islands were
not visited by R.C.A.F. planes for mapping purposes up to 1947. From 1930
onward until the outbreak of World War II, the R.C.A.F. concentrated its

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EA: Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

northerly photographic flights mainly in the Mackenzie District, where
detailed maps were needed to aid prospectors in locating mineral deposits.

The R.C.A.F. suspended its photographic operations in the North upon
the outbreak of World War II. Coincident with the U. S. War Department's
construction of the Alaska Highway and other projects, the U. S. Army Air
Forces entered northern Canada and quickly mapped many areas in which ground
operations were being carried on. Though adequate for the purposes for which

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EA: Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

it was intended, the coverage of the U.S.A.A.F. lacked the precision
required to meet the standards of the Canadian Department of Mines and
Resources, Topographical Survey Branch, for map-making. Some of this photo–
graphy was of the Alaska Highway route, some of it was of oil-bearing areas
of the Mackenzie Basin. There was one curious gap. Because of the shortage
of aircraft in the summer of 1942, the location engineers of the Canol Project
were obliged to determine much of the 600-mile road and pipeline route from
Norman Wells to Whitehorse by means of ground traverses and flights in small
planes. One of the key passes in the Canol route was picked out by reference
to photographs made by the writer with a ministure camera on the first of the
reconnaissance flights. Eventually a complete photographic strip map was
made of the entire route, but not until after the road and pipeline had been
completed.

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EA: Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

The R.C.A.F. has pioneered in Canada in the use of the Fairchild
solar navigator, a clockwork instrument which sights on the sun and keeps

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Finnie, Aerial Photography

the aircraft on an absolutely straight course by a pilot indicator on the
instrument panel for distances up to 300 miles. First used by the R.C.A.F.
in 1944, this was installed in all R.C.A.F. Dakotas for vertical photography
by 1947. A new altimeter adopted by the R.C.A.F. is accurate to within 25
feet. Cameras used at high altitudes are heated automatically to proper
temperatures, thus preventing film from becoming brittle.

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EA: Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

All the available and relevant mapping data of Canada have been
gathered into the eight-mile-to-one-inch sheets of the National Topographic
[: ] Series. Its primary function is for air navigation and in the study
and development of new air routes, but it also forms a base on which to plan
and add future detailed mapping; an index base on which to tabulate, study,
and plan the development of natural resources; a base on which to plan large
engineering and development projects. It has great elasticity in that it is
a systematic series of map sheets, each sheet fitting into its neighbor on
all sides, with all sheets drawn to the same scale and [: ] specifications.

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EA: Canada, General
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A vast amount of work remains to be done, however, for over large areas of
northern Canada there is still a great lack of basic mapping material, in
consequence of which some of the charts cannot be classified as even reason–
ably adequate for air pilotage. The first step is to fill in the topography
in the blank spaces in enough detail to provide suitable air pilotage charts
at the eight-mile-to-one-inch scale, and the next step will be to establish
elevations above sea level over the whole area in sufficient density and
accuracy to provide the information necessary for safe flying.

Base maps, essential for geological development, are prepared by
the Topographical Survey Division, Department of Mines and Resources. With
the horizontal and vertical control that can be applied to aerial photographs,
more accurate maps can be rapidly reproduced; and whereas the early geologists
were largely confined in their investigations to the water routes, those of
the present day have unlimited scope, thanks to aircraft. Nearly 89 per cent
of Canada still remains to be adequately mapped geologically — a task which
would take 200 years by former methods. But with base maps on a scale of four
or eight inches to a mile, made available by serial photography, sixty

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EA: Canada, General
Finnie, Aerial Photography

geologists would be able to fill in the gaps within 25 years.

