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Permafrost in North America
Ser
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N R C 9 2 6 A
NnrtoNel ReselncH CouNcrL
CANADA
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PERMAFROST
IN NORTH
AMERICA
ROBERT
LEGGET
A N A L Y Z E D
R E P R I N T E D F R O M
PROCEEDINGS: PERMAFROST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
NOVEMBER 1963
P . 2 - 6
3 1 n D n
v - a ? . ' ( J T E C H N I C A L P A P E R N O . 2 3 2 O F T H ED I V I S I O N O F B U I L D I N G R E S E A R C H
OTTAWA
o c T o B E R
1 9 6 6
BY
F.
P R I C E I O C E N T S36550/,3
Re'printed from the PROCEEDINGS: PERMAFROST INTERNATIONAL CONFERXNCE, NAS-NRC, Publication 1287
PERIVIAFROST
lN NORTH AMERICA
ROBERT F. IJGGET, Dlvlsion of Building Research, National Research Council of Canada
Permafrost is a regular feature of extreme northern and southern terrain throughout the world, lts boundaries dictated by the laws of physlcs alone. It ls enLirely appropriate to flnd such an ln-ternational gathering as this assembled to consider the prob-lems presented by permafrost wherever it is found, through a sharlng of the rcsults of observation and by discusslon. It is likewise most appropriate to have this gatherlng on the campus of Purdue Universlty, internationally known for the terrain in-terests of its Department of Clvil Engineering, as for so many other dlstlnctive contributlons to the advance of knowledge and
sound learning.
Since the Unlon of Sovlet Socialist Republics and Canada share the dubious distlnction of each having within its borders more permafrost than is to be found ln all other countrles of the world comblned, Antarctica posslbly excepted, it is fitting that a Soviet and a Canadian speaker should have been asked to present at this opening session the necessary general back-ground for the deliberatlons of the week. I count it a privilege to speak for Canada at this tlme, the privilege being a pleas-ure as I find myself in the good company of my personal friend, N . A . T s y t o v i c h .
At the outset, it would be well for us to agree upon what we are talking about. Agreement will surely be given to the fact that permafrost is a condition of the ground and not, of itself, a materlal. The name is used to describe that condition of the ground when its perennial mean temperature is always less than ooC. Sloppy sclentific semantics have led to the same word being very generally reserved to descrlbe, colloquially, water-bearing sllts and clays that are perennlally frozen. It is en-tirely probable that the word will be used in this way during the proceedings of this conference, so popular has this misuse become, but the correct use of the name should always be adopted whenever possible.
Even the word "permafrost" itself, first colned. it ls be-Ueved, by Slemon Muller, is regarded by sorne as semantically unfortunate. In 1946 the late Kirk Bryan published an eloquent plea for the use of phllologically correct terms in the study of f r o z e n g r o u n d Il]. B r y a n ' s s u g g e s t e d use of such words as "cryopedology" and "pergelisol" was logical and en[rely cor-2
rect. Unfortunately, however, common usage sometimes pays llttle or no attention to logic and so these words have not achieved the recognition for which Bryan pleaded. Permafrost, therefore, ts the accepted name for the subject matter of this conference. The name will doubtless long continue to be given to the perennially frozen condltion of ground that will always be so slgnificant a determinant of northern development.
It must readily be admltted tlat although it 1s this condition wlth whlch we are to be concerned. the temperature of the ground when it consists of solid rock or well-dralned sand and gravel is usually a matter of little moment-subfreezing tem-peratures having no deleterious effect upon the properties of these materials. The carying out of englneering rvorks, such as the installatlon of water mains, ls naturally affected by subfreezlng temperatures below ground but permanent solutions to such problems are readily available. Distntegratlon of cer-tain exposed rock types may perhaps be accelerated and the associated freezing of surface waters ln open ,oints may lead to such interesting phenomena as the "growing rocks" at Churchill, Manitoba. It is, however, the effect of th6 peren-nially frozen condition upon water-bearlng solls, when thls condition is thermally disturbed, that creates serlous problems w h i c h m a y b e w i d e s p r e a d .
This aspect. therefore, of permafrost came to the attention of the early explorers of tlre Canadtan North and of Alaska. Many of these men were acute observers; their long journeys into the unknown showed their lnqulring turn of mlnd. In thelr records are occaslonal references to the unusual occurrence of frozen ground. They found that they could cultlvate in t}e few short weeks of summer what we now call the active layer. The phenomenal rate of growth in the North suiprlsed them.
Joseph Robson was one of the early wrlters on the North.
