Exercise Muskox
Speaker Wilson, Colonel J.T. Member, Arctic Expedition
Date: 18 Apr 1946
Introduced by: Mr Eric F. Thompson,
President, The Empire Club of Canada
Published in: The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1945-1946
(Toronto,
Canada: The Empire Club Foundation, 1946) pp. 354-369
MR.
THOMPSON: Gentlemen--Prior to World War Two, we gave little thought
to the defense of Canada; with our friendly neighbours to the South
and bounded on the other three sides by wide expanses of ocean, we
felt safe from attack but, with the advancement in Air Warfare, as
exhibited in the recent world struggle and, the far reaching possibilities
of atomic power, I am sure we all now realize that this country must
give greater consideration to protective measures.
Canada,
containing as it does, the Western Democracies chief source of Uranium,
one of the principle components of atomic energy, might readily be
one of the first countries attacked; should another World War come
about. With these Uranium deposits located within 100 miles of the
Arctic Ocean and our vast Arctic Area unprotected, our country has
wisely seen the immediate necessity of determining what can be accomplished
in a military way in our extensive Arctic Zone.
The
Arctic fact finding expedition, known as "Operation Muskox"
also "Operations Lemming" and "Polar Bear", were
largely organized by our guest speaker, who is a graduate of the University
of Toronto and a postgraduate of Princeton and Cambridge Universities.
Among his scholastic trophies are the Governor General's Medal, Prince
of Wales Prize, Coleman Gold Medal and Massey Fellowship. He holds
the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy.
During
the war he served as Technical Liason Officer with the Canadian Army
overseas and, subsequently as Director of Operational Research, Ottawa;
a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Vice Chairman, Board of
Governors of the Arctic Institute of North America; Chairman, Associate
Committee on Geophysics, National Research Council. He is head of
the recently organized Institute of Geophysics, University of Toronto.
Gentlemen,
it is with extreme pleasure that I introduce to you, Colonel J. T.
Wilson, who has just returned from the Arctic Expedition and who will
address us on the subject "Exercise Muskox".
COLONEL
J. T. WILSON: Mr. Chairman, Gentlemen and invisible Ladies if any
be listening on the radio
This
winter was the first time that anyone could plan ahead of time to
fly up to the Arctic to arrange to meet a group of vehicles, snowmobiles,
travel with them for some days in comparative comfort, and again on
a fairly definite time-table be picked up by plane and flown back
to Southern Canada.
As
one of the few people who were fortunate enough to have this experience
it is a great pleasure to come here today and to tell you something
about it.
It
is less than a month since I was last in Toronto, and since that time
I have flown to Edmonton, Norman Wells, to Radium on Great Bear Lake,
and up to Coppermine on the Arctic Ocean, flown out over the Arctic
Ocean, joined the snowmobiles there, travelled back to Great Bear
Lake and flown back the way I came in, and spent a week in Ottawa,
and the month is still not up.
It
is a great pleasure to come here and I wish to thank you very much,
and to thank the Chairman for his very kind remarks.
This
Exercise Muskox has had so wide a publicity that it is surprising
that many people still regard it as a secret exercise, and your Chairman,
in writing to me, hoped I would be able to say something about it.
He, like many others, felt that there was a great deal of security
and secrecy about this Exercise. Those of us who were at Churchill
at the time it was beginning will remember, that for every two members
of the moving force, there was at least one newspaper man, newsreel
man, radio man or photographer, or something of the sort, all living
with us, eating with us, travelling with, very freely, and if there
was much secrecy left about the Exercise it was their fault, not ours.
It was not possible to take them with us the full way but you have
had releases from time to time on how the expedition has been making
out.
The
security was such that we had surprising accounts of our doings. One
evening, in a moment of relaxation - and I would remind you the majority
of these men had been some long time in the north, since November
- we had a meeting of the Muskox Parasitical and Philosophical Society.
At that meeting one of the meteorologists gave a very learned dissertation
on the life history of the ice worm. At the conclusion we had a board
of experts who passed on this scientific paper and presented him with
a Ph.W.
To
our surprise a few days later we got a Chicago paper and there on
the front page, with a two column head, was an account of the life
history of this meeting, and how we had heard about the life history
of the ice worm. I have been wondering ever since whether the people
of Chicago really believe there are these large worms, about ten feet
long, wandering around the ice of Hudson's Bay, with 23 segments and
three purple horns.
