Factors Affecting Development of Canada's North

MR. KENT: It is a great pleasure for me to introduce to you Lieut. Col Graham W. Rowley, M.A., of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources. It would not be possible to find anyone who could speak with greater knowledge or authority about that great northern area of our country.

Born in England, and being interested in travel and adventure, he studied the Natural Sciences at Clare College, Cambridge and then read Archaeology and Anthropology. He came to Canada early in 1936 as a member of the British Canadian Arctic Expedition to excavate Eskimo sites and to travel and explore in Foxe Basin, north of Hudson Bay and mostly within the Arctic Circle. When the last war broke out, he came back to civilization, joined the Canadian Army and went overseas with the First Canadian Division in January, 1940. At the end of the War, he took part in Exercise Muskox in the Arctic as commander of the advance party. When he retired with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, he joined the Defence Research Board and was responsible for the Arctic research carried out by that Board. Since 1953, he has been Secretary of the Advisory Committee on Northern Development. Now he is responsible, not only

for the research carried out by the Government in the north, but also for co-ordinating Government policy for Northern Canada.

Just a few weeks ago Col. Rowley was awarded, by the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, the 1963 Massey Medal for his northern explorations.

All of us are interested in what the north is really like but also in the prospects for its development. Of course, with the imminence of a Federal Election, Col. Rowley has been invited to speak to us as a Canadian and as a permanent consultant of governments, regardless of politics.

His subject is: "Factors Affecting Development of Canada's North."

MR. ROWLEY: When your President asked me to speak to you, he suggested I talk on the future economic development of the north. But civil servants are cautious people and avoid prophecy, especially at a time like this. So I replied saying I would prefer to talk on the factors that affect development, leaving it up to you to predict what the future may bring.

Unlike most talks on the north I shall not begin it by defining what I mean by the north. In general, the factors that affect northern development, affect it more the farther north one goes. There is really no clear-cut boundary, and it might be misleading to suggest one in this particular context.

The first requirement for development is to have something to develop. What resources are there in the Canadian north that are needed either there or somewhere else in the world?

Turning first to renewable resources, the basic fact of life is that the north is a cold place, and this means that things grow slowly. A section of a branch of birch or willow from the north only a couple of inches in diameter will show one or two hundred annual rings. In southern Canada the corresponding bushes reach this size in a year or two. Reindeer lichen grows less than half an inch a year and takes many years to recover after a reindeer or caribou has browsed on it. Great Slave Lake, which is comparatively far south has a productivity of about 1 lb. of fish per acre per year, compared with 125 lbs. per year for some lakes in the United States, and probably a few ounces for lakes farther north. These figures show that the renewable resources of the north are not likely to be able to support any very great development. They have in fact been hard-pressed to support the few people already living there. It is this that has always imposed a very low ceiling on the size of the native population. There were never more than a few thousand Eskimos and Indians living in the million and a half square miles of Canada north of the 60th parallel and this is 40% of the area of Canada. Starvation was the control that kept the population so small. History has shown that, whenever a market for northern renewable resources has developed outside the north, these resources have been unable to sustain prolonged exploitation. The decline in the number of beaver in the northern forests early last century when civilization wanted beaver hats and the fur trade supplied them, illustrates what happens when a strong external market develops. In the same way, the demand for carriage robes nearly exterminated the musk-ox on the mainland.

The renewable resources of the north do however offer some possibilities for the future. Better conservation measures and better techniques can improve the yield to some extent. There could be a considerable expansion in reindeer herding. Handicrafts do not make heavy demands on northern materials. Fur farming might be introduced, as it has been with apparent success in northern Russia. In the Yukon Territory and along the Mackenzie River there is some good timber, though in limited quantities. Water power may be developed as methods for transmitting power over long distances are improved. As the population in the south increases, more people will seek recreation, peace, and quiet in the north, where there is some of the most impressive scenery in the world.

I should now like to turn to the non-renewable resources -to the mineral potential of the north which has attracted so much attention in the past few years. The major geological feature of the north is the Canadian Shield which extends over Ungava, Baffin Island, and the eastern half of the part of the mainland to the west of Hudson Bay. It is in the southern part of the Canadian Shield that most of the great mining areas of Canada have been found-Sudbury-Noranda-Cobalt-Val D'Or-Blind River-to mention only a few. It seems reasonable to expect that the rest of the Shield will prove as rich. We do not know for sure because there has been little detailed prospecting, but there have been many encouraging signs. These include the development of Schefferville in northern Quebec, and Uranium City, Flin Flon, Lynn Lake and Thompson in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Other signs are the high-grade iron ore discovered recently in northern Baffin Island and the strong current interest in the Contwoyto Lake area between Yellowknife and the Arctic Coast. Turning now to the west, the mountains of the Cordillera extend into the Yukon and may prove to be as rich as the Shield. They were the scene of the Klondike Gold Rush, United Keno is the largest silver producer in Canada. Cassiar is an important asbestos mine, and a tungsten mine is coming into operation this year. Only last summer very large iron deposits were discovered in the northern part of the Yukon Territory. Between the Shield and the Cordillera and to the north in the Arctic Archipelago lie two belts of sedimentary rocks. These may contain, as at Pine Point, important ore bodies, but it is their oil and gas potential that has excited the widest interest. The age and folding of the rocks are favourable and their thickness in some areas is believed to be as much as 40 to 50 thousand feet. This provides good grounds for hope that the north will be found to contain major oil reserves. This is still only a hope, but it has been strengthened recently by the discovery of oil sands on Melville Island and bituminous residues in several other locations. The wells to be drilled in Cornwallis Island this summer will therefore be followed with the greatest interest. The hope may become a reality within the next few years.

