Prognosen sind aut Wetter-,0zeanographisch und
Eisdaten basiert. Bezuglich der Eisdaten sind wir
vorläufig von visuellen Beobachtungen abhängig, die
subjektiv und ungenau zu sein scheinen. Photographie
ist nicht als ein befriedinger Ersatz betrachtet, weil
die notwendige komplette und häufige Kartierung des
Gebietes nicht praktisch ware; selbst wenn man die
Photographien elektronisch abtasten würde, ware diese
Methode zu zeitraubend; Probentechnik wäre nicht
praktisch. Nichtsdestoweniger kann Photographie in
anderer Weise sehr wertvoll sein, und zwar als eine
extra Hilfe in der Rekognoszierung (Photographie von
speziellen Formen zur Unterstützung von Interpreta-
tionen), in der Ausbildung von Eisbeobachtern und in
klimatischen oder anderen Studien, wo Probentechnik
vortreffliche Resultate ergeben kann. Die Dauer-
haftigkeit eines so zustandegebrachten Dokumentes, von
einem so kurzlebigen Hilfsmittel, kann nicht durch
eine andere Art erhalten werden.
Es ist angenommen, dass dieser Gebrauch von Photo-
graphie gegenwärtig in Nordamerika nicht voll
ausgenützt ist.
The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the
Pacific was, paradoxically, of tremendous importance
and value only until it was discovered. As a lure to
tempt explorers into the unknown northwest, it was un-
rivalled, but when it turned out to be not, as had once
been hoped, an easy short-cut to the eastern hemisphere,
but a hard and inhospitable passage through heavy ice,
and quite impracticable for the ships of the period,
it was written off as useless and forgotten. With the
passage of time, ships grew in power and potential
ability to navigate in ice, but the need for a north -
west passage had long since passed, the last vestiges
disappearing with the opening of the Fanama Canal.
Almost the same is true of the Northeast Passage.
Pursued at first with the utmost zeal by English and
Dutch merchants, it was later abandoned as too difficult.
There was, however, one important difference; the need
for it did not disappear, and with the development of
technology, work on the passage was resumed. There is
no doubt that it was its great economic and strategic
value to Russia that led to the development of the
Northern Sea Route and spurred the USSR to such ad-
mirable accomplishments in arctic research. And con-
versely, it was the unimportance of the Northwest Pas-
sage that caused it to be neglected, not undue lack of
altruistic zeal or even more severe ice conditions, as
used to be argued. How often has it been said that the
Northwest Passage could never be developed because the
ice conditions were so much more unfavourable than those
on the Northern Sea Route. I used to share this opinion,
but the more that becomes known about both areas, the
less I believe it to be true; and even if the ice at
some points is more severe, the shorter length of the
passage is a considerable compensation. The simple
fact is that the Northwest Passage was not developed
because it was not needed, and for no other reason.
Now the picture has changed. There is still no de-
mand for the Northwest Passage as a transportation route
between east and west, but interest in the area of the
passage itself has increased, permanent installations of
various kinds have sprung up, and every year the number
of ships penetrating the Canadian Arctic from both east
and west increases. So far nearly all this activity
has been connected with defence and other government
installations. Very soon, however, commercial activity
may be added, as oil companies move in to do exploratory
work. One way and another, we may be fairly sure that
shipping activity in the area of the Northwest Passage
has come to stay.
The map shows the chief routes used, habitually or
occasionally, by ships operating in the Canadian Arctic
Archipelago. It does not show all the channels that
have ever been navigated, nor does it cover the area
south of Hudson Strait, where conditions are consider-
ably easier, and where commercial operations using un-
28
strengthened ships have long been established. Only one
of the routes marked has proved to be too tough to be
worthwhile, and that is the extreme northern section of
the route to Alert, in Robeson Channel and the Lincoln
Sea. This is the one part of the Canadian Archipelago
where ice conditions probably really are worse than
anywhere along the Eurasian coast. The full force of
the polar pack presses against the northwest coast of
Eltesmere Island, and it is in this area, according to
Russian scientists, that the oldest and heaviest ice in
the Arctic Ocean is found. Consequently, although ice-
breakers have several times reached Alert, it was usually
at the cost of considerable damage, and it has been found
more practical to resupply this northernmost weather
station by air.
The ice met with in the Canadian Arctic, as in the
other arctic seas, falls into two main categories:
winter ice, or ice less than one year old, and polar ice,
or ice more than one year old. Throughout most of the
area used by shipping the ice encountered consists of a
combination of both types in varying proportions, but
with winter ice usually predominating. Polar ice is
both thicker and harder than winter ice, and therefore
more dangerous to shipping. Being thicker, it also
takes longer to melt, and it is therefore important to
forecasters to know the proportion of polar ice present.
Fortunately it is not difficult to distinguish between
the two, either from the &ir or from the bridge of &
Ship. The Russians further differentiate between two-
year-old ice and older ice, which is no doubt of con-
Siderable value in forecasting, as two-year-old ice is
not so thick as older ice. However, such refinement
has not yet been attained in the North American Arctic.
In 1959 about.50 ships carried 100,000 tons of sup-
plies into the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. This is a
far cry from the season of 1945, when three ships, two
of them quite small, could supply all the scattered
Hudson's Bay Company and government posts in the whole
archipelago. An operation of this scale is made poss-
ible by the ice reconnaissance and forecasting pro-
gramme, which supplies vital ice information to ships.
This reconnaissance and forecasting programme has
developed from painful beginnings in 1946, when the
first reconnaissance for the location of meteorological
gtations in the Queen Elizabeth Islands was undertaken.
In this year and those immediately following, ice re-
connaissance flights were carried out by Royal Canadian
Air Force and United States Air Force aircraft with un-
trained crew members acting as observers. The results
are sometimes startling to look back at. In 1947 &ir-
craft reported "lots of open water" in Viscount Melville
Sound. The USS Edisto penetrated the area and found un-
broken ice-cover, broke a screw and had to turn back.
The reason for the discrepancy was very simple; the in-
experienced observers were mistaking surface puddles for
open water. In 1952 the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office
get up the first ice forecasting service in North
America, covering the Baffin Bay area. By 1955 this
service had developed and expanded to cover all the
shipping routes from Greenland to the Bering Sea, in-
cluding nearly the whole area of the Canadian Archipel-
ago. Reconnaissance was provided by U.S. Navy and RCAF
aircraft, carrying Hydrographic Office observers. In
1957 the Canadian Meteorological Service began to take
over the ice forecasting programme in the Canadian sec-
tor, with the initial cooperation of the Royal Canadian
Navy, which had the only trained ice forecasters in the
country, and the RCAF, which continued to supply re-
connaissance aircraft as they had in the past. Soon
the entire operation will be in the hands of Meteor-
ological Service. Twenty-four-hour forecasts are put
out by forecasters in the field, and five-day and thirty-
day forecasts are made up at an Ice Forecasting Central;
all are distributed by facsimile and by plain language
message.
What is the role, actual or potential, of photo-
interpretation in all this? First let us consider the
actual forecasting.
Forecasts are based on weather maps, oceanographic
date and ice reconnaissance. With the present density
of weather stations in the Arctic and in the present
state of oceanographic research, none of these three