Another
aspect that has been stressed on this Exercise is the international
aspect, and the large strategic tactical implications, but it seems
a pity to me that that side has been stressed, because obviously this
Exercise which is taking place in the heart of Canada has much more
meaning to Canada and the development of Canada than it does to any
international affairs.
The
route of the Exercise, as you see on this map or as you can visualize
in your homes, lies along three sides of a square, starting on the
west side of Hudson's Bay at Churchill, the route lies for a thousand
miles north to the nearest of the Arctic Islands, and then for a thousand
miles approximately southwest, through Great Bear Lake to the Mackenzie
River at Norman, and then again for approximately a thousand miles
south to Edmonton. That is the route of the Exercise and it lies right
in the heart of Canada, not at the extreme northern limit of Canada,
not at the extreme southern limit either, but right in the middle
of it.
In
describing this Exercise, I would like to deal with three aspects
of the Arctic or the winter Exercises. I would like to say something
about how the Exercise came about and what actually occurred or is
occurring now on the Exercise, and what implications there are for
the future.
This
Exercise came about from the war, of course, when things were dealt
with in secrecy and that is why this Exercise is still regarded as
such a secret one. Really, the origin goes back to almost the beginning
of the war. I am sorry that General Potts who was to be here, was
held up by vehicle trouble, apparently and has not yet got here, but
you will remember that early in the war he was Commander of a Canadian
Expedition to Spitzbergen, a small island lying far north of Europe,
at latitude 70 to 80, very near the North Pole, and for various reasons
he was detached with a small Expedition to occupy that island. He
went in summer time and because the matter was so diplomatically handled
no fighting occurred, but I am sure he would have agreed if he were
here, had the Expedition been a prolonged one and lasted into the
winter he would have wished for some of the modern developments in
Arctic equipment. At that time no over-snow vehicles of a very practical
nature existed and clothing and food were not so good then as they
are now for the Arctic, and signal sets were not made so efficient
as they are now by winterizing and Arcticizing them. But that winter
expedition and a trip to Alaska and the Aleutians, though as well
equipped as possible at the time, had led to people realizing that
a good deal of war was going on in the north and better equipment
was needed.
They
also planned at one time to invade Norway and they foresaw the need
to fight in the Alps and the Appenines. They remembered the conditions
they had encountered last winter and for all these reasons the Services
were keen to develop better Arctic equipment of various types. The
Americans, recognizing the advantage of having such a cold climate
looked particularly to Canada to develop this equipment, so great
efforts were made during the war along these lines. As equipment began
to become available in the latter stages of the war, and as the plans
for invading colder parts of Europe began to mature, it was obvious
that Exercise of troops would be used to try out that equipment, and
the first large one held in Canada was three winters ago in jasper,
in the Canadian Rockies, where a battalion of British Lovett Scouts
was sent out, a very specialized and highly picked battalion of mountaineers
were sent out to train at jasper during the winter, and to climb mountains
in the worst season of the year. Although there were no such mountain
battalions in the Canadian army at that time the Canadian Army was
able from its winter experience to provide a good many officers and
instructors to participate in that training.
We
were stimulated too by the fact that two winters ago the Canadian
Army had held quite considerable winter exercises in secret in Canada.
These Exercises. which your Chairman has referred to, and you have
now heard about were Exercises Eskimo, Polar Bear and Lemming.
Exercise
Eskimo was designed to test out equipment and men in the coldest accessible
parts of Canada, north from Prince Albert and the northern part of
the prairies, and two winters ago about a couple of thousands of men
were distributed along the country and marched several hundred miles
and rode in vehicles several hundred miles up to Lake La Loche and
back again, and incidentally building as they went about 65 miles
of road and testing out all kinds of equipment. That was designed
to take place in the coldest part of the winter, and also in the spring
and the breakup which is another problem there was another Exercise.
About a thousand men was planned in the springtime to go through the
Coast Range Mountains. We realized that on one side of the Coastal
Range they would encounter severe cold, and on the other side they
would have British Columbia's coast conditions, and rain, and in meantime
find themselves in very heavy snow, and it was felt that the combination
of these things with the spring thaw would provide quite a severe
test for men and vehicles, which it did, but the men were able to
travel about 600 miles and come back approximately on time.
These
Exercises, if you think of the map occurred down in the southern part
of Canada. Polar Bear and Eskimo were north of Prince Albert. It was
recognized that north of the tree part lay the tremendous Arctic with
no trees on it, and it would be well to look into that, so a very
small Exercise, was held north from Churchill for 600 miles last spring,
and it was discovered that the Canadian armoured snowmobile, developed
in this country but which did not exist during the war, was a very
efficient vehicle and could be counted on to travel sixty miles a
day cross country over the barrens.