Northern Photography

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EA- Canada: General
(Richard Finnie)

NORTHERN PHOTOGRAPHY

The first commercial photographer to venture north of the Arctic Circle in

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EA-Canada: General. Finnie: Northern Photography

Canada was C. W. Mathers, Edmonton, who in 1902 published an album of Mackenzie
River pictures, some of which showed Eskimos of the Delta in their kayaks. Prob–
ably the first official photographer to accompany a Canadian Government arctic
expedition was G. F. Caldwell, a member of the scientific staff aboard the Nep-
tune , sailing to Hudson Bay, Baffin and Ellesmere islands, and as far westward
as Beechey Island, in 1903-04. Caldwell made many excellent studies of Eskimos,
action shots of the crew's activities, as well as land-and-seascapes, which were
reproduced in The Cruise of the Neptune , the report of A. P. Low, the commander.

Wilkins joined Stefansson's Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-18 as an
employee of the Gaumont Company of Great Britain, to become the official photo–
grapher. However, the loss of three motion-picture cameras with the ill-fated
Karluk curtailed the cinematography he was able to do. The only available sub–
stitute camera was an old one obtained from a ship that had been wrecked along
the Alaskan coast. The camera was an inferior one and the film supply was limited

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EA-Canada: General. Finnie: Northern Photography

and of poor quality. This handicap notwithstanding, Wilkins exposed his film
to best possible advantage on ethnological subjects in Dolphin and Union Strait.
He carried on with a still camera, and many of his photographs, along with those
taken by Stefansson and other members of the expedition, appear in The Friendly
Arctic . In 1916 he left the North to join the Australian forces as a war photo–
grapher.

Until February he exposed no film, for there were long sledge trips he
wanted to make east and west along the coast. Then he began his shooting schedule.
The Eskimo women vied with one another to be starred. Igloo building, conjuring
fances, sledging and seal hunting were run off as the sunlit days of February and
March wore on. Only occasionally was he troubled by temperamental outbursts from
members of his cast. One young mother walked away from a scene because she thought
Flaherty had been giving more candy to her rival's baby than to hers. On the 11th
of June he set out by dog team with an Eskimo on a trip to the interior in hope

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EA-Canada: General. Finnie: Northern Photography

of filming caribou. Coming upon a grazing herd he set up his camera and tripod
on his sledge while his Eskimo drove the dogs forward. The desired shots were
obtained, but on the way back to the base the sledge broke through the rotten
ice of a stream and they were ruined. Flaherty returned with the results of
his winter's work to southern Canada, where the film was edited. He was dis–
satisfied with it, however, and decided to attempt a better one the following
season.

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EA-Canada: General. Finnie: Northern Photography

It was as historian of the Canadian Government's Eastern Arctic Expeditions
of 1928 and 1929 that I made the official motion-picture records of the voyages
of the chartered sealer Beothic , in those years, when R. C. M. P. outposts were

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EA-Canada: General. Finnie: Northern Photography

reprovisioned, the welfare of the Eskimos was attended to, and scientific sur–
veys were made. The mobility of my equipment enabled me to secure many shots
of natives and of animals, including some of the first close-ups ever taken of
musk oxen in the wild state. This was at Cape Sparbo, Devon Island, which the
Beothic visited on both voyages.

This was was the first time that spring-driven portable cameras had been
used in the Arctic in winter. The springs, packed in graphite, were not affected
by the cold, but the other moving parts lubricated with oil became sluggish. I
discovered that kerosene instead of the usual oil ensured successful operation
at the lowest temperature experienced that season, which was −55° F. I made a
practice of keeping my cameras out of doors, bringing them in only for checkups
and cleanings. By letting them warm up gradually in their cases I was usually
able to avoid excessive sweating of the metal and the fogging of lenses. (Such
wrinkles were to be "discovered" again and again by photographers in years to
come.) When it was necessary to change film out of doors, I would try to find
a sheltered place, then work barehanded regardless of temperature — not only
because my caribou mitts were too bulky to be worn during the operation but also
because hair would drop from them into the camera and clog it. My finger tips
were often frostbitten from contact with the chilled metal. Silk gloves for

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film-changing would have avoided some of the discomfort, but I had none.

