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Potentialities of the Northwest: an engineering assessment
/ - \ Ser THl N2t_t2 n o . 6 5 e . 2 BI,DG - - - _ - - _ - - - D 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
POTENTIALITIES OF THE NORTHWEST:
AN ENGINEERING ASSESSMENT
B1
Robert F. Legget
AN A LYZED
REPRINTED FROM SYMPOSIUM ONTHE CANADIAN NORTHWEST: ITS POTENTTALITIES Royal Society of Canada, 1958
TECHNICAL PAPER NO. 65 OF THE
DIVISION OF BUILDING RESEARCH
OTTAWA MAY 1959
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL CANADA
This publication is being distributed by the Division of Building Research of the Na-tional Research Council as a contribution towards better building in Canada. It should not be reproduced in whole or in part, with-out permission of the original publisher. The Division would be glad to be of assistance in obtaining such permission.
Publications of the Division of Building Research may be obtained by mailing the appropriate remittance (a Bank, Express, or Post Office Money Order or a cheque made payable at par in Ottawa, to the Re-ceiver General of Canada, credit National Research Council), to the National Research Council, Ottawa. Stamps are not acceptable. A coupon system has been introduced to make payments for publications relatively simple. Coupons are available in denomina-tions of 5, 25, and 50 cents, and may be obtained by making a remittance as indicated above. These coupons may be used for the purchase of all National Research Council publications including specifications of the Canadian Government Specifications Board.
The Canadian
Northwest:
Its Potentialities
Symposium
pesenteil to tlu
ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA
in 1958
L'Avenir du
Nord-Ouest
Canadien
Colloquc prismti d la
socdrd RoyALE DU cANADA
cn 1958
EDITED BYFRANK H. TiNDERHILL, F.R.S.C.
PUBLISIIED FOR TIIE SOCIETY BY UNTYERSITT OF TORONTO PBESS
1959
CONTENTS
Preface
Fn,wr H. UNoBnHnL, F.R.s,c., Curator, Laurier House, Ottawa v I Introduction
Ass6, ANrorNs p'EscHenBAULT, M.s.R.c., Genthon, Manitoba 3
2 An Engineering Assessment
RoseRr F. Lrccet, F.R.s.c., Director, Division ol Building
Research, National Research Council, Ottatva 6
3 Assessment by a Geographer
Wturev C. WoNorns, Professor of Geography, University of
Alberta 23
4 Minerals and Fuels
A. H. LeNc, n.R.s.c., Chiel, Mineral Deposits Division,
Geological Survey ol Canada, Ottawa, aqd R. J. W. DoucLes, Head, Geologt of Fuels Section, Geological
Survey ol Canada, Ottawa 35
5 Biological Potentialities
D. S. RewsoN, F.R.s.c., Prolessor ol Biology, University of
Saskatchewan 61
6 The Resources Future
D. B. Tunxrn, Depttty Minister and Commissioner ol Fisheries,
Departnrent ol Recreation and Conservation, Victoria 76
7 A Prelude to Self-Government: The Northwest Territories l 905-1939
AN ENGINEERING ASSESSMENT
Robert F. Legget' F.R.s.c.
ceNeDn's New NonrnwEsr was the arresting title of a volume published just over a decade ago; this was the ofrcial rePort of the iVortfr pacnc planning Projeci, directed by Dr. Charles Camsell, F.R.S.C., and the first comprelrensive review of its kind.l Ten years have passed since this blue book gave canadians their first real appraisal of a vital but little-knoun part of their great land, ten years in w-hich "the North,'has probably riceived more publicity than in all pr-ev_ious time. It is surely ippropriate, therefore, that the Royal Society of Canada, at its meeting in-tfre city of Edmonton, "Gateway to the North," should take a new look at the Northwest, and endeavour to reassess its poten-tialities with the scientific detachment that characterizes all the Society's proceedings.