Hts
36 and,1744-47 was publlshed in Iondon in I752 served that
He
ob-The garden-ground at York-fort and Churchill-river thawed much sooner and deeper in the space of one month, than.the waste that lies contiguous to it ... by the heat therefore
which the earth here would acquire from a general and care-ful cultivation, the frost might be so soon overcome, that the people might expect regular returns of seed-time and harvest. This suggestion is still valid for the extreme southern boundary of permafrost but could not have been successfully applied in the areas mentioned by Robson. He relates that "in September lTaS (he) tried the frost in the ground. by digging in a p l a i n n e a r t h e f o r t . " B u t t h e e x p l a n a t i o n s h e a p p l i e s t o what he observed make strange reading today. belng based on the concept that "it iE the moisture that communicates the freezing q u a l i t y . "
lames Isham was a more accurate observer among these eighteenth.century sojourners in the North. His Olservatlon? o n H u d s o n ' s B a y 1 7 4 3 i s a j u s t l y f a m o u s w o r k t h a t h a s b e e n repubtistted i.t modern form with careful annotatlons [3]. ffere I s I s h a m ' s c o m m e n t o n t h e s u b j e c t o f t h i s c o n f e r e n c e , w r l t t e n 2 2 0 y e a r s a g o :
The shortness of the summerrs is not sufficient to thaw the Ice the severity of the winter occation's therefore itt geqth: ers more and more Every year, for which Reason the frost 16 never out of the ground, in these parts, for in Dig'ing three or four foot downe ln the ground in the midsrt of the summr. you shall find hard froze'n lce, which Ice may be ab't two foot thick, then come to soft ground again, for a small Depth and above six or Eight foot Downe itt's all hard Ice, - in Summer it's wlth much Difficulty you may Dig so Icw down. ( N e e d l e s s to say the spelling and punctuation are as in Isham's o r i g i n a l b o o k . )
Since the buildings used by the early settlers in the North were generally of relatlvely slmple types, it is not surprlslng that the perennially frozen character of the ground upon whlch they built occasloned relatively llttle comment. Wooden sllls placed directly upon the ground surface seem to have been the almost universal type of foundatlon until relatlvely recent years. Roads were nonexistent {apart from the short sEetch joinlng the quarry with Fort Prince of Wales at what is now Churchill, Manitoba). The only real disturbance of the ground was ne-c e s s i t a t e d b y t h e b u r i a l , w h e n ne-c i v i l i z e d b u r i a l w a s p o s s i b l e , of those who dled in the North. In this somewhat macabre way early experience with frozen ground was accumulated. James Isham observed:
. . . t j r e s e m e n t h a t a r e s o f r o z e , o r a n y o n e t h a t D y e s a n d are Burried 6 foot under the surface of the ground, continues hard froze for many Year's, and Belleve never will be thaw'd u n l e s s t a k e n u p , - b y t h e E : < p e r l e n c e o f f r o z e n g r o u n d . . . . Because this is an international and not merely a North American conference, it may be of value to note that no Iegt a
scientlst than Charles Darwin encountered the same situallon in a far different part of the world. In his fasclnating book The Voyage of the Beagle, Darwln relates that in the South Shetland Islands:
The soil here conslsts of ice and volcanic ashes lnterstrati-fted; and at a little depth beneath the surface lt must remaln perpetually congealed, for Lieut. Kendall found the body of a foreign sailor which had long been buried, with tha fle$h and dll the features perfectly preserved. It is a singular fact, that on the two great continents in the Northern heml: sphere (but not ln the broken land of Europe bet\^teen thelnl, we have the zone of perpetually frozen under-solI in a low latitude - namely, in 56o ln North America at the depth o! three feet, and in 620 in slberia at the depth of 12 to 15 feet - as the result of a directly opposite condltion of things, to those of the southern hemisphere. On the nortf-ern continents, the wlnter ls rendered excesstvely cold by the radiation from a large area of land into a clear sky, n9f ls it moderated by the warmth-bringing currents of the ceE; t}le short summer, on the other hand, is hot. In the South-ern Ocean the winter is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, for the clouded sky seldom allows t}te sun to warm the ocean, ltself a bad absorbent of heau and hence the mean temperature of the year, vthich regu-lates the zone of perpetually congealed under-soil, ts lqtry.
It is evldent that a rank vegetatlon. whlch does not so much require heat as lt does protection from lntense cold, would approach much nearer to this zone of perpetual con-gelation under the equable climate of the southern hemi-sphere, than u4def the extremb climate of the northern con-t i n e n con-t s .
Here is the young sctentist, for Charles Darwin was only in his mid-twenttes at'the ttmq of his vlsit to the South Shetlands, w r i t l n g h l s r e c o r d t h a t w a t p u b l l s h e d i n 1 8 3 2 [ 4 ] .
Thls was the hgrolc age of exploratlon. It is even possible to mention the narne of Slr lqhn Franklin, in this brlef review, for the surgeon and naturallFt attached to his expedtuons of l 8 1 9 - 2 2 a n d l 8 ? 5 - 2 6 w o s t h e m a n w h o b e c a m e S l r J o h n Richardson. He was on€ ef the Ereat explorers of the Canadian North and oommanded thg Frankltn search expedltion of 1848-49. H; was perhaps the flrot man to write papers specifically o n p e r m a f r o s t [5].'
