<br />WILFRED R. WOODS
<br />
<br />River, 900 miles to the Arctic Ocean from here.
<br />
<br />Northern hospitality in Yellowknife made us welcome. We had the rare opportunity of seeing
<br />a gold pour. Little 50-pound bars worth $20,000 are made here. The mine did us an unusual favor of
<br />delaying their pour a full day for our arrival. The last time this happened was when the Duke of Edin-
<br />burgh visited, we were told.
<br />
<br />With a million and quarter square miles of land and only 30,000 inhabitants, it is obvious that
<br />there is plenty of room up here. Stuart Hodgson, territorial commissioner, was our host at the banquet
<br />given in our honor.
<br />
<br />We were told that tourist trade totals only 6,000 people annually. We joked that our plane
<br />load added about one per cent to the white population of the whole territory during our short stay!
<br />
<br />It was never dark the night we stayed here, though the sun did go below the horizon briefly.
<br />
<br />INUVIK, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES: From Yellowknife it's all downhill as far as water is
<br />concerned to Inuvik and the Arctic Ocean.
<br />
<br />The Mackenzie River, which we followed, is a vast stream. The Northwest Territories and Yu-
<br />kon have a total water supply equal to two Fraser Rivers, the Columbia River and the St. Lawrence.
<br />
<br />And as we flew over the miles intervening, we could see the lines that the oil prospectors had
<br />laid out in their seismic work.
<br />
<br />We found the northern shelf of Canada, as in Alaska, alive with exploration for underground
<br />riches. The charter planes criss-cross the northernmost stretches of this hemisphere routinely, serving
<br />radar bases and exploration points.
<br />
<br />Inuvik, north of the Arctic Circle, is where they turn night into day in summer. The sun rises
<br />in summer May 25, never to go below the horizon until July 18. Inuvik is a new town, built on the
<br />Mackenzie River Delta, a vast network of low-lying islands and multiple outlets of that river.
<br />
<br />It is the site of a noble Canadian experiment in trying to bring 5,000 natives into the 20th cen-
<br />tury and a spark of civilization to the Canadian Arctic.
<br />
<br />Its director, Dick Hill, termed it a "Peace Corps" in reverse.
<br />
<br />The idea was to build a modern town in the Arctic that will serve as a base for development
<br />and medical care, and new opportunity to the Indians and Eskimos living in it.
<br />
<br />After an extensive sear,h for the perfect site, Inuvik was selected. Construction lasted from
<br />1955 to 1961. Now it has a school for 1,000 students, dormitories to house them, a I ,OOO-bed fully mod-
<br />ern hospital, hotel, government building, and housing for the 3,000 people who live here.
<br />
<br />About 40 per cent of the residents are natives. The rest are whites who are here to teach the
<br />schools, administer the project, and operate the private businesses necessary for a community this size.
<br />
<br />Children from 6 to 20 are brought here from all over the territory to attend school. They live
<br />in the dormitories, called hostels, during the school year, but return to their native villages and camps
<br />in the winter. Government planes gather them up in the bush, fly them to central locations from
<br />which larger planes bring them to Inuvik. The idea is that, educated, they will be able to make a new
<br />place for themselves in the Arctic world.
<br />
<br />"Instead of sending our teachers out to them, as your peace corps does, we're bringing them
<br />in to us," Hill explained. "It is more expensive, but we hope it will do a better job."
<br />
<br />
<br />Inuvik is not a typical Arctic town, although it is built on stilts as other Arctic towns are. This
<br />is because of the ground frost here. If a building were built on the ground, the permafrost would melt
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