The ten years have seen significant developments in the Northwest, and indeed in the Arctic generally. The DEW lne has been conceived, designed" and built, in association with the less spectacular but equally important Mid{anada line. Trans-polar flights now aPPear as ordinary items in public time-tables. New roads have been constructed-to Mayo and Keno Hill in the Yukon, from Grimshaw to Hay River in the Mackenzie valley, with an extension to Yellowknife well on the way to completion. New mines have been developed-for uranium ore north of Lake Athabasca; some are in prospect-for lead and zinc ores on Great Slave Lake. Commercial fishing has become important; forestry re-sources are now being tapped. Widespread exploration is in Progress for gas and oil. Aklavik, main settlement of the far Northwest, is to be moved to a new site and made into a town rvorthy of Canada's North. It is small wonder, then, that "the North," and the Northwest in particular, has excited the public imagination in these recent years. Much has been written, and a great deal more has been said, about the
rNorth Pacific Planning Project, Canada's New Northwest: A Stady ol the Present and Futwe Development of Mackenzie District of the Northwesl Terri-toies, Yukon Terriktry, and the Northern Parts ol Alberta and British Columbia (Ottawa, 1948).
An Engineering Assessment 7 potentialities of this land of the last frontier. Some of the more en-thusiastic statements can be discounted as the huppy imagery of those who have never been in the North. There remain, however, so many and such divergent published predictions about the North that two at least may usefully be quoted as guideposts for this symposir:m.
The Royal Commissioners on Canada's Economic Prospects, having visited the North in the course of their studies, have this to say:
In the whole of the Northwest Territories with its 1,300,000 square miles, there are no more than 15,000 people; and the military bases, mining camps, trading posts and administrative centres are hardly more than pin-pricks in the surrounding bush and muskeg and barrens. There will be important economic developments in this area in the years to come. But it would take the ruthlessness of a Peter the Great to plant any large centres of populatioo there.2
By way of contrast to this restrained opinion, consider the following statement which appeared in an official publication, but one designed specifically for popular consumption, issued a few weeks ago:
The North's possibilities are almost limitless. More and more private industry rvill move into the country, especially as the demand for minerals rises in the world outside. It u'ill rise, for the world's population is growing by thirfy million ayeat.. . . Nerv minerals must be found to supply this new population. New minerals must be found to supply peoples from Bangor to Bangkok wanting higher living standards. Where in the world are there enough minerals to supply them? In Canada's North. \Mhat's to stop the North? Not climate. People who can live happily through l\,{anitoba or Saskatchewan or North Dakota winters shouldn't be discouraged by climate in the Arctic. It's a curious fact that civilization has been expanding north-ward ever since the dawn of history. It began in North America, in Mexico and Yucatan, and in the Old World along the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile. For thousands of years, civilization has been converging from botb sides of the world toward a common centre. That centre is the Arctic.B
THr RrcroN
These are interesting and challenging predictions, even when restricied to the Northwest, an area thai must be delineated at least in general terms if discussion is to be useful. At the outset, the term "Northwest" must be distinguished from the official title of the Northwest Territories. The area dealt with in Dr. Camsell's report of.1,947 included about one _^l}-oyut _Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects, Final Report (Ottawa" 1 9 5 8 ) , p . 5 .
sDepartment of Northern Affairs and National Resources, This is the Arctic (Ottawa, 1958); it must be emphasized that this pamphlet is deliberately vdtten in popular vein in order to achieve its purpose.
8 Robert F. Legget
milliss square milg5, salsading from the tr 10th meridian westward to the Alaskan border and the sea and from the Arctic coast to a little below the 55th parallel. (When started rn L943, the North Pacific Planning Project was an international undertaking including all of Alaska; the United States withdrerv from participation n 1944 and the Project con-tinued and was completed as a wholly Canadian venture.) This area included the Peace River country and extended as far south as the site of the Kitimat development. It is a measure of the change in public ttrinking that the latter area rvould not be thought of today as in the Northrvest.
With the southern boundary moved up to about the 58th parallel,
the barren grounds of the tvestern section of the Precambrian Shield. And it requires no more than a glance at the map to show the incon-gruity of the Alaska Panhandle, a geographic anomaly of questionable political parentage that should surely, some day and in some way, be in ternationally reoriented.
This, then, is the Northwest, as it is generally envisaged today. About onenuarter of the area is to the north of the Arctic Circle. Possibly more sulprising to those unfamiliar with the region will be the fact that rvell over two-thirds of the area described is a part of the drainage basin of the Mackenzie River. This great waterway, one of the twelve great river systenx of the world, 50 per cent larger than the St. Larvrence, second only to the Mississippi-Missouri system in North America, is a dominating feature of the Northwest. ft will call for frequent mention in this symposium.