In a paper publiahed tn 1851 he said. "Another phenomenon intlmately conneated r,Yith the mean temperature of a distrlct is the 'ground ica! or rpermanently frozen subsoil'. The lateral extent of this cu.bgtrEturn, itg southefn limlts, and its thick-ness, are interesting qubigctg of lnqglry" I SJ . Wittr these words of over a oentury ago all 9f ug would agree.
In the latter part o! thei last cGnlury, the Royal Geographical Society had an ective cammittee on the "Depth of Permanently Frozen Soil in the PolBf Regiong, itF Geographical Limits, and Relations to the Present Polee of Greatest Cold. " General Sir G. H. Iefroy, a nerthern elplorer of note, was chairman. His repoit for 1839 preeented observadons 9n permafrost for 22 lo' catlonF, mgst qf them in Cenede, Bccompanied by some polnted observations that would n9t be out of place if voiced at this conference I Z] . Such evidences of early lnterest ln permafrost were canspicuous by their rarlty.
As we approach the twentteth century, therefore, permafrost may rightly sttll be calledthe great u4known of the North. It required the actlvities of the englneer, civilian, and later,.
military, to reveal the prQblemo thet perennlally frozen ground can present l4then natural Sandltlons are disturbd. Referenee to the Klondikq gold rurh, slarttng tn 1896, may sound a strange not@ at thig agademia gatherlng and yet those chaotic days must be recalled, if only brlqfly. It wao the discovery of gold on Bonanza Greek that waF probably the start ln North America of man'$ interferqnoq, oq anything but a mlnute scale, wlth graund that had beep kePt -froaen for qo long a period by the operation of notural ProQeg8e9.
The area of the Klondlke gold rush in the Yukon Tetritory was not gliciated in Fleistocene tineE. one result of this geolog-ically interetting fact wEo the oqcurence of most of the gold iq rlver terra;e grpvels, These were generally found to be covered by gub$tantlal thlckneoses of organic materlal. the combinatlon gslnllng clEerly ln the dlrectton of mining by hv-dreullc rnethadg, There wpa ltttle dtffioulty in removing the
i'muck" qven though bath lt and the underlylng gravels were found to be in a perenntqlly ftpzen oonditton, rcsisting the u6ual prooeis 9f sluiclng beoauFe of thelr temporarily solld c o n d i t i a n .
to thls day ln the Yukon and Alaska-though in scope, ln type, and in glamor, different from the early operations that caught t h e i m a g i n a t i o n o f t h e w o r l d [ 8 , 9 ] .
A l l t h e s e p r o c e d u r e s , i n t e r e s t i n g a s t h e y a r e , w e r e d e s i g n e d to destroy tle condition of permafrost, whereas the aim in aI-most all other engineering operations is to preserve it. In the erection of buildings for human or other occupancy, for example, the last thing that is wanted is any change in the condition of the ground upon which the buildings are founded. Fortunately, a l m o s t a l l b u i l d i n g s i n t h e N o r t h , u n t i l r e l a t l v e l y r e c e n t y e a r s , have been simple wooden structures, heating systems having been almost universally some variant of the common stove. With simple sill foundations placed directly on the surface of
the ground, Iittle trouble was encountered with thawing of un-derlying frozen soil. Such movements as did occur were very easily corrected, this being regarded as no more than ordinary maintenance. The buildings that constitute the northern posts of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, for example, spread aII over the wide extent of the Canadian Arctic and have never been a cause for concern because of any foundation difficultles. T h e p o s t o f H e r s c h e l I s l a n d , e s t a b l i s h e d i n 1 9 0 3 b y t a k i n g existlng buildings built by whalers of California redwood planks, are still satisfactory after almost a century of service and have required very little maintenance.
\Mhen the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals established its pioneer post tn the Mackenzie Delta in 1922, at a location that developed into the town of Aklavik, its location on a stretch of frozen silt but a few feet above river level caused no serious problems. These developed only when attempts were made in recent years to give the town some modern amenities. The problems thus revealed resulted eventually in the declslon to found the new town of Inuvik on the higher ground adjacent to t h e e a s t s i d e o f t h e D e t t a I l0] .
S o w a s l t a l s o w i t h t h e H u d s o n r s B a y C o m p a n y . F o r w e I l over two centuries the familiar buildings of this great and unique company were built all over the North and maintained through the years without any unusual difficulty. They also were relatively simple structures, with heating systems that would be regarded today as prlmitive. The first move away from thls traditional practice showed that permafrost cannot be forgotten in the practice of modern northern building.
I n t h e l a t e I 9 3 0 ' s "The Company" decided to stert provlding lts devoted post managers wlth improved Iiving conveniences. A n e w t y p e o f m a n a g e r ' s h o u s e w a s designed, incorporatinq e concrete basement and standard furnace heating system. The house was duly built in the new mining settlement of Y.-llow-knife on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, Even though solid rock is the predominant terrain. a sheltered site was chosen for the house which, although ideal from the point of view of ex-posure, happened to be underlald by perennially frozen water-bearing sllty clay.