In 1934 I returned to the Mackenzie District to film the mining development
at Great Bear Lake and the transportation chain by water and air, which was bring–
ing supplies to the Eldorado Mine and car ying silver and pitchblende concentrates
to railhead. After another interlude in the Eastern Arctic in 1937, when I record–
ed the first commercial tying-in of the Northwest Passage, I went back to the

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Mackenzie District in 1939 to make another film on exploration and mining de–
velopment, with discoveries of oil, pitchblende, and gold, and the spectacular
rise of the town of Yellowknife. On this expedition I spent a fortnight at
Fort Rae, on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake, filming events attending the
annual paying of treaty money to the Dogrib Indians, which included their camp
life, church-going and treaty ceremony, tea dances, and drum games.

Photoelectric-cell light meters became available for still and motion-pic–
ture photography in the mid-thirties, and these, together with the increasing
sensitivity and stabilization of film emulsions, were a boon in the Far North
even more than in the Temperate Zone. Close to and beyond the Arctic Circle,
where pictures could be taken the clock around in summer, it had always been
difficult to gauge exposures correctly, for actinic values were deceptive; and
this applied also to winter photography when the sun lay close to the horizon.
The new light meters, and types of film for all conditions, at once assured uni–
formly satisfactory results to expert photographers. An additional asset was

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16 mm. Kodachrome film; put on the market in 1935 and steadily improved, it
made possible for the first time the recording of the actual colors of the
North, revealing to outsiders hitherto unbelievable tones in cloud formations,
the midnight sun, water, ice and snow, and the variegated landscape.

In March 1942 pioneering of the Alaska Highway was begun by the Corps of
Engineers, U. S. Army, who in May launched the Canol Project as well. Although
U. S. Army Signal Corps cameramen covered many other military construction opera–
tions during the war, the Alaska Highway and Canol were strangely overlooked.
Some still photographs were taken of the Alaska Highway in its early stages as
well as later, but no provision was made for full, official motion-picture cover–
age of either undertaking. As northern adviser and historian to the Corps of
Engineers, first on the construction of the Canol Project, later on the Alaska
Highway as well, I was given an opportunity to help repair this omission. In
view of my experience in photography I suggested to the commanding officer that
I bepermitted to film the Canol Project in addition to fulfilling my other duties.
He agreed to this, and eventually I covered the Alaska Highway also. This film–
ing of these two integrated projects, particularly Canol — which I recorded in
considerable detail so as to furnish top military and civilian executives with
month-to-month cinematic progress reports — was done under all conceivable con–
ditions of light and weather, through all seasons for two years, in northern
Alberta, the Mackenzie District, northern British Columbia, the Yukon Territory,

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and Alaska. The pictures, all in 16 mm. color, finally totalled some 45 reels.
In the spring and summer of 1944 I used this material to produce for the U. S.
War Department two sound films entitled "Alaska Highway" (3 reels) and "Canol"
(4 reels).

Hereunder are listed the most important films shot in the Canadian Arctic
or Subarctic since 1921, giving the names of cameramen, directors and sponsoring

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agencies:

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Canada Moves North (1939) . A history of exploration, settlement, trans–
portation, and mining development in the Mackenzie District, with sidelights on

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the changing status of the Indians and Eskimos. Photographed and produced
(privately) by Richard Finnie.