I have covered the resources of the north in some detail, because without resources no development would be possible. The next factor to consider is accessibility, or rather inaccessibility. It is not enough to have resources; they must be taken to where they are needed. Distances are long in the north and transportation is costly on this account alone. But this is compounded by other difficulties. The cheapest form of transportation is by water and this is seasonal. Only a few, favoured places in the north have open water for more than three months each year, and over most of the area the season is much shorter. A heavy penalty has to be paid in high inventories and low utilization of equipment. Compared with the rest of the country, there is an almost complete lack of transportation facilities such as roads, railways, docks, and detailed hydrographic information, and there are only a few all-weather airfields.

Another factor, and one that is always associated with the north, is coldness. We can point to a few exceptional figures, such as a record of 103'F. one summer at Fort Smith, but this does not alter the fact that the north is cold, and often very cold. The long, dark, cold winters in the north do not seem to have the same appeal to Canadians as have Florida and the West Indies. The northern summers are pleasantly warm, but they are short, and the mosquitoes can be unbearable. Most people are gregarious and do not like isolation. To attract people to go to the north and to stay in the north, wage rates must therefore be higher than in the south, and more amenities must be provided for them.

The cold incurs other penalties as well. The cost of heating and clothing is obviously much higher. Machinery breaks down and wears out more quickly. Then there is permafrost. In the north the ground is frozen, sometimes to a depth of a thousand or more feet, and only the top few inches thaw each summer. Frozen ground is difficult enough to deal with, but ground that thaws when it is disturbed is worse. Unless very careful precautions are taken, what seem to be solid foundations can turn to dirty water when a heated building is erected on them. When the insulating layer of vegetation is removed to prepare an airfield or road the ground below may thaw to mud unless several feet of gravel are laid above it. Water supply and sewage disposal are particularly difficult. Permafrost is not an insuperable problem, but it is an expensive one.

The factors I have outlined show that it will cost more to develop northern resources and to send them to market than in the case of similar but more accessible resources in the south. The cost to the producer can be reduced to some extent by fiscal policies, by regulations designed to encourage the most economical methods of extraction, and by subsidies, but the determining factor governing the rate of development will be the price that the world is willing to pay for what the north produces. There can be little doubt that world demand will increase rapidly as the population of the world increases and as standards of living rise. This increased demand will tend to bring higher prices, to compensate for the higher costs associated with northern operations. In this way the economic frontier should be pushed northwards. We can see where this frontier now lies if we look at some of the major developments that have taken place in Canada in the post-war years. United Keno, Cassiar, Yellowknife, Uranium City, Lynn Lake, Thompson, and Schefferville all lie on a reasonably well-marked line not far from the 60th parallel of latitude, bending north in the more accessible areas and south where transportation is difficult.

For a long time there will be an economic frontier in the north and, like most frontiers, it will be very sensitive to changes in the world market. This sensitivity to world demand is no new thing in the north. The whaling industry, which once sent hundreds of ships to the north each year, but which was already weakened by over-exploitation of whales and the competition from mineral oil, received a mortal blow when a substitute was discovered for baleen, the flexible material from the whale that exerted such a restraining influence on the Victorian figure. Again at the end of the 19th Century a sudden sharp fall in the price that bicycle manufacturers in England were willing to pay for walrus leather, made walrus hunting by whalers unprofitable, and may have saved the walrus from extermination. Changes in fashion in the past thirty years have depressed the white fox market, and greatly reduced the income of the Eskimos. There is no doubt that world prices, which we can do little to control, will always be a most important factor governing the rate of northern development.

I should also mention defence activities. The Mid-Canada Line, the Distant Early Warning Line, the war-time staging routes for aircraft, the refuelling bases, the Alaska Highway, and similar undertakings have been developments on a scale unprecedented in the north. They have brought airfields, communications, and transportation facilities of a much higher standard and much earlier than would otherwise have been possible, and it was these defence activities that have, more than anything else, made Canada conscious of the immense expanse of the north and its potential value. Often defence facilities have been of great assistance to, exploration and commercial development. Sometimes they have brought new sources of income to the north, though almost all the money has been spent in the south or has, quickly found its way back there. This is in sharp contrast to Alaska where defence has for years been the greatest source of income. It is also important to remember that airfields or communications built for say, D.E.W. Line, purposes are not necessarily in the best location to assist devlopment, though they are certainly very much better than nothing.