The post manager who occupied the new house was the envy of all his colleagues in the North. His heating system worked splendidly. Toward the latter part of the first winter, however, cracks began to appear near the front steps. Next it was no-tlced that the house was clearly settllng. but lt was some time before lt was finally realized that the heat loss through the basement walls and floor was gradually thawing the frozen soil with lamentable results. Initial remedial measures proveLl to be ineffective. Eventually the furnace had to be removed and t h e b a s e m e n t f l l l e d i n . T h e h o u s e t o d a y s t a n d s 1 8 i n c h e s lower than when first built, but the experience it provided has been turned to good effect in all further company building.
This lncident in the development of the North, typical of th6' start of modem bullding in the North by almost all organi::a-t l o n s , organi::a-t o o k p l a c e j u s organi::a-t a s W o r l d W a r I I w a s s organi::a-t a r organi::a-t i n g . C l e a r l y a change had to be made in methods of dealing with northcrn terraln in the face of modem technical developments*a change that the imperatives of wartime hastened in an almost alarming m a n n e r .
Prior to the outbreak of the war, there had been a start at gold mining on Great Slave Iake and on lake Athabasca; and the famous Eldomdo uranium mine on Great Bear Lake was pro-ducing. All these mining ve.ntures were in permafrost-but it
was permafrost in solld rock almost exclusively-and so fe w 4
unusual problems were encountered. Development of the pe-troleum resen es at Norman Wells on the Mackenzle River had also started. Here the sad results of thawing perennially fro-zen water-bearing silts and clays had made themselves evident. Experimentation was started. Some of the earliest foundations to be placed on gravel pads were installed here, but the loca-tion was an isolated one. Its pioneer experlence was known only to the few I I t ] . Vatuable experlence was also gained during the construction of the Hudson Bay Railroad, between The Pas and Churchill, but this was available only to those who had worked on the line and in railway archives. The experience was made available for public use many years l a t e r I t 2 ] .
Despite military secrecy, many wartime building operations achieved almost unenviable publicity. The construction of the Canol pipeline across the mountains from Norman Wells to Whitehorse was one such proiect; equal in scope and imaglna-tion was the building of the airfields that constitute the highly successful Northwest Staging Route and the associated Alcan Highway-both in active use today and steadily being improved. Still further north, the first Joint Arctic Weather Stations were established on the Queen Elizabeth Islands in the immediate postwar period. Their construction marked a signlficant ad-vance in northern building practice in North Amerlca.
The history of the development of Alaska is similar to the pattern just described for northern Canada, although rather more recent ln lts several phases. Prior to the purchase ofAlaska in 1 8 6 7 b y t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s f r o m R u s s i a , a n d f o r s o m e y e a r s f o l -lowing, only small fur-trading settlements and fishing villages exl sted .
It is of lnterest to note that a member of the staff of the U . S . G e o l o g i c a l s u r v e y , I s r a e l G . R u s s e l l , w a s a t t a c h e d t o t h e U . S . C o a s t a n d G e o d e t i c S u r v e y p a r t y t h a t s e t o u t f r o m S a n Francisco in the sprlng of I889 to establish the boundary be-tween AIaska and the Northwest Terrltories of Canada. RusseII was an acute observer: His example in having a long paper re-cording his observations in AIaska printed ln the Bulletin of the G e c l o g i c a l S o c i e t y o f A m e r i c a f o r M a r c h 1 8 9 0 , l e s s t h a n a y e a r after he sailed from San Francisco, is an example that can s h a m e m a n y o f u s t c d l v L 1 . l l .
In this pdper he has a section, .D-epth of Frost in the , i n w h i c h h e q u e : i t i c n s w h e t i r e r p e r m a f r o s t i s t h e r e s u l t o f t h e a n n u a l f r e e z i n g o f s u c c e s s i v e d e p o s l t i o n s o r t h e a c c u m u l a t i o n of surface frost "penetrating down." He includes the calcula-t i o n s o f a c o l l e a q u e i n calcula-t h e S u r v e y . R . S . W o o d h o u s e , calcula-t h a calcula-t a r e the earliest knolvn to me in permafrost research. Unfortunately, they were based on the assumption that "at the beginnlng of t i m e t h e f i r s t L 0 0 0 o r 2 , 0 0 0 f e e t h a d a u n i f o r m t e m p e r a t u r e , " and so the results are questionable; but the attempt was a notable one and certainly a pioneer effort.
The discovery of gold at Nome in 1899 and at Fairbanks in 1902 was of great importance in preclpltatlng development of the territory. In 19l0 an overland trall was opened from the o c e a n p o r t o f V a l d e z t o F a l r b a n k s . T h e s e w e r e i n n o s m a l l parr responsible for further development of fishing, mining, and agriculture in areas through which they passed. The most important new road to both Alaska and the Yukon has been the A l c a n H i g h w a y , c o n s t r u c t e C i n 1 9 4 2 .