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Besides these film subjects, the National Film Board has a large collection
of still photographs comprising about a dozen individual phot-stories on northern
places and activities. Some of these were made separately, others in conjunction
with motion pictures. The topics include: "Alaska Highway" (Spring 1942), by

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Harry Rowed; "Alaska Highway" (Summer 1942), by Nicholas Morant; "Truck Convoy"
and "Alaska Highway" (1942), by Ronnie Jacques; "Canol Oil Project" (1943), by
Harry Rowed; "Northwest Staging Route" (1944), by Milton Meade; "Tractor Train
to Yellowknife" (1945), by Ronnie Duke; "Mining, Yellowknife" (1945), by John
Mailer; "Eldorado Mine" (1945), by Jack Long; "Exercise Polar Bear" (1945), by
Army photographers; "Exercise Lemming" (1945), by Roger Racine; "Exercise Musk
Ox" (1946), by George Hunter; "Alaska Highway — Postwar" (1946), by Jack Long;
"Fur Trapping" and "R.C.M.P. in Arctic" (1946), by Bud Glunz; "Baker Lake" (1946),
by George Hunter; "Churchill" and "Nascopie, Supply Ship" (1946), by George
Hunter.

Religious Missions in Northern Canada

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⇑cludes changes and itions by [: 15] - 3/10/48 RELIGIOUS MISSIONS IN NORTHERN CANADA

Missionaries commonly refer to native North American spiritual
concepts as "degraded," while the usual lay explorer or anthropologist
consider ⇑ s that both the northern [: ] forest Indians and the Eskimos had
religious beliefs and ethics which suited their primitive requirements
very well before the coming of the white man. Some of the many taboos
wi c ⇑ t h which they surrounded themselves were foolish, some were downright
harmful, but others were based on sound common sense. Some of their
folkways ⇑ that were outrageous according to civilized standards did nevertheless
serve useful purposes. Take, for instance, the often discussed practices
of polygamy, polyandry, and wife trading among the Eskimos. Split up
into small family groups, they

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did not always have an even balance of men and women. A good hunter
might be able to support more than one wife, and sometimes did , where
there was a preponderance of women; and where women were in the
minority one woman might take more than one husband. If an unmarried
man or widower were about to set out on a prolonged hunting trip a
friend's wife might go along, for a woman would be needed to take
care of the hunter's clothing and prepare the skins of the animals
he would kill. Infanticide, which has been especially deplored, was
often inevitable. If a woman gave birth to a child during a winter
trek when food was scarce, she might be obliged to abandon it to
avoid endangering not only her own life but the lives of her entire
family, because to keep it would slow down the search for game.

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The first Catholic ⇑ Roman priest to approach the Mackenzie Basin was
Abb e ⇑ é Jean Baptiste Thibault, who in 1845 began converting Indians at
Methye Portage. Some had come south from Lake Athabaska with the
fur brigade, and the priest was worried lest his work be undone by

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a Methodist minister reported to be on his way north.

As early ⇑ as [: in ] 1847 — two years after Evans' trip was cut short —
the first priest, Father Tach e ⇑ é , reached Fort Chipewyan on Lake

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Athabaska, and in 1849 a mission was founded there by Father Henry
Joseph Faraud, who became the first Vicar Apostolic of Athabaska–
Mackenzie. He and Father Grandin were the first missionaries to
venture beyond the 60th parallel of latitude, the present southern
border of the Northwest Territories, when they went as far as the
shores of Great Slave Lake in 1852. They did not stay, but six
years later, on July 22, Father Peter Henry Grollier arrived at
Fort Resolution, just weat of the Slave River delta, and founded
a mission.

Father Grollier was an energetic man. All in 1859, he founded
a mission at Fort Rae, on the North Arm of Great Slave Lake, and then,
heading down the Mackenzie, he founded mission [: ] at Fort Providence,
Fort Simpson, Fort Norman, and Fort Good Hope. Archdeacon Hunter
had already called at the latter post in the spring, [: ] thus setting

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a record for a missionary's farthe [: ] t north. But Grollier settled
down there and built a church and house. The following summer he
beat the Archdeacon's record by starting the fisrt Arctic mission,
at Fort McPherson, and by being the first missionary to meet Eski–
mos in the Western Canadian Arctic. On September 14, 1860, he
brought some Indians and Eskimos together and induced the leaders
of the two groups to join hands in his at the foot of the Cross, and
several converts were made. No permanent mission was set up at
[: ] Fort McPherson, however, and Grollier went back to Good Hope.
He died in 1864 at the age of 38.

