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<br /> <br />SURVEY 68 <br /> <br />By WILFRED A. WOODS, Publisher <br /> <br />Wenatchee Daily World, Wenatchee, Washington <br /> <br />Survey 68 was, to describe it briefly, a flying seminar of 90 resource-oriented leaders from the <br />Canadian and U. S. West to the Arctic and back. <br /> <br />It was a six-day, 6,000-mile, dawn-to-dark expedition on a charter flight that began in Wenat- <br />chee, Wash. Before that DC6B returned to Wenatchee, we had stopped at a dozen places in Alberta, <br />Northwest Territories, Alaska, Yukon Territory, and British Columbia. We also flew over important <br />water resource developments in Washington, Northern Idaho and Western Montana. <br /> <br />We looked at mines and mountains and dams and rivers. <br /> <br />But even more, we made a host of fast friends among our own tour members, friends from <br />Honolulu to Washington, D. C., and Ottawa, Canada. <br /> <br />Why would a small newspaper in a small town take on a project like this? <br /> <br />Resource programs are not strangers to our organization. For the past half-dozen years the <br />Wenatchee Daily World has been the sponsor of regional meetings devoted to outdoor recreation, <br />water, conservation, and river transportation. <br /> <br />Our view has been that there are long-term implications for our own community, state, and <br />region that should not be ignored. <br /> <br />We have presented, in these regional affairs, speakers of national stature not normally heard in <br />our own area. <br /> <br />We were asked searching questions as to our specific interest in these matters when we first <br /> <br />began. <br /> <br />4 <br /> <br />Our interest, we assert, is to get the broadest and best outlook upon these resource problems. <br /> <br />I must add that our newspaper has been in the midst of resource discussions for a long time. <br />My father and predecessor as publisher and editor, Rufus Woods, wrote the first article on the building <br />of Grand Coulee Dam and the great Columbia Basin Project. That was just 50 years ago last summer. <br /> <br />He was a grass-roots leader in the fight that saw these monumental works come into being. <br /> <br />But so much for the past. <br /> <br />We saw a vast, virtually undeveloped part of our continent, with incredibly few people for the <br />most part, and incredibly large resources (and a not very hospitable climate). <br /> <br />We did not go up there to make speeches. Our role was to look, listen and learn. <br /> <br />And what an earful and eyeful they gave us up north. <br /> <br />Here are the places we saw: <br /> <br />LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA: This is the irrigation capital of Canada, surrounded by more than <br />three-quarters of a million acres of irrigated land. <br /> <br />We stopped at the largest experimental station in Canada to see their work with irrigated agri- <br />culture. <br /> <br />The largest irrigation project uses the St. Marys River, which rises in the United States. An <br />international treaty was necessary to permit its development. We learned that here the Federal Gov- <br />ernment of Canada had built the storage dam and diversion works. <br /> <br />-15- <br />