S i n c e A l a s k a b e c a m e a s t a t e . r o a d b u i l d i n g h a s s h a r p l y i n c r e a s e d . T h e u r g e n t r e q u i r e m e n t o f d e f e n s e s y s t e m s a n d a s -s o c i a t e d m i l l t a r y f a c i l i t i e -s f r o m I 9 4 0 t o t h e p r c -s e n t m u -s t a l -s o be regarded ds a most import.tnt reason for the opening up of t h i s g r e a t a r e a . P e r m a f r o s t w a s e n c o u n t e r e d a n d h a d t o b e c o n s i d e r e d , m o r e c r l t i c d l l y i n r e c e n t y e a r s , i n m o s t o f t h e various stages of the development of Alaska, and much valua-ble experience was gained in many fields of endeavor. The annual Alaska Science Conferences testlfy to the current sci-entific ac.tlvlty in thls ne"ilt state.
The imperatives of war allowed Iittle tlme for experlmenta-tion or study. Most northern bulldlng ln the emergency of those y e a r s had tc be carried out on a rather hit-and-miss basis. Valiant efforts were made to assemble useful information on
northem building problems. The most notable contrlbution un-d o u b t e un-d l y w a s M u l l e r ' s b o o k o n p e r m a f r o s t , f l r s t p u b l l s h e un-d a s P.rrinafloqt o! "-n!-angn!lv Frqae! Ground and Rela
-ing Problems (1943) and soon to be publlshed in revised form
by Mccraw-Hill. Much of the informatlon assembled by Muller
w a s f r o m S o v i e t s o u r c e s [14].
The most remarkable aspect of the opening of the North during the emergency was the excellent work done-and not the few failures, spectacular though some of them may have been. Of unusual significance was the design and erectlon of several
6 0 0 - f t s t e e l t o w e r s , o n e o f w h i c h w a s a t K l t t i g a z u l t , n o r t h e a s t
of Inuvik in the Mackenzie Delta I tS]. fne speclal problems
ln the absorptlon of solar radlatlon lntroduced by the large area of steel exposed ln this tower, which had to be founded on fro-zen water-bearlng soil, were fully recognized and compensated
for in the design. The result was that the tower served quite
satisfactorlly and with no appreciable movement untll lts demo-Ittlon in I955. Although located ln Canada, this tower was designed by the Untted States Air Force as a part of the jotnt North American defense effort.
I n 1 9 4 7 , a t F a i r b a n k s , t h e C o r p s o f E n g i n e e r s b e g a n l n p o r -tant field research on problems of perennially frozen ground. This work was administered from the St. Paul ptstrtct Office and one of the district engineers responslble for that early un-dertaking has since become Chief of Engineers, Lleut. Gen. W. K, Wilson, who is honoring thls conference by speaklng at the banquet. On the arctic coast, the United States Navy es-tablished tts Arcttc Research Laboratory at Point Barrow in 1946. In postwar years, this station became a well known center for field studles in many scientiflc disciplines lncludlng terraln studies, as the proceedings of thls conference wlll make clear. Correspondingly, the early work at Fairbanks has been con-tinued and is now adminlstered by the Cold Reglons Research and Engineering laboratories (CRREL) of the Unlted States Army, Corps of Englneerg.
This is the organlzatlon that has been responsiblg for no-ble research work on permafrost and other arctic terrain prob-lems at the important defense base at Thule in Greenland which, lt should not be forgotten, is considered as part of North Amerlca. Qn the eastern ooast of Greenland, further south, there is seme rinusually lnteresttng field research work being conducted on solifluctlon and allied problems by another p i o n e e r in this fleld, A. L. Washburn.
Despite the nacessartly expedlent character of much of the wartlme activlty ln northern regions (the Canol pipeline, for example, was partlally dtsmantled soon after the end of
hos-ttlities), some of the changes then effected contributed to the
permanent transformatlon of the Arctic that ha6 forever removed
its isolation. The Alcan Hlghway and the alrfields of the
Northwest Staging Route have become essential parts of the
northern transportation plcture. The Joint Arctic Weather
Sta-tions continue to make an invaluable contrlbution to worldwlde meteorological informaLion. In a similar way, although mining enterprlses must always be transltory (gold mlnes on Lake Athabasca and the uranium mine on Great Bear lake having now been closed down) , the early mining ventures down the Mac-kenzte River changed this great waterway for alt tllrle [16].
Prlor to the mtd-1930's, the waterway was seen by few and used malnly by the Hudson's Bay Company for the private sup-ply of its posts ln the western Arctic and within the great valley
Itself. About 5000 tons of frelght was the maximum ever
car-rted ln any one summer season. Even before the war this had been changed dramatically by the freight needs of the mlnes; wartime trafflc turned the Mackenzie into one of the greet water routes of North America. Its unique characler and un-usual climate which brlngs the tree lines to withtn a few mlles of the arctlc coast, coupled wlth wartime experlence and
fur-ther mlning developments tn the area, confirmed it6 lmportance. It was natural, therefore, that thts area should have begn the scene of the start of postwar Canadian permafrost research.