In 1884 a Missionary See of the Mackenzie River was created
by the Church of England, and the Right Reverend William Carpenter
Bompas was its first bishop. Residing at Fort Simpson he directed the
affairs of the various Anglican missions in the district. His men

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swept the field in some places, gained a foothold in others, al–
though [: ] in general the ⇑ Roman Catholics acquired a supremacy over the
forest Indians which they were never to lose. Even at Fort Simpson,
the Anglican headquarters, where no priests had been tolerated ex–
cept for brief visits between 1858 and 1876, there was now a per–
manent mission of the Oblates.

Marsh appears to have been one of the first northern mission–
aries to become seriously impressed with the physical harm that was
being suffered by the converts to Christianity through their parallel
conversion to white men's ways in housing, clothing and food. He did [: ]

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his best, for instance, to induce the Hay River people to abandon
their use of log cabins and return to the tepee as an anti-tuber–
culosis measure.

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A variant explanation for the killing is that the Eskimos
thought the priests were trying to entice them into the clutches of
their ancient enemies, the forest Indians of Great Bear Lake. When
Stefansson spent the summer of 1910 with the Eskimos in this region,
he found among the two a reciprocal fear — the Eskimos considered
the forest people treacherous and murderous; the Slaves and Dogribs
had the same feeling about the Eskimos. This information, which
both peoples gave Stefansson at that time, is corroborated by pre–
vious narratives and experience. For instance, the Hudson Bay
Indians, whom Samuel Hearne accompanied to the Coppermine in 1771,
fell upon a village of sleeping Eskimos and butchered them. This
seems to have been typical conduct of the forest Indians. Both the
Copper Eskimos and the Great Bear Lake Indians agree that the Eski–
mos occas s ionally retaliated So, according to one of the theo [: ] ies,

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it was the persistence of this attitude among the Copper Eskimos
which induced them to kill not merely the priests here in question
but also the travelers Radford and Street (q.v.).

An Oblate priest stationed at Reindeer Lake interested himself
in the Eskimos os the western shores of Hudson Bay as far back as
1868. Thirty-two years later he was given a helper, Father Ars ⇑ è ne
Turquetil, who soon made a trip into Eskimo country; and he laid

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plans which resulted in his founding a mission at Chesterfield In [: ] et
in 1912. Twenty years later Turq u [: ] ⇑ ue til became a bishop and the Vicar
Apostolic of Hudson Bay and the Arctic, just as Bishop Breynat was
Vicar Apostolic of the Mackenzie District.

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The first Roman Catholic missionary to venture into the Yukon was Father
Seguin, who spent part of the summer of 1862 at La Pierre House. That autumn
he traveled down the Porcupine River as far as Fort Yukon, Alaska, where
[: ] he spent the winter. His efforts among the Indians were unrewarded, however,
and he returned to the Mackenzie. In the summer of 1870 Father Petitot went
briefly to Fort Yukon, and was followed in 1872-73 by Bishop Clut and Father
Lecorre, who were no more successful at conversion than Father Seguin had

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been, according to Duchaussois.

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Besides converting the natives and providing churches for
them, the northern missionaries assumed responsibility for their
schooling and hospitalization. Once the missionaries had become
entrenched along the Mackenzie River, and especially after the ar–
rival of the Grey Nuns, they opened boarding schools where native
children were taught to speak, read and write English or French.

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no pgf.(Many of the mission-trained Mackenzie District Indians and a few of the
Eskimos have become trilingual, speaking French and English more or less
fluently as well as their native tongue. In the Anglican schools they learn
⇑— — only English, while in the Roman Catholic schools they learn both English
and French, usually with emphasis on French because most of the teachers
are French-speaking. The acquisition of French by these Indians and
Eskimos is something of a curiosity, for there are few French-speaking
whites in the region besides the nuns and priests.)