So
immediately thought was given to staging another Exercise in the true
Arctic this winter and those thoughts were already materialized or
fixed before the war ended. There was a considerable hiatus, due to
events of last summer, of course.
This
Autumn the matter was again revived and it was decided it would be
worth while to put on an Exercise in the true Arctic to give a final
test to the development of this equipment which had been developed
chiefly in Canada during the war. The equipment was already available.
The
authority to hold the Exercise Muskox was not finally given until
the autumn. There was no time to build snowmobiles, large quantities
of clothing or package special foods, so what was available, what
was left over from the war was taken and a great deal of that would
not have been very satisfactory if it had been turned over to civilian
agencies. So we took what was available and planned an Exercise in
winter to traverse the Canadian Arctic. This Exercise Muskox has really
been divided into four sections, four groups of men. The most important
group is that commanded by Lt.-Col. Pat Baird, of the Royal Canadian
Artillery, who was in the Arctic when the war broke out and like all
the leaders of the Expedition he knows the Arctic fairly well and
can speak some Eskimo so he new frankly what he was up against: His
was the moving party to travel about 3000 miles in snowmobiles. It
was decided he should take along a minimum number of officers necessary
to run a unit--a Medical Officer, a Signal Officer, a Commander Quartermaster,
and so on. Those things are necessary in any unit. Also a few scientists
and technical officers, a few to specialize on vehicles, one to look
into clothing research, one on radar, a couple of physicists and meteorologists,
and the minimum number of scientists to cover those things expected
to be found in Northern Canada.
In
that way they arrived at a group of about twenty officers, including
a very few observers from Great Britain and the United States. Then,
in order to get the vehicles round when needed, they had to have some
drivers for the vehicles, some signal men and a couple of other technical
N. C. O.'s. So one way and another it came to a minimum party, to
really cover what they wanted to cover in Northern Canada, of about
forty or fifty men, and which would require ten or twelve snowmobiles.
Those
vehicles it was intended should go a distance of 3,000 miles, starting
from Churchill in the coldest part of the winter, and travel along
north a thousand miles and southwest a thousand miles, and half way
along the whole 3,000 miles the Expedition would cross from the true
Arctic into the treed belt near Great Bear Lake, and come back via
Norman, a thousand miles south to Edmonton, through the trees or trailed
rivers, back to Edmonton, and they would come back to Edmonton at
this time of year, in the springtime through the breakup
So
the Expedition had to face two problems. It had to face the Arctic
in February, the coldest month, and in the beginning of May they had
to come back through the breakup which is quite a different type of
problem.
In
order to support the forty or fifty men bases were necessary and a
larger group of men was found necessary to man the bases. The main
bases were Churchill, on Hudson's Bay, Edmonton, and north of Edmonton,
Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake, and Norman on Great Bear Lake. On
those bases personnel were put in where a variety of supplies would
be necessary, and to transport the supplies from the bases to the
men who might be, as much as 700 miles distant and transport to the
barrens where the planes rarely operate in winter, and where there
are no airports, it was necessary to have a group of the Royal Canadian
Air Force, and they formed a supply unit which has operated extraordinarily
efficiently, and I would like to pay tribute to the wonderful cooperation
we had and the great confidence all army personnel had that as soon
as they radioed for anything, whether a spare engine or an extra case
of food, or a parka that somebody had lost, or 'some special surgical
instrument, whether large or small, they were quite confident that
within a short space of time, usually within 24 hours, the Air Force
would deliver it, usually by parachute.
Then
the Air Force, realizing the barrens was a difficult part of the country
to operate in and the planes quite largely avoided it before the war,
and the distances were very great and as they were using mainly wheeled
aircraft they had to drop their supplies, and fly seven hundred miles
in and back and the 1,400 miles was quite a long flight. They suggested,
though it was not absolutely necessary that they would welcome having
some bases. So Colonel Rowley, who had also been in the Northwest
Territories and could speak Eskimo and knew the north country, was
selected to take an advance detachment from Churchill north to Baker
Lake in the heart of the barrens early in the season, and he established
an air base, a signal station and a meteorological station there which
was done successfully.
Those
four parts of the main moving force, the bases, the R.C.A.F. detachment,
and the Rowley detachment were the four parts of the Expedition Muskox.