Rssounces aN-D THSR Devetoplvreur
The resources of the Northwest will be described in detail by other speakers; here they must just be listed if the means for their Potential development are to be appreciated. Considering fust renewable natural resources upon which alone can any Permanent development be based, there are forests in the southern and western parts of the region, notably in the Liard valley and on the slopes of tle coastal range. There is a very limited amount of cultivable land, generally adjacent to main river courses. Wildlife is found throughout the area, even in so inhospitable a
An Engincering Assessment 9 location as the Mackenzie delta, the muskrat trapping in which is widely known. Fish are now being taken on a commercial scale from some of the larger lakes. For the development of these resources, simple kansportation routes and residential buildings are vital.
Water-power may properly be considered a renewable resource; such
Great Bear Lake and of Lake Athabasca, gord and soon lead and "inc on Great Slave Lake-these are well knorvn, and suggest mineral possi-bilities yet unknown and unseen. oil at Norrran wells has now been produced for over a quarter of a century; recent licences granted to oil companies for the exploration of 12 million acres in the Mickenzie delta suggest the promise of local geology for oil reservoirs yet untapped. Oil reserves are known to exist in the yukon.
For the development of water-power and of mineral resources much more than simple transportation routes and residential construction is
10 Robert F. Legget
Bay. But he will usually look carefully at-the economics of any such venture when defence is not an imperative. it is the economic aspects of transportation and of buildilg that demand attention'
TnexsponrlrloN Di rnp Nonturve'st
An Engineering Assessment 11 Northern Alberta Railways link Edmonton with the head of navigation at Waterways, adjacent to Fort McMurray.
Frorn Edmonton to Aklavik, freight therefore moves by four stages-by rail to Watenvays, stages-by the upper river fleet to Fort Fitzgerald, stages-by truck or tractor across the portage road, and by the lower river fleet from Fort Smith to Aklavik. The river traffic is handled on barges which are pushed now by diesel "tugs," but previously by the old wood-burning stern-wheeler steamboats of the Mackenzie River Transport service of the Hudson's Bay Company which terminated its operations just a few months ago. The river fleets have to be shallowdraft, the Athabasca sometimes having as little as three feet of water over its sand bars. The shallorv-draft makes navigation across the open waters of the two great lakes quite hazardous. The upper river has an open season of about four to five months, the lower river less than four months. In this short period, the freight for an entire year has to be moved; hence storage and trans-shipment arrangements at Waterways are vitally inrportant.
This rvas the transportation picture for the Northwest in 1939. In that year, Canada completed the fust phase of what became the Northwest Staging Route, soon to be extended with American aid in the form of permanent airfields at the five locations selected for landing strips, and supplemented and serviced by the Alaska Highway, which also provided Whitehorse with another outlet. Permanent airfields were established at six strategic points in the Mackenzie valley in 1942, fini5fuing qri16 Norman Wells. A road has been built from Grimshaw to Hay River; this assists in moving freight on the lower river somewhat earlier than previously but the short open season of navigation (complicated by the fact that the Mackenzie system thaws fust in its headwaters, thus causing serious flooding in its lower reaches at every "break-up") still controls the efiective use of the river.
Today, therefore, the lower l{sgksnzig valley-the Northwest with the exception of the Yukon and northern British Columbia-is served by a regular air service from Edmonton and by the summer freighting service on the river. Feeding the latter is the upper river service from Watenvays, freight trucked to Hay River by road, and small shipments made early each season from Fort Nelson (reached via the Alaska Highway) down the Liard River to the Mackenzie, while the former is at flood level. A railway is now to be built to Pine Point and this wili give access to Great Slave Lake similar to that provided by the Grimshaw-Hay River road. There will still remain, however, the thousand miles of river between Great Slave Lake and the Arctic served only by water and air. Some special supplies have been brought into the valley in the
12 Robert F. Legget
rvinter by over-snow tractor 6nin5, such as some of the supplies for DEW line construction hauled in from Alaska across ttre Yukon, but high costs will prevent this from being anything but a special service foi some time yet to come until regular instead of special winter roads can be used.