In those days both Anglican and Roman missionaries ministered
to the sick in so far as their limited [: ] equipment and knowledge of
medicine permitted. In 1947 there were seven mission hospitals in

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the Mackenzie District, one in the Keewatin District (at Chesterfield),
and one in [: ] Baffin Island (at Pangnirtung). The Anglican hos–
pitals are at Hay River (sick bay only), Aklavik, and Pangnirtung.
The Roman Catholic hospitals are at Fort Smith, Fort Resolution,
Fort Rae, Fort Simpson, Aklavik, and Chesterfield.

Residential schools are operated by the Anglicans at Aklavik,
and by the Romans at Fort Resolution, Fort Providence, and Aklavik.
There are Roman day schools at Fort Smith and Fort Simpson. Some of
the Western Arctic Eskimo children attend the Roman Catholic or Church
of England residential school at Aklavik. There are no full-fledged
schools in the Eastern Arctic, though some tuition is offered at the
missions. All of the schools are operated by the missions, assisted

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by Government grants, with the exception of a new day school for
Indian children at Fort McPherson maintained by the Indian Affairs
Branch, and a non-denominational school at Fort Smith. The only
public school in the Northwest Territories is that at Yellowknife,
the mining center, primarily for white children.

The former was filled with admiration at the courage and de–
votion of the missions, laboring for so many years to bring Christi–
anity and health to the natives, and applauded the work of the Gov–
ernment doctors who were attempting to give medical care to the

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small scattered population of an area comprising two-fifths of
Canada. He found unsatisfactory conditions, particularly in regard
to tuberculosis. He strongly recommended that the whole health
service be reorganized with a full-time director in charge, and
that hospitals [: ] should be brought up to a uniform standard with
adequate operating-room, laboratory and X-ray facilities.

He advocated the training of selected Indian [: ] and Eskimo
children in social-service work and various technical fields. With
the establishment of airports, radio and meteorological stations
through the North, he felt that natives should be given preparation

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to help maintain such facilities.

With an increasingly better understanding of the needs and
potentialities of the natives, the Government will eventually estab–
lish its own hospitals (one for tuberculous Indians and Eskimos has

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been opened in Edmonton), and its own schools for general education
and technical training of natives in the Northwest Territories.
The value of the Eskimos and Northern Indians as intelligent folk
capable of assuming the responsibilities of citizenship, given
proper training, is being realized; and there is no reason why
they should not have opportunities to become teachers, doctors,
nurses, geologists, meteorologists, mechanics, tractor operators,
aviators, and so forth. Eventually, then, the missionaries may
be relieved in large measure of their burden of supplying medical
and educational services so that they may ⇑ Concentrate on return to their primary
spiritual tasks.

Mineral Possibilities of Yukon Territory, Canada

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D. M. LeBourdais

Mineral Possibilities of Yukon Territory, Canada

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In 1945, however, a group of Canadian mining men headed by Fred
M. Connell, of Toronto, acquired control (Yukon Treadwell was an Am–
erican company), and a new era began for the property. A new company,

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called United Keno Hill [: ] ines Limited was organized and ample work–
ing capital was provided. The new owners initiated an energetic pro–
gram of development, with the result that in the interval the entire
picture in the Mayo field has changed. Further development work has
disclosed new veins as rich or even richer than those previously
known, and evenything points to the possibility of establishing ex–
tensive ore reserves. The Mayo camp now promises to become one of the
most important base-metal mining capms in North America.

Until the fall of 1950, production was rigidly limited by the fact
that river transport facilities would permit of no more than about

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12,000 tons of freight each way in a season. This transportation
bottleneck also increased costs by obliging mine operators to tie
up large sums of money in stockpiles of ore and inventories of sup–
plies during the eight-month period when river transport was clo [: ] d.
This situation seemed to impose insuperable obstacles to any idea of
greatly increased production.

