covet our Arctic HE dark masses of the trees were behind us. The last thin conifers, struggling to advance against the frozen soil, were fall- ing away on the horizon. And there beneath our wings stretch- ed the barrens, a vast expanse of green and grey, splashed with red, splashed with yellow, dap- pled with the new-born “blue of melted snow waters — all of it filling the earth mile upon end- less mile and yet, only a small part of Canada. All of this was long ago, when the hum of a plane’s engines across the stillness of a north- ern sky was a rare thing, when the bush pilots, those Canadian pioneers who rode on a wing and a faith in the future, were only beginning to span the wilderness. ° The thousands who once filled the Yukon valleys with their frantic quest for wealth were long gone, leaving only the ravish- ed hillsides and deserted drifts, a few drowsing cities to dream of former greatness, a scattering of prospectors to pursue the elusive quest. The new prospector, who would transform:the search for rare metals into a science, was not yet come to replace the skill- ed eye and intuition of the sour- dough who scorned anything but gold. And all of this was before the cold war, when men spoke eager: ly. of what the Soviet Union was doing to develop its north coun- try and urged their own pleas: upon an indifferent government at Ottawa. They knew that there was the work of generations to be done in Canada’s own north country. There is still the work of gen- erations, from Banks Island to Baffin Island and from the Mac- kenzie Delta to Labrador. And there are men, Canadians who have lived and worked~all their lives in the Arctic, who dream of what might be done. : But all of this too, was before the Yanks came to “defend” the Canadian North, to impress their pattern upon its development and incidentally, to cast a covetous eye upon the newly-discovered riches of this long - neglected frontier. ‘ Up in the high Arctic, govern- ment geologists have discovered salt domes which, they believe, may indicate the presence of a huge oil reservoir surpassing even the oil riches of Alberta. ‘They have traced the outlines of the region through the Arctic Is- lands, from Melville Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Amund Ringnes Island to Axel Heidberg Island. From such domes elsewhere in the world millions of barrels of oil have been ‘taken. : At Detention Harbor, some 400 *miles north of Great Slave Lake, a vein of almost pure lead — the ore averages 83 percent compared to six to eight percent for the ordinary mine — has been dis- covered. Perhaps discovered is not the word to use, for the pres- ence of lead at Detention Harbor is recorded in the journals of early explorers. That too, is only an indication of the neglect of the North, the failure of successive governments to develop a northern sea route, & ankees without which no real develop- ment of the Arctic can be under- taken. The uranium of Great. Bear Lake, the oil of the high Arctic, the iron of Ungava — these are the materials of which Canada’s future must be constructed. But our uranium and iron is being exported to the U.S. to build a -war machine. If, to the majority of Cana- dians who see their vast Arctic only on a movie screen, all this seems remote, it is well to re- member that the U.S. Navy has been conducting a search for oil on the Arctic Coast since 1944, financed by a $14 million ap- propriation, most of which has been spent developing a natural gas and oil field at Point Barrow. ing its Arctic posts. But it has no plan for development. In the meantime, U.S. forces are ensconced in Canadian Arctic bases, although it has been admit- ted officially that a military in- vasion of North America across the polar regions or large-scale warfare in the Arctic is consider- ed an impossibility. Then, it may well be asked, what are USS. troops doing in the Canadian Arctic? The Soviet Union poses not a threat but a challenge to Canada. The Soviet Union is developing its North. Soviet horticulturalists and agronomists are pushing the frontiers of agriculture closer ‘to Now the U.S. Navy is asking Con- _ gress for $50 million to build an Arctic fleet. A potential oil-field in Canada’s Arctic Islands is not likely to escape an acquisitive U.S. Canadians should be forwarn- ed by what has happened in Aust- ralia. The great Australian north- west, like the Canadian Barrens, has long been looked upon as a. desolate country. Now oil has been discovered there. The Australian government, using the flimsy pretext that “no Austral- jan company had the resources to do the work,” has handed deve- lopment rights to Standard Oil instead of undertaking the de- velopment itself. Even the Financial Post has be- come alarmed by the U.S. threat to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic. Pointing out that Can- ada’s claims are based upon the “sector theory,” recognized by the Soviet Union but never formally accepted by the U.S., the Fin- ancial Post wrote last Canada Day: “we'll either have to step up our northern development be- yond anything yet contemplated. Of we'll have to let somebody else do it.” The St. Laurent government’s answer has been to extend its northern patrols and substitute Canadian for U.S. ships in supply- .that use it. Canadian surveyors in the Arctic. the Arctic Sea. Navigators and oceanographers are making the northern sea route a secure pas- sage for the 200 ships and more Mines and oil fields are being delevoped. New cities are springing up. Even the tundra is being farm- . ed. North of the Arctic Circle, in the Yakut ASSR, wheat is be- ing grown in the zone of eternal frost. A new variety of potato, the Snow Flake, vields two har- vests a year in the sub-Arctic. Apples, cherries, tomatoes, have “will need to compel a comP r 8 been specially denelony iy Arctic growing. he All this could be done i2 4, Canadian Arctic, too. But W™% Canadian development theré has been warped to the needs a “defense” policy, supP? against a Soviet threat, a causes’ the Financial Post t© vet “Will we let the U.S. tae ( the Arctic?” "gad That is the reab threat. e to erase it the Canadian plete change in government policy: Se hird annu — Council, ‘While one is in chains, none is truly free’ | PROTECT CANADIAN LIBERTIES by helping to lift the cas that keep a great man prisoner in his own country. PAUL ROBESON ‘Hear, see and support this great singer and Negro leader. and Smelter Workers. PEACE ARCH PARK Sunday, August 1 - 2:30 p.m. al concert proudly J dethedld by International Union of Mine, Mill ‘An i injury to one is an injury to all’