COAL IN THE ARCTIC

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2257, 17 September 1914, Page 8

COAL IN THE ARCTIC

CANADIAN ENTERPRISE DEPOSITS IN HUDSON BAY A message from St. John's (Newfoundland), dated August 4, states that an expedition to discover coal in the Hudson Day district, wjhicli can be utilised in connection with the proposed opening- of the Hudson Bay railway, is understood to be the mission of the schooner Laddie, equipped at St. John's. The expedition is being financed by the Canadians Railway operators, Mackenzie and Mann, whoso Canadian Northern Railroad has a junction at Lo Pas, Manitoba, where the Hudson Bay railway joins to it, and it is probable that to them will be entrusted' the operating of this road when it is completed., ,Qne of the most essential factors to thd successful carrying out of this enterprise will be the securing of an adequate coal supply for the steamers and trains that will be used—for the steamers even more so than for the trains. At present all tha coal that is' required in connection with steamer traffic to that bay has to be conveyed there- in the bunkers or holds of the Newfoundland sealing steamers that are used for freighting purposes in ' the summer months, they being really the only vessels in the world at present that can stand the stress and strain of early navigation in these icedaden waters, and these procure their- coal supplies at Sydney. . J Cape Breton coal for tlie need of the railway huildinj* .forces is conveyed by trains behind Sie advance gangs from Winnipeg and Le Pas on toward Hudson. Bay, as the railroad progresses: .When the rails are laid to the seaboard' and terminals are constructed at Port Nelson provision will be mado for the storage of coal in large quantities both from western Canada and from Cape Breton, but if a supply could be secured at'.'any point comparatively accessible for ships plying on the Hudson Bay route, it would nave an immense advantage. ' < unworked coal Areas. Those who are predicting that the world, will within a limited period be without coal. are oblivious of the fact that when the stocks'of this combustible in moro favoured climes are exhausted, it will still be possible to obtain a large supply from mines within the, Arctic regions. They are not worked at present, but whalers and explorers delve out sufficient .for their needs year after year as they cruise the northern seas. • ' One of, the best known of these deposits is near Disco, West Greenland, and has supplied Arctic steamers for over forty years. Peary's ships resorted there every season, and the Dundee whalers invariably filled their bunkers with it to carry them home. Nares, in the Discovery, found coal near. Lady Franklin's Bay, in Grinnell Land, and Greely also'located a vein and used it fi'om 1881 to 1883. Farther west, in North Cornwall, there is another deposit,'and there is scarcely an island in the archipelago extending beyond' Canada and Hudson .Bay but .possesses traces or definitely located beds of this element. At Mercy Bay, 500 miles north of Gteat Slave Lake, M'Clure, the seeker for the north-west passage, burned local coal during the three winters he was frozen through the region made historical by Franklin's . fatal . expedition, where' -in-the mazy channels between -the'islets'-Jhe lost, all hope 'of workilig toward the Pacific. ,';His ships burned coal foun<J by search'..parties before'tlie hapless company abandoned the vessels and started-; south in the vain hope, of reaching. Canadian Indian settlements.' Along the';, Pacific' -area of the . Arctic hinterland ;coal also, abounds. There is a belt: of-bituminous coal within Canada's- boundaries the surface indications of which':crop up from 63 to 165 degrees west longitude and from 69 to 81 north latitude, - running, in. a north-easterly direction,'the general characteristics being similar to those, of the Capo Breton coal areas. This drift extends about 8000 miles —from Kotzeb'ue Sound, on the mainland of Alaska.