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This activity in the Mayo District is reflected in a number of

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other sections throughout the Territory, especially in the region
about Whitehorse, where there has been more or less activity since
the early days of the Klondike rush. The Whitehorse region contains
a wide variety of mineral occurrences, including gold, silver, copper,
zinc, lead, antimony, manganese, molybdenite, tungsten, and tin. In
addition, there are extensive deposits of good bituminous coal. Under
the stimulation of high prices for base metals, large mining companies
such as Noranda Mines Limited and Hudson Bay Exploration and Develop–
ment Company (subsidiary of Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Company,
of Flin Flon, Manitoba), have sent survey parties into the Territory.
Over a period of three years the former company conducted in the vic–
inity of Whitehorse magnetometer surveys as well as diamond drilling.

Antimony deposits in the Wheaton district, according to Dr. H. S.
Bostock, of the Geological Survey of Canada, are of particular inter–
est. They occur along a zone extending from Lake Bennett to the north–
west side of Wheaton River, in which several persistent veins and
many small showings have been found. Good mining widths of ore carry–
ing as much as 30 per cent antimony have been exposed, but the sulph–
ides of other metals are mixed with those of antimony, which places

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the Wheaton ores at a disadvantage in competition with ores free from
undesirable metals. The deposits, however, are reasonably accessible,
and undoubtedly will prove profitable as soon as transportation [: ] d
other facilities are provided.

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In the Liard Plain Area, Tertiary sediments with lignite seams
are widely distributed, and Dr. Bostock thinks that "within the wide

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expanses of Liard Plain in Yukon Territory, 100 square miles or more"
of these lignite-bearing beds might be considered probable.

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The question still to be considered concerns the probable route
of such a railway when built. The choice seems to rest between two
alternative routes. The British Columbia Government has recently ex–
tended the Pacific Great Eastern Railway from its former northern term–
inus at Quesnel to Prince George, 84 miles farther north. There is a
possibility that this railway might be continued northwestward along
the Rocky Mountain Trench to the point where the latter joins the

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Liard Valley, thence, in a general way, following the Alaska Highway
to Fairbanks.

The wide extent over which copper, lead, zinc, and other base
metals ate found in Yukon Territory, added to the nearby presence of
coal, makes the possibility of an indigenous industrial region not so

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fantastic as might be supposed. What has already been shown concern–
ing the mineral possibilities of Yukon Territory might easily support
such a contention; but late in 1950 the report of huge deposits of
hematite iron ore in northern Yukon rounds out a picture of mineral
resources hard to equal.

"Bedded hematite iron formation is associated with Late Pre–
cambrian (?) strata in this general region from the 141st Meridian
in the Ogilvie Mountains area, in the northwest, to South Nahanni

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River in the southeast, at intervals along a broad arc about 550 miles
long. Where actually sampled in place on the 141st Meridian and near
the Canol Road, the grade of the iron formation is low, but north–
east of Mayo between Wind River and the head of Stewart River the iron
formation is said to be of good ore grade . . .Some samples brought
to Ottawa were examined by geologists or iron and steel companies,
and pronounced to be similar in quality and grade to Lake Superior
iron ores. Some of the specimens are of nearly pure hematite. No one
has described this ore in place northeast of Mayo except the late
Livingstone Wernecke of the Treadwell Yukon Corporation, who stated
that the iron formation near the head of Bonnet Plume River was sev–
eral hundred feet thick and could be traced from the air for 130
miles southeasterly through the mountains."

Itis not to be expected, of course, that sufficient iron ore
could be used in Yukon Territory to justify the development of these
beds, any more than iron ore could be used in Labrador. As in the
latter place, the bulk of the ore would have to be exported, and the

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the question as to whether it could be profitably developed would
depend almost entirely upon how easily it could be brought to tide–
water, and on this point Dr. Bostock writes: "By following the best
grades, a railway to this locality head of Bonnet Plume River from
Skagway would be less than 500 miles long. On this route to the sea
it would pass through the Laberge Mesozoic coal area as well as the
Mayo area." Such a line would cross the Mackenzie-Yukon route sug–
gested here and act as a feeder for it.

