_ By BERT WHYTE p isa certain magic in Arctic Circle. The of early explorers of var- tionalities spring to mind ats, Hudson, Baffin, Ber- thirikoff, Hearne, Cook, izie, Scoresby, von Wran- , Franklin, Ross, isen, Nansen, Peary, Stef- , Nobile and others. le never felt any desire to | Polar Expedition, but @n opportunity arose to e biggest city in the world ‘of the Arctic Circle I Tequire even 30 seconds ke up my mind and say, 1969 expedition travelled ort by train: overnight oscow to Leningrad, and le rails bent north for a id-mile run to Murmansk. Mame Murmansk is well- in the West. During the fears of the Second World when Leningrad was under and Hitler’s armies ing east to the Volga, free port of Murmansk he of the lifelines through Murmansk polar cit which British, American and Canadian supplies reached the Soviet Union. The fascists tried to cut off this supply route by attacking Murmansk from the nearby Finnish border and by sending scores of submarines to sink Allied convoys en route. Soviet troops threw back the in- vaders on land; and Allied con- voys, despite tremendous losses in ships and men, continued to bring in vital supplies of arma- ments and food. No one should ever forget the heroism of the Allied sailors who risked their lives time and again on the “Murmansk run.” Our train rolls on. The snow- covered meadows of Russia give way to the rocks, lakes and coniferous trees of Karelia. Then comes the tundra, country of the reindeer. At Apatite, north of the Arctic Circle, a branch of the single-track railroad runs to Kir- ovsk, the mining centre. And now we are. passing through Kola, that ancient town in which descendants of Puga- chov’s rebels live. This peasant rebellion, the biggest in Russian history, began in 1773 and af- fected the whole Volga basin. It was basically a struggle against serfdom. The government of Catherine II finally suppressed it, brought Pugachov to Moscow in an iron cage and executed him. Many of the rebels were exiled to far-off parts of the country; some were shipped north to Kola. Soon we arrive in Murmansk, centre of the Far North fishing industry. The shores of Kola Bay, where the city is situated, are washed by the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, which cross- es the whole of the Atlantic with the power of 10,000 Volga rivers and keeps Murmansk an ice-free port the year round. Murmansk is a young city, born during the First World War. The first citizen was a fish- erman named Semyon Korzh- nev, who built a log cabin near the shore and lived in it for many decades. He was over 100 years old when he died. There is a faded photograph of him in the local museum, and his name has been given to a lake, a mountain and a bay in the district. The warm Gulf Stream means plankton, and plankton means fish. The famous Murmansk fish- ing fleet not only operates in the Barents Sea, but goes as far afield as Newfoundland and Africa. There are 63,000 people engaged in branches of the fish- ing industry—some 40,000 fish- ermen and the rest cannery and transport workers. Wages are high in the Far North, about double the average Moscow in- dustrial wage, and that is one of the reasons why Murmansk, population over 300,000, is still growing. Anatole Philipov, head of the Northern Fisheries Department, tells us that the Murmansk fleet is responsible for about 20 per- cent of the fish catch of the Rus- sian Federation and 12 percent of the total Soviet catch. Seiners operate near the coast but deepsea trawlers form the bulk of the fleet. The Barents Sea itself is very shallow. As one guide in the museum put it: “If you planted, the Moscow television tower in the middle of the Barents Sea, the top half would still be show- ing.” Cod, flatfish, bass and hali- but are caught in this sea. A popular local dish is a pie stuff- ed with halibut and rice. It earns my “Good Housekeeping” seal, too. We visit a 20,000-ton refriger- ator ship named Northern Fish . and talk to the young Leningrad- born captain, 31-year-old Adolph” Bolychef. His ship, with its crew of .250, stays at sea for two months at a time, carries supplies to the trawlers and takes their fish on board, for processing and freezing. His next voyage will be to the Lab- rador coast. Because of icebergs in the North Atlantic, a helicop- ter is used for reconnaissance purposes. The oldest member of the crew is a woman, Agarfa Ivan- ova, 60, who has served 18 years at sea. She shows me around the ship’s hospital, where she is in charge, and tells me that her husband was killed in the war and that she has a son in Riga, who is also a sailor. We board another ship near- by, the spanking new 10,000-ton transport refrigerator ship Cos- monaut Gagarin. Built only last year on the Black Sea, it can handle 2,700 tons of frozen fish and travel at a speed of 16 to 17 knots. So far it has made only one trip—to the vicinity of Cape- town, South Africa and back, with its cargo of fish for Mur- mansk. Before visiting the ships we toured a couple of fish canner- ies on the waterfront. The direc- tor of one cannery is a woman, Olga Maximova, a native of the Caucasus. The chief engineer is also a woman..-So is the head of the trade union. And 85 percent of the cannery workers are women. The canning combinat has 14 factories in the Murmansk dis- trict where fish are smoked, frozen, canned, etc. and although there is a growing tendency to do more canning aboard refrig- erator ships, another cannery is being built to cope with the ex- panding fish catch. Part of the reason for the growth of the industry is the work done by the Polar Institute of Sea Fishing and Oceanogra- phy. The institute has 15 ships doing experimental work. Scien- tists aid the fishing fleet by drawing up short and long-term fishing forecasts. The institute cooperates with Norwegian ex- perts and has close contact with the English. It is also beginning to exchange information with American and Canadian scien- tists to prevent the exhaustion of certain fish. Murmansk, about 170 miles PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 18, 1969—Page 9 north of the Arctic Circle, sits exactly on the 69th parallel. It was once called Romanov, after the tsar, but the name was. changed following the 1917 Revolution. During the Second World War the city successfully withstood” a 40-month siege by the nazis. Most of the buildings were des- troyed but the port continued to function. = The wounds of war have long been healed and today Mur- mansk is a thriving city. It has two ports, one for fishermen and one for merchant ships. Among the native peoples of the Kola Peninsula are the Saami — Laplanders — and the name Murmansk comes from their “mur” meaning sea and “mar” meaning land. Literally Murmansk means “town on the sea shore.’”’ The narrow stretch of land along Kola Bay has prov- ed too small to contain the growing city, which now climbs up the surrounding hills, or “sopkas.” Winters are long but not too severe, thanks to the Gulf Stream. Snow comes in Novem- ber and stays until April or early May. Ever since 1934 a Polar Olympiad has been held in March, featuring reindeer races in which the deer pull skiers. For a period in July and August the sun shines all night long and citizens have to pull their blinds to get some sleep. Do citizens of the Soviet Far North feel isolated from civiliza- tion? “‘Not at all,” I am assured by a local citizen. “There are some drawbacks which have come from God, so we have to overcome them. Besides railway connections with Leningrad we have air service to Moscow, Leningrad and the Caucasus, so we don’t feel isolated from the mainland. Then we have 180,000 radios and 100,000 TV sets, which help us feel the pulse of of Moscow. And we like the life here—fresh air, clean snow, higher wages. No, you won't find many. people wanting to leave Murmansk.” There’s more to the Kola Peninsula than Murmansk and fishing. For instance, the great mining centres in the Apatite- Kirovsk area. But that’s another story, to be told another time.