Most of the factors I have mentioned are beyond our control. We can do little about the cold or world prices, and we cannot shorten the long distances in the north. The, last factor I would like to mention is one that we can control, This is northern research.

Before, however, considering the importance of research, I would like to digress to discuss briefly the much greater development that has taken place in the Russian north.

A map on a polar projection shows northern Canada and northern Russia facing one another across the Arctic Ocean_ -some years ago I would have said backing on to one, another. Both are about the same distance from the North Pole, and it is natural to assume that they are very similar. It is tempting to go on from this to draw comparisons, between the two norths-comparisons which indicate that, the Russians, like good and trusty servants, have put their talents to work while we, recognizing the north as a hard master, have buried ours in the permafrost. Instead of draw-_ ing these easy comparisons between the Canadian and Russian north we should perhaps consider whether we are, really comparing like with like, or with something very different.

When we compare size we find that, though the propor-tion of Russian north of 60° is much the same as tha proportion of Canada, the actual area of Russia is nearly three times as great.. At the same time, the climate of the, Russian north is very much more favourable, for the tree-. line lies an average of about 500 miles farther north. The cold winters are what people remember about Siberia, but it is the warm summers that matter, because summer is the time of growth. Much of the Russian north is comparable therefore with the northern parts of the provinces rather than with the Northwest and Yukon Territories.

The Russian north has several other advantages. The ice age had much more effect in the Canadian North, scraping the soil from the hard granite of the Pre-Cambrian Shield, and carrying it south, leaving barren rock, sand, and gravel. Far less of the Russian north was covered by ice and the great Siberian rivers have enriched their valleys with alluvial silt. Soil conditions are therefore far more favourable.

The Gulf Stream pours warm Atlantic water into the Polar Basin and along the shores of Norway and north Russia. The flow of Atlantic water entering the Arctic Ocean is some 400 times that of the St. Lawrence as it enters the Gulf. This warm water provides a year-round route to the Russian Arctic, and keeps Murmansk ice-free in winter even though it is farther north than Cambridge Bay, which is still covered with ice in July.

In the Canadian north there are only two-well-marked natural transportation routes-Hudson Bay and the Mackenzie River. Northern Russia has a whole series of navigable rivers flowing north to the Arctic Ocean, nicely spaced at regular intervals. They are connected at the south to the Trans-Siberian Railway and in the north by the Northern Sea Route-an easier route than the Northwest Passage.

Northern Russia has always supported a much larger population than northern Canada and has a long history of development. As far back as the 10th Century the Russians reached the White Sea, and the advance through Siberia started in the 16th Century. The various native races of the Russian north total some 800,000 compared with 20,000 or so northern Indians and Eskimos. Another factor is that Russia, shut off from many of the world markets and with a compelling defence argument for self-sufficiency, has been thrust back on her own resources and this has undoubtedly assisted northern development. Nickel, tin, and diamonds are examples of an apparent Soviet deficiency being met by northern production.

Certainly one of the most important factors that has led to the development of the Russian north, possibly the most important fact of all, has been the Soviet attitude towards research. From the first the Soviets have recognized the importance of northern research. The government-controlled Arctic and Antarctic Institute in Leningrad, the network of scientific stations in the north, the scientific institutes throughout Siberia, the floating stations on the ice of the Arctic Ocean, and now the comprehensive Russian research programme in the Antarctic, provide overwhelming evidence of the importance and priority they give to polar science. The results of research sometimes appear in startling advances, like the sputniks; more often they appear as many small steps rather than one big one, Radio communications become more reliable, charts more accurate, ice reconnaissance more useful. There can be no doubt that the Russians have made a very great scientific progress in the north and that this is playing a major part in their northern development.

Conditions in the Canadian North are on the whole more difficult and we have harder problems to solve. This does not mean that we must do less scientific work, but that we must do more. Our main hope of achieving substantial reductions in the cost of northern operations lies in intense and continued research. At the best research can lead to completely new principles and techniques, which might eliminate the disadvantages now inherent in northern operations. We have only to think of the implications of nuclearpowered cargo-carrying submarines operating under the ice, and the applications of the hovercraft, which can move over water, level land, and ice, and operate during break-up and freeze-up, as well as in summer and winter, to realize something of the new horizons that are coming into view. In any event the data resulting from research will allow planning to be carried out more thoroughly, in more detail, and with more of the knowledge of conditions that is so important for efficient development, and without which a particularly heavy penalty is always paid in the north. There is no more expensive place to make mistakes.

There is in fact an even greater challenge for research in the Canadian north than in the Soviet north. There is a bigger part for it to play, and the advantages it brings will mean much more. In the past, it has often been said that trade follows the flag. We can say nowadays, with equal truth, that development follows research.

THANKS OF THE MEETING were expressed by Mr. David G. C. Menzel.