The Canol project has been mentioned. This 577-mile pipeline (4 inches and 6 inches diameter) was operated between Norman Wells and Whitehorse from April, 1944, until May, 1945, with a pumping capacity of 3,500 barreli per day, obtained from sixty wells drilled in the Norman wells area. All supplies for this major wartime undertaking came in down the Mackenzie, a vast emergency American fleet of barges and tugs augmenting the regular river service. Much of the material, and almost all of the special fleet, went out the same way' for, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in it, fittle now remains of "Canol" excePt the few pipelines still in the Yukon and the airfields in the Mackenzie valley. Like many other northern defence projects, the publicity it attracted tended to obscure the fact that, although it was built and did oPerate, its economics bore no relation to the basis upon which civilian development must be founded. It was estimated, for example, that the direct cost of operating the pipeline and the rough service road paralleling it (now abandoned) was $1,000,000 a year, without any allowance for interest on capital or amortization.
Transportation is, therefore, the key to the development of the Northwest. New roads have recently been suggested; some surveys for them have been started. But it must be noted that these can only connect with the two existing roads from "the outside" and so are limited in extent; that construction and maintenance may be relatively very costly; and that unless they are built to unusually high standards they will not be suitable for carrying the very heavy loads now handled with such relative ease on the river. It is useful to recall that it is cheaper to con-struct and maintain a good railway line than a first-class paved highway, and to observe that Knob Lake, Moosonee, and Churchill (for example) are all served by railways only, despite their importance.
The importance of roads is not to be minimized; but if their construc-tion is to be based on sound economics, it is clear that the l{ackenaie River system is going to continue to serve the Northwest for a long time to come. This means that freight shipments into the area have to be planned long in advance (usually a year) in view of the short and crowded summer shipping season, and that the high costs involved must be realistically appreciated. Table I shows some typical costs, with some comparative figures for reference. Amongst other things that these figures
4n Engineering Assessment 13
TABLE I
ExeMpres oF soME TRANsPoRTATIoI'I Cosrs n't rrc' NonrnwBsr
Cost per 100 lb. ($)
Edmonton to Waterways by rail Waterways to Norman Wells bY boat Edmonton to Grimshaw by rail Grimshaw to Hay River by road Hay River to Norman Wells by boat Edmonton to Dawson Creek by rail Dawson Creek to Fort Nelson by road Fort Nelson to Norman Wells by boat
Edmonton to Aklavik via Waterways Edmonton to Aklavik via Hay River Edmonton to Aklavik by air freight
Edmonton to Aklanik: single fare for one passenger by air
Edmonton, or Vancouver, to Whitehorse by air freight
single fare for one passenger by air
0.52 2.73 0 . 6 1 1.44 1 . 7 5 0 . 6 1 1.40 3 . 2 5 3 . 2 5 3.80 5 . 2 6 3.95 4.47 60.60 1 3 5 . 0 0 18.00 79.00
Bullonrc IN THE Nonrrrwrsr
Building a power plant or building a house, once the design has been prepared, involves bringing together materials, equipment, and man-power, and the orderly and economical assembly of the first two items by the application of the third, into the finished Project. Since there is no resident skilled construction man-Power in the Northwest, as in the more settled parts of Canada, since all equipment has to be brought in from "tle outside" using transportation facilities just described, and since there are in the North few indigenous materials that can be used in building, it is clear that the cost of building is bound to be high, thus making economics the main determinant in civilian design procedures.
It costs, for example, just about as much to transPort from Edmonton to Aklavik the materials that go into an ordinary small house as it does
14 Robert F. Legget
to purchase the materials here in the first place. Correspondingly, and as Table I shows, it costs the equivalent of almost three normal weeks of work merely to transport one plumber (say) from Edmonton to Aklavik and back again. Building economics in the Northwest are, therefore, complex; they have always to be studied in association with the logistics of getting all the necessary materials and equipment to the right place and at the right time.
