Arctic Survey Part V. Transportation in the Canadian North
The development of a region can obviously not proceed faster than transportation facilities will permit. In an area of the vast extent of the Canadian northland, isolation remains the predominant characteristic in nearly all portions, and no part can expect to advance economically unless it has effi...
| Published in: | Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
1945
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0315489000024312 https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0315489000024312 |
| Summary: | The development of a region can obviously not proceed faster than transportation facilities will permit. In an area of the vast extent of the Canadian northland, isolation remains the predominant characteristic in nearly all portions, and no part can expect to advance economically unless it has efficient and cheap transportation to the outside world. The present transportation facilities in the western part of sub-arctic Canada are surprisingly good when one considers the limited volume of traffic they handle, yet the transportation routes follow in the main only the major water routes running northward. Great stretches of country to the east and west of these waterways are without transportation. However, in the present state of our knowledge there has been little if any thought of development in these large “dead” areas. The first question to be asked, probably, is whether existing traffic can be handled adequately by the existing means of transportation. Before the war the answer would undoubtedly have been “yes.” American activities in Yukon Territory and the Mackenzie District since the United States entered the war have increased the volume of tonnage moving in the North enormously. Transportation has been improved by highway construction, the addition of railway rolling stock, water craft, and aeroplanes, and by the introduction of tractor trains. For the handling of a special commodity, oil, the Canol pipe-line has been built. Despite these improvements northern transportation is still under a strain, but is meeting its difficulties with about the same degree of success as is wartime transportation elsewhere. |
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