Man Living in the Arctic; Proceedings of a Conference, Quartermaster Research and Engineering Center, Natick, Massachusetts, 1, 2 December 1960 (1961) / Chapter Skim
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THE EXPANDING UTILIZATION OF THE ARCTIC
THE EXPANDING UTILIZATION OF THE ARCTIC
Pages 119-140
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From page 119... ...
UTILIZATION OF THE ARCTIC'S NATURAL RESOURCES PAUL QUENEAU International Nickel Company of Canada, Ltd. New York, New York This study confines itself to an examination of the 2,000,000 square miles of the northern hemisphere which the geographer defines as the terrestrial Arctic, a region in which the mean temperature of the warmest month is below 50 °F -- in effect the area lying north of the tree line.
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From page 120... ...
For reason which will be elaborated below, the mineral industry is notably more active in the Arctic of the eastern hemisphere. On the Barents Sea at Kirkenes, where the Norwegian coast is still influenced by the Gulf Stream, there is a major iron mining enterprise which has one thousand employees and exports a million tons of high grade concentrates yearly.
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From page 121... ...
Farther eastward near the mouth of the Yenisey is Norilsk, believed to be the main Russian nickel producer with an output of perhaps 50,000,000 pounds yearly, and major concomitant copper, cobalt, and platinum metals output. Over one million tons yearly of coal and, reportedly, oil is produced in the vicinity of this city which has about 100,000 inhabitants and is by all odds the leading Arctic mining center in the world.
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From page 122... ...
The cost of mine product shipment alone can easily exceed its market value. Another difficulty militating against Arctic operations is one which might be termed the "heat balance" in its broad sense.
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From page 123... ...
Since the Russians possess more natural resources than any other nation on earth, and the bulk of these are south of the tree line, there is today limited economic incentive for strong industrial development in Arctic Siberia. If the Atlantic Community has adequate access to minerals from areas to the south on the basis of fair and mutually profitable exchange, then intensive Arctic mineral development will be relegated to another generation.
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From page 124... ...
The advent of nuclear energy has metamorphosed the heat balance problem in the Arctic beyond recognition. Within a decade it will be possible for a major Arctic operation to generate steam and electric power at costs similar to those common in many industrial nations of the temperate zone.
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From page 125... ...
Since then an immense investment has been made along the entire littoral to aid and control sea-air traffic and to establish an Arctic air-theater; typified by the atomic icebreaker Lenin, hundreds of air strips and radar posts, weather and sea ice forecast stations, and geophysical observatories. It will be remembered that the superb roads built for the Roman legions became peaceful avenues of commerce for centuries and the same will eventuate at the top of the world.
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From page 126... ...
The title is Human Society in the Arctic Today. This suggests, as it is intended to, man living in organized communities.
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From page 127... ...
On considering the many communities that are scattered around the north polar regions, it occurred to me that we can now -- as never before -- divide them into two main categories. Were it possible to plot both of them on a map, the comparison between the two groups would be instructive, particularly to a geographer.
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From page 128... ...
A few have been founded within the past decade, such as Rankin Inlet on the west coast of Hudson Bay, Mesters Vig on the east coast of Greenland near Scoresby Sund and, somewhat farther .south though still in a severe climate, Schefferville, Quebec.
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From page 129... ...
Farther east are other Arctic mining cities such as Vorkuta based on coal and Ukhta on oil, and in Siberia the farthest north mining city of the U.S.S.R., Norilsk, in 69° N latitude producing nickel, platinum, copper, coal, cobalt, gold and smelting most of them.
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From page 130... ...
I have in mind for this last category the villages or small towns of Alaska, northern Canada and Greenland, and I suspect that most of those in the Soviet Arctic are little if any different. The sites were in most cases chosen by some far off folk as hunting or fishing localities -- where seals passed, water remained open, several travel routes converged or some other favourable factor ruled.
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From page 131... ...
As is being demonstrated at Thompson in northern Manitoba and at Otonmaki in northern Finland, a mining community does not have to cluster around the mine shaft like a medieval city around its fortress. Administrative and commercial settlements in the far north have even less excuse to be poorly sited or to remain so as they expand.
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From page 132... ...
Such is that remarkably monotonous nation that there is little likelihood that a burst of originality characterizes Soviet communities in the Arctic, when it does not do so elsewhere. Settlement of the Soviet Arctic is presumably approached in the same manner as that of Karelia, Kazakhstan and Khabarovsk; for the basic principles of the Soviet economy and the political theology that accompanies them know neither latitude nor locale.
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From page 133... ...
I hazard a guess that arctic settlement of the future will be brought about by greatly increased public expenditure, based upon the results of intensified scientific enquiry on careful, systematic and imaginative planning, and through concentration on selected targets, that offer the best chance of success. In other words, priorities will be set up, and the resources of the community will be brought to bear on those schemes considered most promising.
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From page 134... ...
Through the international, non-governmental contacts maintained by The Arctic Institute of North America, it should not be impossible to set up a programme of scientific exchange visits, to be followed by co-operative arrangements for study and research. Human society in the Arctic today still faces more than enough natural obstacles to progress.
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From page 135... ...
. To paraphrase Lowell Thomas at the close of his High Adventure film on the Arctic, I do hope that the rest of you are able to sleep better at night secure in the thought that tens of thousands of able young Americans are alert to intercept any enemy attack; and if they are not altogether successful, some two 135
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From page 136... ...
Put into the economist's jargon, this is a general region of "low amenity resources". In order to survive through most of the year, man must become a primitive astronaut somehow creating for himself a new outer body to make up for the shortcomings of the one he possesses naturally and creating indoors the elements which the natural climate does not adequately provide.
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From page 137... ...
During Alaska's statehood battle, our politicians regaled us with comparative temperature data -- why, it gets just as cold or colder in Montana and parts of the Dakotas, to say nothing of ever so many parts of Canada -- and we were cheerily told that the historical statistics indicate that the North is warming up. There isn't even cold comfort in such talk, for only a little reflection will demonstrate that those other parts of the continent which share our characteristic of extreme cold temperatures are not exactly overcrowded with humanity, and the warming-up process is a long term proposition, much longer than any of us can wait around for.
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From page 138... ...
The decision as to whether sizable sums of public funds will be spent on Arctic development or elsewhere rests with various national political entities represented. Somehow a broader "public will" must be brought to focus upon the Arctic as being worthy of consideration.
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From page 139... ...
Because of its more elevated political order, no part of the state of Alaska now can be considered as a potential buffer zone in the event of enemy attack from over the Pole or as land which might be written off as, at most, so much ground space over which an air struggle would be carried out. Colonel Pearson stressed that the Army still has a job to do to defend American soil from falling into enemy hands, if for no other than international psychological reasons.
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From page 140... ...
In his recent popular book Ghost Ship of the Pole, Cross presents not merely a lively adventure story of Arctic exploration (the story of the ill-fated Italia, its captain and its crew) , but gives an illuminating insight into the basic character and operations of a tawdry dictatorship with political aspirations beyond its spiritual means.
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