There are other factors, also, rvhich must be considered before one can turn to the rather obvious solution of using some of the lightweight building materials now becoming available for the residential construc-tion that looms so large in all resource development. All buildings in the North must be completely reliable, easily repaired if necessary, and as fire-resistant or fireproof as is practicable. They should also involve a minimum of skilled labour for their erection. Although it is entirely probable that new systems of building, possibly using plastics, will be developed for northern use-some experimental work in this direction is already proceeding in Canada-nothing has yet appeared which sug-gests any immediate departure from traditional building methods and materials, used with maximum efficiency. (The rvord "traditional" is used with some di-ffidence since, despite its honourable meaning, it is often viewed with disdain when applied to building on the very question-able grounds, presumably, that anything that has been used in building for a Iong time must, of necessity, be bad and therefore capable of improvement.)
For small northern buildings such as residences, therefore, the use of wood-frame construction may be expected to continue to be sound and economical. Not only is wood the most versatile of all ordinary building materials, but pound for pound it is stronger than steel and even gives about the same equivalent strength, pound for pound, as the cement in concrete, quite apart from the additional rveight of stone and sand that must be used as ag$egate. With transportation costs so high, this one feature of wood is alone warrant for its extensive use in the North. At the same time wood provides an insulating value of flfteen or more times that of masonry materials, a feature which makes it an almost indispensable material even in "masonry construction" built to a high thermal standard, in regions of Canada with less severe winter climates than in the North.
The danger of fire is an ever present problem, but not necessarily a deterient to the use of wood. It is worthy of note, for example, that although the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have used wooden buildings atnost exclusively for their widespread and long-standing work
arr
over
the
North,
^:"":::r':,ffi1,1J;because ", *". *"tt"
is a popular belief thai masonry building "do not burn," but Canada's annual fue record completely disproves this. The worst fire that the writer has encountered in recent vears was in a large hydroclectric station that would have been generally regarded as absolutely fueproof, constructed as it rvas of steel, concrete and masonry, with not a single piece of u'ood in sieht.Prefabrication is clearly a procedure that may be economical in northern buildine. reducing as it does so considerably the necessar)' on-site labour. This very economy maY, horvevet, conflict with the desire, or even the official policy, to use local labour to the maximum extent possible in the Northrvest. A large proportion of the smaller buildings in the more isolated communities of the North constructed i! recent )/ears have been built in this way. It is a salutarv reminder that even this is not a nerv development in building. \\hen N'Iartin Frobisher sailed into Hudson Bay in 1577, amongst the carso in'his trvo little wooden ships n'ere two wooden buildings prefabricated in England.
Major construction operations in the Northrvest are subject to the same special limitarions as the building of smaller structures. Economic factors and the associated logistics of the operation of building are, as has been explained, paramount. Popular betef is that clinrate is an equally serious special feature of northern building but climate can readily be shorvn to be of little special significance in so far as the design of buiJ.dings is concerned, alttrough it does aftect construction operations and the "livability" of buildings. The Division of Building Research of the National Research Council, in co-operation rvith the Canadian Army, to bite just one example of measured performance of buildings, srudied a prefabricated s'ooden building used to house Army persorurel near the Yukon-Alaska border. Throughout the i61 davs of the test, the average air temperafure was -10"F, minimum temperature rangng as lorv as -5.4oF. With little il it that rvas unusual, although specially designed for Arctic use, but because of sound design and careful operation, the building provided safe, comfortable, and economic accommodation, as shorvn by the meticulous records taken through the w{nter.
Cttrrete oF THE NonrHrvesr
Of all the popular misconceptions about northern development, those relating to climate seem to be most rvidespread. It is generally beliwed that the Northrvest, in particular, is much colder than the rest of Canada, and that it suffers from excessive snowfall. Both ideas are wrong. The
16 Robert F. Legget
fact that the tree-line extends almost to the Arctic coastline in the Mackenzie valley is an indication of the fallacy of the conceDt o{ cold. Detailed statistics would be out of place in this general review but as comparative examples there may be mentioned the average cold tem-peralure cycles ol Aklavik and Churchill, and of Whitehorse and Winnipeg, ior each pair are approximatelv equal in degree. Extremely low ternperatures are sometimes experienced in the Northwest but the over-all difierences between north and south are not so great as to be significant with regard to buildine desig or construction. It is of more than passing interest to note that on the day preceding that on which this papei was presented to the Society, the coldest place in Canada rvas Kenora, Ontario, and the warmest, Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
Wind is more of a problem in the North than in the South, the combination of q'ind and low temperature being a very real impediment to human comfort outside in northern winters. Even here, however, misconceptions have arisen since the public have all too readily applied statements about "wind-chill" in the North to things for which the term was never intended. The expression is used to define the combined eftects of low temperature and wind on the human body, that is, upon e.xposed surfaces the temperature of which is maintained at an almost constant level. In fhe case of a building exposed to corresponding conditions, its outside surface temperature will drop, the thermal gradient within the rvall adjusting itself accordingly. The effects of wind upon heat losses in the two cases are markedly different.