In I947, the National Research Councll of Canada estab* llshed tts Divislon of Buildlng Research, the prime functlon of which is to provlde a research servlce for building throughout Canada. Butldlng in the North was clearly one of its problems and as early as 1949 plans were made for a general survey of
northem building. These were implemented tn 1950 when a
small team passed the entire summer in a detailed examlnation of all existing buildings down 1200 miles of the Mackenzie
val-1
ley from Hay Rtver on Great Slave Iake to the arctlc coast I t7]. This was a joint enterprlse of the Division and the Canadian Army (Royal Canadlan Englneers). The survey revealed
prob-lems encountered wlth the foundations of recent buildings when built on perennlally frozen soil, and lt conflrmed the great value of the ploneer research work carried out at Norman Wells by Imperial OtI llmited in connectlon with tts small reflnery there'
A somewhat gtmilar Mackenzie River expedltion was arranged for the year followlng, but this tlme with speclal reference to terrain conditlong and thelr evaluation by means of aerial pho-tography, The study was an extenslon of work previously car-rl6d out in Alaak4 under the direction of the general chalrman of this conference , K. B . Woods . A further reason for the pleasure that partictpetiop in this program gives to me per-sonally wtll be immedlately evident: Professor Woods and I have shared a keen and ective interest in permafrost through-o u t a l l t h e s € p through-o s t w a r Y e a r s L l 8 l .
The expeditlona down the Mackenzle led to the decision to establlsh a small research station for the field study of perma-frost problemg at some convenient location on the river' Norman Wells had 8o many advantages ihat the cooperation of Imperlal Oil was solicited and most cordially and fully given, leading to the inttiation of the Northern Research Station of the Divlsion of Buildlng Research of the National Research Council.
located withtn a very few miles of the Arctic Circle. To begln
with, two buildings left over from the Canol project were used' In 1956 they were replaced by two well-equipped prefabrlcated wooden buildings, a residence and a laboratory, offlclally dedicated for thls tntended use by the late E. W. R. Steacie, president of the councll, appropriately enough by the llght of the midniEht sun. Thls was during a visit which the governlng body of the Councll paid to Arctic Canada, clear lndication of the attention that Canada was finally givlng to its northern d e v e l o p m e n t I I 9 ] .
In more recent years, thls growing lnterest has been well indicated by the widespread invesligations of a number of
American and Canadlan sclentifte organizations. Any attempt
to list all of these groups would lead lnevltably to lnvidious
omissions. A speclal example ls the work of the Geological
Survey of Canada all over the Canadian Arctic. The Survey's
pioneer use of helicopters and of specially equipped light planes is now well known. These reports on many parts of the North, although naturally geological in character, ihevltably include many references to permafrost. The current interdlsci-plinary lnvestigation of the Canadian Polar Continental Shelf on the northwest edge of the Canadian Arctic Archlpelago is
similarly relevant, Drilling for oil in the Queen Ellzabeth
Islands has now started and conslderatlon has been given to
the use of such holes for ground thermal studies' Although
the difficulttes are formldable, a deep hole drilled on Melville Island by a group Qf oil companies headed by Dome Petroleum
Ilmited wae instrumented by the Jacobsen-McGill Arctlc
Re-search Expeditton, Drilled holes were used earller at the site
of the Joint Arctic Weather Station at Resolute, on Cornwallls I sland .
Field studles lnto more speclallzed aspects of permafrost were conducted ln recent years by the Geographical Branch of Canada'F Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, not only in the western Arctlc where the more general work of the Na-tlonal Research Counctl has been concentrated, but also in the
eastern Arctlc. In the eastern part of Quebec and adjacent parts
of Labrador great tron deposlts were discovered and are now
being extenslvely worked in open plts. Here the perennially
frozen condltlon of the ore rock gave rise to a varlety of un-usual problems, all addltional to the un-usual ones encountered wlth frozen oo{1. techntcal staffs of the responsible mlnes are carrylng out fl6ld Ftudies and research. At Scheffervllle, Que-bec, in the heart of this area, McGill Unlverslty in 1954 estab-lished lts, sub-Arctlc Research Iaboratory whlch served as a valuable center for much useful fleld study of permafrost.
Further nqrth, the now famous but tnitlally very secret DgV\f line was consEucted along the arctic coast. from Alaska to
Greealand. Iogistics probably constituted the major prpblem
in this gigan4c undertaklng since the actual structures used are not large or unduly complex, involvlng only the careful
adoptlon of accepted foundation methods, especially for sites on perennially frozen soil. The wide use of aerial photographs for preliminary reconnaissance of these sites was a design feature of inierest, as it was also for the selection of the site of the new town of Inuvik in the Mackenzie Delta. Now the adminisEative center for all Canadian governmental operation ln the northwest of the Dominion, Inuvik replaced the old set-tlement of Aklavik. Almost all the buildings are founded on piles that were steamed into the frozen soil. These founda-tions are performing very well [ 20J .