Rowley's
trip, quite an interesting one, started the end of January and they
travelled 500 miles north with tractor or snowmobiles in 20 or 25
days. The weather was extremely severe. In two weeks the thermometers
did not rise about 38 below. It is no colder, I think, even at 52
below. The temperature stayed steady in the 40s, but that was not
the only part of their troubles because during most of the time they
had violent gales of wind, and those of you who think 40 below is
cold, then 40 below with a violent gale blowing is a great deal colder.
A
lot of the difficulty was that they had just two snowmobiles on one
occasion and they had to lay up in a blizzard. When they dug out of
the blizzard they couldn't get either snowmobile to go. It took two
days work before they could get the first to start and you will realize
that working at 40 or 50 below, and trying to get vehicles to start
for two whole days is hard work. They arrived eventually at Baker
Lake, consisting of four houses in which six people lived, or seven,
including a wife and child of one of the white men, and a few Eskimos,
a tiny isolated spot, 200 miles from their nearest white neighbours.
It is a center at which the Eskimos come to trade and attend the mission.
We were very hospitably received there and within 24 hours they were
able to build an air base on which many aircraft later landed.
The
following up behind Rowley a band set out from Churchill in the middle
of February, on the 10th or 15th, and followed Rowley's tracks to
Baker Lake and from Baker Lake pushed on across virtually unknown
country. Some of it had never been seen by white man - and across
the Black River to the Arctic Ocean. In the stretch from near Baker
Lake to the Arctic Ocean, the only mapped feature in the 300 mile
stretch is Black River. That was mapped in 1933. No corrections had
been made since the original survey by Captain Black of the Royal
Navy, and two stretches went across for more than a hundred miles
in which the map was a complete and total blank, so they learned quite
a bit about Northern Canada, operating the column of ten or twelve
vehicles. They started with twelve vehicles but one of a different
type was left behind very early. At Baker Lake they dropped a snowmobile
in order to ease the supply situation and proceeded with ten vehicles
from Baker Lake. They are still travelling with the same ten.
On
striking the Arctic Ocean - I will again give an indication of how
bad the maps are - they came down a river and expected to find a Hudson's
Bay Post in the estuary of the river, but eventually they found it
ten miles out at sea on a small island.
At
Parry River, we ran into, as we had occasionally before, a group of
Eskimoes, who are most friendly and intelligent people. I thought
they were very fine people, what I saw of them. They met a group of
these and one of the children was pretty sick. He had a ruptured appendix,
peritinitis, pneumonia and a heart condition. There was no doctor,
no white man within several hundred miles. The doctor was able to
call for more emergency equipment which was delivered by plane and
he was able to perform an operation on the child in the igloo, and
to have the child sewn up, patched up and flown out to Aklavik.
They
carried on from there to Victoria Island, crossing a couple of hundred
miles of the Arctic Ocean to do so. They crossed one corner of Victoria
Island to Denmark Bay which had only been visited by white men twice
- once by Amundsen, and once by Larsen, a Police Inspector through
the Northwest Passage.
Then
they returned to Cambridge Bay and travelled another 300 miles down
to Copper Mine. On my last trip, within the last month, I joined the
party at Copper Mine. I arrived by plane in the afternoon. It was
a lovely afternoon out on the barrens beyond the trees. It was a beautiful
spot with lovely cliffs rising out of the sea. We were very hospitably
received and we arranged with the five white homes, in which about
six or eight white people lived, that they would put up the forty
members of the party. The people always expect when there are four
or five homes to put up forty or fifty people over night. We arranged
for that and then waited and during the evening we saw the lights
coming across the Arctic Ocean and for the first time the motor vehicles
drove into Copper Mine that night, more or less on time. They stopped
for a day or two for a rest and during that time with another officer
I got a dog team and drove to an Eskimo village. It was very beautiful
to see in the dark before one the little dim twinkling lights in the
ice village of igloos, the seal oil lamps inside, and to be greeted
with crowds of Eskimoes coming out and wanting to shake hands and
to have you go into the igloo and spend a night among the very friendly
people, and try out their food, which is good for them, it seems,
but slightly strange to us - dried fish and things like that, washed
down with tea and things like that - and to see the primitive drum
dance in the igloos and return to join the snowmobiles.