It is the prevalence of wind in the North which has contributed to the misconceptions about snow, since the rvind does result in snow-drifting and snorv-movement which can be quite spectacular. Some will recall the photograph published two years ago in a popular magazine of a large pile of snow that had been blown through a keyhole. It is the efiect of "wind-packing" that produces snow of the correct consistency for cutting into the blocks needed for the construction of igloos, those well-adapted buildings that defy duplication in man-made materials excePt in respect to shape and appearance. The actual amount of snow that falls each winter in the Northwest is, however, relatively small, much smaller than normally falls anywhere in southern Canada east of the Rockies.
Here rve encounter one of the phases of the Canadian climate that is peculiar to the North, and one that must have a profound effect upon the future development of that region. This is the very low total precipitation over the entire area, precipitation that is so limited that the Canadian North has been called "the greatest desert in the world." This is probably a mild exaggeration but when it is realized that in the region under
review
to the
east,,
:"":::t::"f",:
::il:L",,,h"n
r,o. 4,o1
:
inches of rain, at the most, available each year for crop growth, it will beupon the location of permanent settlements.
The second unusuil and really significant climatic factor in northern development is the length of the seasons. It is here that the cold of the North makes itself felt, for winter may account for more than half of the year rvith summer limited to a few weeks at most. It may be helpful to recall that the Arctic Circle is that parallel of latitude north of which there is in every year one day without direct sunlight and one day of continuous sunlight-and one-quarter of the Northwest is north of the Arctic Circle.
A useful indicator of the duration of summer is the number of frost-free days available at any locality, information regularly published by the Meteorological Service. For Prince Rupert, on the coast and close to the southern boundary of the region under consideration, there are on the average 195 days each year in rvhich the temperature never goes belorv 32oF. In the Mackenzie valley, and in the Yukon, the number of frost-free days rarely exceeds 75. This does not mean about trvo-and-a-half months of summer but merely that there are two-and-aJralf months in which it is not rvinter. Again there are direct implications for engi-neering, such as the very short length of the construction working season, unless special and expensive measures are taken for such things as the protection of newly placed concrete, and the influence of the necessary len$h of the heating season uPon the economics of building operation, and thus upon building design. There is some connection, also, between the long winter season and permafrost.
PenMnnRost eNo NonrHr,nN ButrorNc
Permafrost is one of those terms that engineers have brought into use and yet that are philological monstrosities which become commonly misused even as they come to find a place in everyday language. Originally coined by Professor Siemon Muller,a permafrost as a word
+S. W. Muller, Permafrost or Permanently Frozen Ground and Related Engi-neering Problems (Military Intelligence Division, Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, 1 943 ).
18 Robert F. Legget
was politely castigated by the late Professor Kirk Bryan who proposed a series of philologically correct names as substitutes, such words as cryopedology and pergelisol.s As has happened so often before, the correct words-although used to some extent in Europe-remain on this continent in the seclusion of one academic PaPer, while tle term "permafrost" has progressed to such a point that it has been featured in articles in popular magazines.
The word is used to describe a condition rather than a material, that state of the earth's crust when the ground temPerature is below 32oF. The general pattern of variation in ground temperature is now well recognized. For southern Canada, there is a diurnal variation perceptible to a depth of a few inches, an appreciable annual variation to a depth of about twenty feet, with at least a six-month time lag at that depth. When a steady ground temperature is reached, it is found to be close to, but not necessarily equal to, the annual mean temperature for the locality. This steady temperature is found to increase with depth, at a rate of approxi-mately loF in 150 feet.