Road access to this remote Canadian town, within a very few miles of the arctic coast, is planned; but for a long tlme aciess must continue by water down the Mackenzie and by air using the excellent landing strips, almost all successfully built on perennially frozen soil, that now serve the great val-ley. Road construction is slowly forging northward. In Alaska and the Yukon, extensive road mileage now exlsts between the 60th and 65th parallels. The gold-mining center of Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake, NWT, can now be reached by road through the use of a ferry crossing the Mackenzie. And the south shore of Great Slave Lake will soon be reached by a new railroad, being specially constjucted to serve the newly dlscovered z i n c - l e a d o r e s a t P i n e P o i n t .
Somewhat to the south ln the province of Manltoba, the In-ternatlonal Nickel Company now has in operation a nickel plant of the same order of magnitude as those in the famous Sudbury b a s i n . T h e p l a n t a n d a s s o c i a t e d t o w n s i t e o f T h o m p s o n a r e l o -cated in the southern fringe area of the permafrost reglon. Foundation problems common in more northern building practlce were encountered sporadically, thus making them difficult to deal with economically I Zf] . fo serve the great plant and the town, the Kelsey water power plant was built 55 mlleF to the northeast by Manitoba Hydro. The plant is unique in that two of the larger dykes necessary for the creation of the reservoir had to be built over perennially frozen soil with the knowledge that the water ln the reservoir would inevitably change the thermal regime of the underlying qround. The performance of the dykes is being very carefully observed, this being a fleld r e s e a r c h p r o j e c t o f u n u s u a l f a s c i n a t i o n .
This bird's-eye view of the steady development of northern Canada can be supplemented by a picture of the older nerthern e s t a b l i s h m e n t s i n b o t h C a n a d a a n d A l a s k a , s u c h a s t h e H u d s o n Bay Railroad and the Alaska Rallroad, that have been performing quite satisfactorily for many years.
One can think of all these engineering works without con-sciously rernembering that all depend for their essential sta-bllity upon the underlying frozen ground. But the fact that men are drilling for oil, constructing roads and railways, bullding new towns, municipal utilities, and even large water power plants-all north of the southern lirnit of thls condition called permafrost-shows clearly that unusual terrain conditions will not impede northern development.
All too much of this northern work. however, has been done without full appreciation of the precautions that must be taken when building on permafrost, with consequent troubles and q u i t e unnecessary cost. As in sc many other fields, this has been the unfortunate result of lack of communlcation, coupled, probably in some cases, with the North American faillng of too much hurry, ledving no time to the civil engineer for proper study and investigation of what is known before constructlon b e g i n s . T h u s , i t l s t h a t t h i s c o n f e r e n c e i s so clearly to be welcomed, bringing together from many countries those who have actual experience wlth permafrost. The proceedlngs of the conference will assuredly serve for many years as a valu-able storehouse of knowledge, availvalu-able for consultatlon by all who are concerned with perennially frozen ground.
Gathering information, however, valuable as it is, consti-tutes only a part of the challenge of permafrost. There is so much more to be found out about it, and about the measures that can be taken to control its effects upon engineering works, and vice versa, that fertlle fields for research surround the a l e r t s t u d e n t o f t h e N o r t h . O f s p e c i a i i m p o r t a n c e , c e r t a i n l y l n Canada. is a more accurate delineation of the actual extent of permafrost, a major project upon which we are now actively 6
engaged, just as Rtchardson suggested more than a century ago 1221.
It may be appropriate to observe that continental United States has lts own permafrost. even in New England, the top of Mount Washington having been shown to be in a perennially frozen condition through the drilling of a special test hole near its summit. Trifling though this occunence may seem to be. it can almost be taken as a symbol of the challenge presented by permafro s t.
That frozen mountain top can remind us that permafrost has Iong since ceased to be a mystery. We know that it is a con-dition of the ground intimately associated with the mean annual local air temperature. We can now determine when to expect it. When it is anticlpated, we can plan our engineering ac-tivities accordingly. This we must do as northern Canada and Alaska are slowly but surely developed for the use and conven-ience of man. If every engineer who is called upon to work ln the North wiII remember some of the unanswered questlons about the scientific aspects of permafrost, the constructlve linking of his developmental work wtth the lnqulrles of the scientis.t will surely assist in still further rolling back the boundaries of our understanding of the wonderful world in w h i c h w e l i v e . .
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
T h e a u t h o r i s g r a t e f u l t o G . H . Johnston and R. J. E. Brown, colleagues who are fully engaged in northern research work, f o r a s s i s t a n c e i n t h e p r e p a r a t i o n o f t h i s p a p e r .