During
the next six days we had rather bad weather. The travelling was pretty
hard, over quite high country, rising to 2500 feet from Copper Mine
to Great Bear Lake, and on the last day we rather astonished the people
at Radium Mines by doing 96 miles in one day. They knew the country,
knew it was fairly rough and they didn't think anybody could possibly
make nearly a hundred miles in one day. The previous day we had had
bad luck. We had engine trouble and rather than repair on the spot
we had radioed for another engine. We only had to wait 24 hours for
another engine. We changed engines, flew the old engine out and connected
up the new one. We just waited one day and made a hundred miles into
Radium.
The
party that has now crossed since I left them crossed Great Bear Lake
into Fort Norman and headed up the Mackenzie toward Fort Nelson. In
a few days if all goes well and there is not too much trouble from
the breakup which they have now encountered - we see in the papers
it is now thawing in the daytime and some of the rivers are breaking
up - they should strike the Alcan Highway, or the Northwest Highway
at Fort Norman, and then it is 700 miles into Edmonton, and I expect
they will arrive there as scheduled on the 5th of May.
So
much then for this Expedition which has taken place in winter in Northern
Canada. What about the future? It perhaps should not surprise people
if they reflect for a moment that the Services have taken this lead
in driving vehicles through Northern Canada, over 1500 miles never
traversed by vehicles before, because if you think back to the names
of the great Arctic explorers, the great majority have been from the
Services, many from the Navy, some of them associated with' disaster
- but well known names like Scott, Franklin and Parry - those were
naval officers - and also Admiral Bird and Admiral Parry.
And
in the Services, Champlain - though he was hardly an Arctic Explorer
- and Greely, the American Army Officer. So many of the Arctic explorations
in the past have been conducted by the Services, and it was always
considered a fine thing for the Services to have some men with Arctic
experience, not that they expected to fight in the Arctic so much
in the past, but it was a good training for them. I think our own
Mounted Police find that today. They vie with one another to get to
the Arctic. What the future will be in the Services, I do not know,
nor to what extent they will continue this work. At present, as you
know, I am leaving the Service, and cannot say.
But
I do know there will be a continuing and increasing civilian interest.
Here in Toronto you have always been interested in the North. There
are many reasons why we should be more actively interested in Canada
and our own North, and I think you will find that the mining companies
will gradually continue to expand, not in Northern Ontario which is
away south, but to expand beyond Yellowknife and Radium, and there
is no reason why they shouldn't continue to extend even to the barrens
beyond when it becomes economically possible.
In
order to concentrate the interest in this Arctic work and to make
available to people who are interested the information that has already
been gathered there has recently been formed in Canada an Arctic Institute
of North America, which has been set up in Montreal. It has its officers
there and a Director, and the object of this, just like a Mining Institute
or an Historical Society, it is to collect together people interested
in the Arctic, in the same way as a Mining Institute collects together
people interested in Mining, or an Historical Society gathers together
people interested in historical matters. I think that is a worthwhile
development. It is an international society, set up with people interested
in the United States and some interested from Greenland and Alaska
and Newfoundland.
Some
people who are skeptical may well ask, what is the value of this?
I don't think the people here, judging by your Chairman's remarks
would think that, but some people although they knew about much of
the work in the north are not clear what the value is. Certainly this
year it has been possible to travel more easily in the north than
ever before, to travel by airplane and snowmobile into parts that
were very inaccessible. We learned this winter how to build better
snowmobiles which could be used in country parts of Ontario. If you
can drive across the Arctic you can also drive over drifts in a farm
road in southern Ontario.
We
will learn quite a lot about flying planes up there and landing on
airports on the ice. We have made a special study of a lot of scientific
aspects of the north. The group of scientists we have had on the Expedition
and most of the Officers have had some scientific or technical training,
practically all of them. They have divided between them 26 subjects
which they are studying and keeping careful records. They are keeping
careful records of methods of navigation. Navigation near the North
Pole is not easy. They are keeping record of the studies of signals,
of the health of the men. No Arctic Expedition, so the Medicals tell
me, was ever so thoroughly medically examined before they started.
They took eight to ten hours to medically examine each man on the
Expedition, and they were checked again on their return to civilization
as represented by Fort Nelson, so we have learned a lot about people's
health in the North.
Clothing
was a subject of special study. We had a certain amount of radar equipment
along which has been tested. We studied the snow equipment, the snow
conditions, and if we are going to design snow equipment that is important
to know. We studied ice sicknesses, the Aurora and meteorology. All
these things of scientific interest were studied on Expedition Muskox
and many results will be made available in due course when collected
and assembled.