In the North, accordingly, with its long winters and consequent low annual mean temperatures, the steady ground temperature will be cor-respondingly low and perennially frozen ground-permafrost-is the result. In the Mackenzie valley, shallow permafrost has been found as far south as Uranium City on the north shore of Lake Athabasca. Little accurate information on the depth of permafrost is yet available, but it is known to extend to a depth of about 150 feet at Norman Wells, and to about 1,300 feet at Point Barrow, Alaska, and at Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island. These depths are those at which the ground tempera-ture just reaches 32oF.
If, in the regions of perennially frozen ground, the earth's crust consists of solid or fragmented rock or of dry and well-drained sand or gravel, the phenomenon of permafrost is scientifically interesting but of no unusual engineering significance. Diamond drilling work will be dfficult; mine workings may have to be heated rather than cocled; but building and construction operations can be carried out in normal fashion. When, however, the ground consists of waterlogged soil and particularly if the soil is fine-grained, complications arise with modern building designs and construction; the thermal balance of the frozen soil and water can easily be disturbed, possibly with disastrous results, as the solid permafrost assumes the consistency of soup when thawed. Unfortunately for Canada, the geology of her northern regions is such
sKirk Bryan, "Cryopedology," American tournal ol Scicnce, CCXLIV (Sept., 1946),pp.62242.
that,
to a rar greate
,:,::.:;":::::#:,'"*,*
"ouo,o,
,*fl
areas of the North do consist of frozen waterlogged silt. The greatest concentration of this troublesome combination is to be found in the lower part of the Mackenzie valley.
Perennially frozen ground has been recognized in the North from the time of the early explorers, although not then known as permafrost. They observed the existence of ice beneath the shallow "active layer" which tharvs in high summer. Early settlers quickly learned not to disturb the surface of such ground but to build their simple cabins on sills or cribs above ground level. Troubles with permafrost developed only with the advent of modern building in the North, the development of the little oil refinery at Norman Wells in the thirties yielding pioneer experience. When the first house in the Northwest to be provided with a concrete basement was built at Yellowknife about 1938, it was initially the envy of almost the entire population ef the lower Mackenzie valley; by the latter part of its first winter it had become the problem building of the North, the heat from its fine furnace passing readily through the concrete walls and floor to thaw out the frozen unconsolidated silt upon which it had been so carefully built, with consequent serious settlement of the whole structure better imagined than described.
ft was, however, the extensive construction in the Northwest of the war years that first revealed the true magnitude of what can properly be called "the permafrost problem." The building of the Alaska Highway, the Canol project, and the construction of airfields in the Canadian North and especially in Alaska, these and many other smaller construc-tion operaconstruc-tions showed vividly what special precauconstruc-tions in both design and construction the occurrence of permafrost created, when the soil involved was waterlogged glacial silt. What can only be described as a "crash" research investigation rvas undertaken, but even without benefit of much research, real advances in engineering techniques were quickly and splendidly made. Research continues and will continue, the National Research Council, for example, having at Norman Wells its own Northern Research Station to accommodate the permafrost and other northern research work of its Division of Building Research.
The laws of nature being what they are, however, and saturated silt being an unstable and troublesome material when not frozen, it follows that all construction operations that have to be carried out when perma-frost of this kind is encountered will continue to be rather severely affected. Roads, railways, and airfields must be constructed above the surface of the ground with a minimum of disturbance of the invariable vegetal cover (muskeg), the importance of which in maintaining the
20 Robert F. Legget
thermal r6gime can hardly be over-est:mated. Buildings mus-t be isolated from the g:round by means of air spaces, their loads transferred to the -eround by simple iriUUing or by piles, steam-jetted into the frozen soil, for all bui the smallest structures. Above all, the sites for new setflements must be seiected only after the most careful surveys of all possible locations so that the best ground conditions available may be secured. These are the procedures now being followed in the building of the new town of Aklavik, the site for which was selected only after a comprehen-sive suney of the 5,000 square miles of the Mackenzie delta'
Although permafrost research is generally, and inevitably, directed towards reuere[y practical objectives, the scientific problems posed by permafrost are not being overlooked by Canadian research workers. Is ihe southern limit of permafrost receding, in keeping with the recent slight warming of the Arctic? Is the existence of permairosf in North America a refc of the last glacial period? These and allied questions are meat for much argument. Changes are so slow that no speedy answers can be expected. But appropriate observations are now being made and recorded, and instrumentation is so arranged that in years norv far ahead answers to these and allied questions should become available.
