• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Greenland; Arctic; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.505.3555; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic7-3%264-321.pdf

F EW people would doubt that northern North America needs more people. Nor is there much question that the region can support and will have a greater population in the near future. Further, the usual assumption is that the additional people should or would be permanent rather than temporary inhabitants. It is necessary therefore to consider the human geography, or the locational characteristics of the present and future population distribution. This analysis reveals the significances of the relative locations of people to people and land to people. In this broad field the following topics and problems have been selected to demonstrate the great range and promise of such research in northern North America. Basic hypotheses First, the regional extent of the Northern Lands needs defining. Existing boundaries are based largely on physical elements of the landscape, possibly because there have been more physical than cultural measurements. The regional boundary shown on Fig. 1 summarizes a series of cultural as well as physical characteristics. This 'arbitrary southern limit includes all of Alaska and Greenland and extends through southern Canada so as to include parts of the northern edge of continuous white settlement in North America. But how else may the regional limit be drawn? The relative significance of northern North America to the population of the rest of the world needs to be determined. For example, thinly settled Alaska and the Canadian north have been considered as possible areas to absorb world over-population (Hewetson, 1946; Sandwell, 1950, p. 162; Warren, 1941, p. 167). But are they significantly so? Certainly not for the many European refugees who are largely city dwellers with few possessions and with occu-pations not yet needed in unsettled Alaska and Canada (Warren, 1941, p. 167). Perhaps not, also, for European and Oriental agriculturalists since economic or physical conditions would require different methods of farming from those to which they are accustomed. Yet people in modest numbers and ...