REFERENCES
I f ] Kirk Bryan . "Cryopedology-The Study of Frozen Ground and Intensive Frost Actiorr with Suggestions on Nomenclature," A m . J . S c i . , Y o l . 2 4 4 , 1 9 4 6 , p p . 6 2 2 - 6 4 2 .
[2] Joseph Robson. Accqunt of Si:< Yeels-Bggldense ln-Hud--s o n ' ln-Hud--s B a v f r o m 1 7 3 3 - 3 6 a n d I Z U : I I , I o n d o n , 1 7 5 2 . ] . P a y n e a n d J. Bouquet.
[ 3 ] J . I s h a m . J a m e s I s h a r y r ' s - Q l g . r u a t i o n s o " H u d s o n , 1 7 4 3 , a n d N o t e s a n d O b s e r y a l i o n s o n a q o o k e n t i t l e d A V o v a q e t o H u d s o n ' s B a y i n t h e D q b b q Gallgy, !l!9r e d . b y E . E . R i c h a n d A . M . Johnson, Champiain Soc. for Hudson's Bay Record S o c . , 1 9 4 9 .
[ 4 ] C h a r l e s D a r w l n . T h e l o v a g e o f t h e l e e q l e , L 8 3 ? , B a n t a m C l a s s i c , 1 9 5 8 , p . 2 1 3 .
[5] John Richardson. "Notice of a Few Observatlons which It Is Desirable to Make on the Frozen Soil of British North A m e r i c a , " l . R o v . G e o s . S o c . , V o l . 9 , 1 8 3 9 , p p . l l 7 - I Z O .
[6] John Richardson. A Tourney of a Boat-Vovase throuqh Rupert's Iand and the Arctic Sea, in Searqb-ei[-..!he DiEcevgI]L Ships under Command o-f Sir lohn Frqrrklin, london. Iongman, B r o w n , G r e e n a n d I o n g m a n s , I 8 5 1 .
[ 7] Sir G. H . lefroy. "Report upon the Depth of Permanently F r o z e n S o i l i n t h e P o l a r R e g i o n s , I t s G e o g r a p h i c a l L i m i t s , a n d R e l a t i o n t o t h e P r e s e n t P o l e s o f G r e a t e s t C o l d , " P r o c . R o v . G e o o . S o c . , V o l . 8 , 1 8 8 9 , p p . 7 4 0 - 7 4 6 .
[8] The Yukon Territorl-I_ts i{istory aElL Resources, issued b y t h e H o n . W . J. Roche, Minister of the Interior, Ottawa, C a n a d a , 1 9 1 6 . [ 9 ] H . C . C o o k e , W . A . J o h n s t o n . " C o l d O c c u r r e n c e s o f C a n a d a , S u m m a r y A c c o u n t , " G e o l . S u r v e y C a n a d a , D e p t . M i n e s , C o n a d a , E c o n , G e o _ I , $ q r " N o . l 0 - 1 9 3 3 . [ t o ] C . L . M e r r i l l , J . A . P i h l a i n e n , R . F . I e g g e t . " T h e N e w A X t a v t f : S e a r c h fo r t h e S i t e , " E n q f . I . , V o l . 4 3 , 1 9 6 0 , p p . 5 2 - 5 7 . I f t ] n . F . I € g g e t . " C o n s t r u c t i o n N o r t h o f . 5 4 o , " E n s r . J . , Y o l . 2 4 , I 9 4 1 , p p . 3 4 6 - 3 4 8 .
I l 2 ] I. L. Charles. "Permafrost Aspects of the Hudson's Bay R a i l r o a d , ' ! P r o c . A m . E e g . Q j t d ! . E r g l q . , V o l . 8 5 , S M 6 , f 9 5 9 , p p . I 2 5 - 1 3 5 .
I t S ] t . G . R u s s e l l . "Notes on the Surface Geology of Alaska," B u l l . G e o l . S o c . A m . , V o l . I , 1 8 8 9 , p p . 9 9 - f 6 2 .
Related Enqineerin A r m y , 1 9 4 3 .
ItS] l. A. Nees. "Plle Foundattons for large Towers on P e r m a f r o s t , " P r o c . A m . S o c . C i v l l E n g r s . , Y o l . 7 7 , N o . 1 0 3 .
t 9 5 I .
I t S ] n . F . I € g g e t . M a c h l n e s f o r t h e M i n e s , T h e B e a v e r , O u t f t t 2 7 1 , March 1941 , pp. 2O-22.
ttzl I. A. Pthlainen. Butldlnq Foundatlons on Permafrost. M a c k e n z i e V a l l e v , N W T , N a t . R e s . C o u n . D l v . B l d g . R e s . O t t a w a , D B R 2 2 , I 9 5 I .
[ t S ] x . B . W o o d s , R . F . l € g g e t . " T r a n Q p o r t a t l o n a n d E c o -n o m i c P o t e -n t i a l l -n t h e A r c t l c , " T r a f f i c Quart., Vol. 14, 1960, p p . 4 3 5 - 4 5 8 .