A Nore oN rHE U.S.S.R.
If only because the U.S.S.R. is so often mentioned in discussions of northert development, and particularly in connection with permafrost, a brief note on the Soviet North must be added. Soviet permafrost research is knorvn to be extensive; it is certain to be of high quality. The extensive clevelopment of the northern parts of the U.S.S.R. is not, horvever, the result of this relatively modern deveiopment but is closely iinked rvith the fact that much of the Soviet North is free of permafrost, coupled with the added fact that, where permafrost does exist, the local geotogy is such that the frozen ground material is often not troublesome. ttrose-who talk so glibly about the poor showing of Canada in the North, as compared rvith the u.s.s.R., should note that the large cities of the Soviet Nbrth and the bulk of its much publicized northern popula-tion are alt in the western region where the influence of the Gulf Stream keeps an Arctic Port such as Murmansk open throughout the year. fosiiUty because of this, Murmansk has been settled since the eleventh century. Moreover, the climate of Archanqel is approximately the same as that of Quebec Ciry, the land mass of northern Eurasia having a thermal r6gime rather different to that of northern Canada. If these facts *ete r"cognized, proPer perspective would be restored, and Soviet
An Engincering Assessment 2l experience would be used as a challenge to further Canadian efiorts in the North and not to disparage what this country has already done.
CoNcrusroN
There is so much yet to be done in developing the Northwest that all such challenge is to be welcomed, as is also informed interest such as is indicated so clearly by the holding of this symposium. The area involved is immense; the climate is generally inhospitable; the provision of even minimal transportation services is costly and dilficult; building is a complex operation, economically unorthodox and made more difficult by the presence of unusual permafrost conditions. Despite all this, much has been done already in advancing the northern frontier; much more still remains to be done.
There is, however, one thing more to be said even in this engineering assessment of the potentialities of the Northwest; this relates to people. For engineers do not forget that their work in advancing the frontiers of civilization is done for people, often for the improvement of amenities for those living in an area, but in the case of the Northwest for the use of those who have to gd to the North from the more settled parts of the country. Do Canadians in general really want to move to the North? We are essentially a southwardJooking people, sun-worshippers still at heart; the long winters of the North are the reverse of what the average Canadian surely dreams of as the climate he would most enjoy. One major new Canadian development, not very far north by Mackenzie River standards, is already faced with the problem of extending opera-tions southward rather than to the north because of the reacopera-tions of workers' families to the unaccustomed dark days. Is it not significant that at the present time the fastest population growth in North America, by transference, is to be found in Florida, California, and Arizona?
It will, therefore, require strong economic incentives to produce any
produced elsewhere after allowing for all transportation costs, the Northwest may advance rapidly; if not, then advance must be slower. Anyone who has seen, as I have, buildings being hauled miles to be used in a new town-buildings from the town of Goldfields on Lake Atha-basea, founded in the thirties but abandoned and deserted in the early
22 Robert F. Legget
fifties---cannot forget the sensitivity to external factors that will govern the development of the Northwest, just as long as mineral exploitation has to be the basis of its economy.
I believe in the future of the North, and particularly in the certain future of the Northwest. I am, however, very conscious of the difficulties, both physical and economic, that lie in the way of its development. I do not share in a literal sense the optimism of the writer who said, of the North, that "the resources are great enough to overcome the problems." The time scale to which development will take place is surelv the only aspect of the North upon which there can be under-standable difference of opinion.
It is here that personal experience tends to influence opinion. And so may I conclude with a brief reference to an experience of my own? On my first visit to Fort Chipewayan on Lake Athabasca in 1940, I was taken to meet an old man, Alexander Fraser by name. When he found that I was a Scots Canadian he unlocked some of his treasures for me; I soon found myself with a set of bagpipes under my arm. I think of those pipes today, for I was talking with the grandson of the personal piper to Sir George Simpson and the pipes were those which had travelled all over the North in the governor's famous canoe. So short is the history of the North. So inspiring also, not only in the days of the great governor of "The Company," not only in these modern days of Herculean achievements such as finishing the DEW line, but also in the prospect of all that will most sslreinly be done.