Baird-Bray Expedition, 1938-39

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EA: Canada, General
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BAIRD-BRAY EXPEDITION, 1938-39

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A short journey was made up the east coast in early May and a

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triangulation was initiated from the Hudson Bay post to extend across
to points on Bylot Island

Exercise Lemming

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EA-Canada: General
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EXERCISE LEMMING

As the exercise took place in late winter, weather conditions were not

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severe; the minimum temperature was 24° below zero F. but the first few days
saw near thawing conditions. The force was duly made aware, however, of the
chilling conditions of wind in the Arctic, and in its report the question of
"wind chill" was discussed for the first time in a military document.

Exercise Musk-Ox

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EXERCISE MUSK-OX

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EA-Canada: General. Baird: Exercise Musk-ox

An important modification to the Canadian armored snowmobile was the
necessity to fit an all-weather cab over the machine's open two-place cockpit
capable of protecting a larger crew from the severe weather. This took only
six weeks from drawing board to delivery, an excellent rush job which, how–
ever, failed in one respect in that the cooling system suffered from an
injudiciously designed airflow and exhaust system, and the anomalous situa–
tion occurred of the vehicle's overheating in 40 below weather, until
remedial steps had been taken.
The troops taking part were divided into several units. First a base
force under the command of Lieut. Colonel J. D. Cleghorn provided the
communications and other functions of a base, starting operations at Churchill
and moving to Norman Wells and Edmonton. But their chief task was the chain
of supplies, fuel, replacement parts, and rations, which had first of all
to come from ordnance and quartermaster depots, and then be packed and loaded

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into aircraft by a special supply unit of the Royal Canadian Army Service
Corps for dropping by parachute or [: ] landing near or in advance of the
moving force.

Assembly and training of the various units began in November 1945 and
took place at Shilo, Gimli, and Churchill, all in Manitoba. The drivers
had to become familiar with the snowmobiles, air crews with the unusual type
of navigation over the treeless Arctic, and the army air supply unit had to
learn the complicated practices of loading and packing parachute equipment

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and to work alongside their Royal Canadian Air Force comrades. Finally
all hands, but particularly the moving force, had to practice living and
camping techniques in subzero weather, and the moving force crews had to
become knit together as teams and establish working practices on small
preliminary exercises out from the base.

From Eskimo Point some deviations were made from the route of the
advance party in an attempt to avoid heavily boulderstrewn areas. The

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attempt was not altogether successful and much trouble was encountered in
threading a way through glacial rubble piles on which the crosslinks of the
vehicle treads were often fractured, and even greater damage caused to the
towed sleighs. A notable feature of this section was that the prevailing
north-northwest wind, in which direction the force was traveling, caused
drift accumulations in the lee of each stone facing the oncoming party and
giving a false impression of smoothness which was soon destroyed by looking
behind.

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To overcome these open but dangerously concealed cracks on the great
lake the force carried timbers for bridging on the next section and with

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the help of these soon reached the lake's outlet and made a road to the
St. Charles rapids of Bear River. Then came a slow section through the
forest, fourteen miles on a newly bull-dozed trail taking nine hours to
overcome. This brought the force to Fort Norman on the broad Mackenzie
River and from here on a trail through the forest was to be followed to
civilization.

The Petitot River was crossed on ice strengthened by corduroy and the
pioneer party was overtaken just before the Fort Nelson River, the last and
largest, was reached. Here break-up had just occurred and the ice was moving
downstream. As the river was too deep to be waded, a raft had to be constructed.

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This was made from logs and empty drums dropped by the Air Force on the sand
flat and it floated the five-ten vehicles satisfactorily. Two days were
employed in crossing and a short length of muddy road brought the force
to Fort Nelson airport on the Alaska Highway.

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