It
is important too, I think, that we should over-test things and the
Arctic provides a good place to over-test engine equipment. If an
engineer builds a bridge he always, before allowing the public to
use it, puts on a heavier load than is likely to be used in operation,
and if an automobile manufacturer thinks the public are going to drive
a car in weather about freezing he would be well, to take steps to
see that it would not break down if subjected occasionally to zero
weather. Here in Canada we are quite accustomed, in many parts of
civilized Canada, to driving cars to 40 below. Then if we can make
a vehicle that will operate satisfactorily in the Arctic, we will
have very much less trouble in starting in Toronto on a cold December
night of the winter if we have had Arctic experience. Even if we don't
intend to go to the Arctic it is a good thing to over-test vehicles,
in the cold.
The
same for clothing. It was possible in winter to keep the men warm,
partly by the fact that improved clothing had been developed during
the war, partly by simply putting on more clothes, but more clothes
became very bulky, and to heap on more clothes means that the men
can hardly move. Three pairs of mitts on the hands may be warm, but
it is hard to change a spark plug. You can't take the mitts off. So
we may make lighter clothing and if it is warm in the Arctic it will
be very much lighter down here. So the idea of over-testing I think
has a value.
I
believe there will be mining developments in the North as it becomes
economically possible and travel becomes cheaper and as the cost of
certain projects goes up. There are certain studies that must be carried
out in the Arctic, not because it is cold or because it is the Arctic,
but because we need the information as it affects us down here. The
weather we have here in Toronto has come down to us from James Bay
and Hudson's Bay, and the Arctic, and the weather here is very similar
to weather at Baker Lake 48 hours ago. Unless we know what the weather
is we will never be able to make long range weather predictions for
flying and steamship routes. We have got to have more information
about Arctic weather in order to predict ahead the temperate weather.
Our
radio signals -- if we listen to short wave radio we have no control
over the powers by which they come. Some come over the North Pole
and some the South Pole. We need to know something about radio conditions
up there in order to get the best reception. And if there is a reason,
and apparently there is for having an Observatory at Richmond Hill
for studying the stars, or a Magnetic Observatory at Agincourt for
studying gravity, and the other geophysic studies we happened to be
interested in - it makes no difference to the stars whether they are
studied in Toronto or up in the Arctic - it is just as well that we
should have a world-wide coverage on many of the different studies
which have quite complicated values.
The
Arctic is a good training ground. That is another thing, too. If a
young officer gets lost on a training scheme at Borden or Petawawa
in the summer time and his men get lost they may miss breakfast, they
may get wet or lose some sleep, but nothing very serious happens.
But if a leader of part of an Arctic Expedition gets lost the consequences
are likely to be much more severe, so it is a very excellent training
ground for leaders in both peace and war.
And
finally, to conclude, I would like to mention to you, if you measure
from Point Pelee in the southern part of Canada up to Cape Columbia,
the half way point is not in Northern Ontario, but on the southern
border of Hudson's Strait. We have a vast Arctic area in the Arctic's
three islands--Victoria, Ellesmere and Baffin Island, all of which
are larger than the islands of Great Britain.
Another
fact people don't often realize is the difference from Point Pelee
to Cape Columbia in the north, the distance measured on the globe
isn't as great as the distance from Vancouver to Sydney - there is
a little bit of Canada that lies west of Vancouver, so it is not quite
true to say that Canada is quite as big from north to south as from
east to west, but it is nearly true. We have a large territory on
which we live on the southern fringe.
This
Exercise Muskox has been travelling through the heart of that territory.
The distance that it is travelling and which it expects to complete
within the course of the next couple of weeks is equivalent to driving
a vehicle from Quebec to Vancouver. The 3100 mile route from Churchill
to Cambridge Bay to Norman and back to Edmonton is equal to the distance,
following the railway from Quebec through Montreal, following to Lethbridge,
and from Lethbridge to Vancouver, which means they are driving the
distance across the Arctic equivalent to the distance from Quebec
to Lethbridge. They are, driving cross country all but the last 700
miles. So they have undertaken quite a formidable task and their daily
contact are the Air Force on that great distance.
So
I think it is true to say we have a very great North, much larger
than people realize, a great deal more stretches beyond Exercise Muskox,
and beyond that is a great Arctic Ocean. And though still far removed
from other countries on the north we are getting closer to them and
certainly as far as the north country is concerned that Canadian north
country as it never was before is right at our open door today.
If anyone can add details, or point us in the direction to find
a more complete account of this exercise please send information
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