The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1891-09-05
IN ARCTIC REGIONS.
THE PECULIAR MARBLE LIKE QUAIL
TIES OF POLAR SNOW.

Little Danger of Trains Being Blockaded
by snow Drifts in the Extreme North
ern acknowledgements Conditions.
Mistakes which Writers Make.
When there was some talk a little while
back about the Canadian government or the
Manitoba portion of it, building a railway
from Winnipeg to port in Hudsons bay to
get water communication through Hudsons
strait to Europe. the press of the United
States, and especially that of the Atlantic
seaboard. was naturally against the scheme
that ignored their country and its CONNER
cial advantages the most common argument
that saw being condensed into the remark
of one paper, which said that this Arctic
railroad would be busy shoveling snow of
their track eleven months in the year and
could rest the other month waiting for ships
through the ice blockaded straIts.n Had
this railroad ever been built Il understand
that it is now abandoned, although the rail- .
way company is anxious for another expedi-
ton to the straits, 1 surmise it would have
been a commercial failure, but wholly a.
from the slice bockaded straits,n while as far
as snow impediments were concerned it is
very doubtful ii it would have suffered as
much as many of the railroads within our
own limits that have two or three serious
blockades every winter.
NO DANGER OF BLOCKADEs
If any one of my readers will closely
watch the railroad news through a winter
he will see that the worst snow blockades
are not confined to the most northern rail-
ways by any means Only the other day 1
saw Canadian criticism of the prospective
Russian railway from Europe across Siberia
to the Pacific ocean, as competing with their
own for Chinese and japanese trade when
this same false idea that the Siberian rail-
way would be closed half the year, with
''deep Arctic snows,n was thrown out as a
big piece of comfort in the case, when the
chances are good that it would be closed
less by this means than the Canadian Pacific,
while it has less trouble than transconti-
mental roads south of it, l lived numbe,.
of winters on one of these interoceanic rail II
roads running nearly through the center Of
our country, reckoning north and southwise,
and this fact was painfully impressed ON me
in annoying blockades of days in length.
But it should be said on the other side
also that from its greater density a foot or
yard in depth of this hard, marble like Arc
tic snow would probably impede train
much more than an equal depth of the soft
snow with which we are so familiar; but
favor of the polar regions, and no capitalist
need hesitate to put his money into Arctic
railways on account of snow difficulties
There is already a railway in Europe-in
Sweden-that runs into the Arctic regions
for the purpose of tapping districts rich in
the finest iron ores. 1t runs from the port
of Lulea in Sweden, at the head OF the Gulf
of BOthnia, across the Arctic circle to the
Gellivara mountains, where the ores are
found 1t is only within the last month or
two that the iron horse has invaded the
frigid zone for the first time, running over
this line, while the Hudson Bay railway,
which has been so generally called the Amer
| lean Arctic railway, at its northern terminus
was over 600 miles from the Arctic circle, or
a little over half way from the Canadian
United States boundary to the frigid zone
HARDNESS OF ARCTIC SNOW.
The shortness of the two seasons spring
and autumn, when the snow is falling, prob
ably helps to explain why there is so little of
it, at least in comparison with the popular
idea regarding the large quantity. know
| that occasionally some Arctic writer in q
desperate attempt to portray the desolation
of the north speaks of the deep, deep snow
covering everything with its mournful man
tie, but in a country where there are no
trees nor brush to project through the snow,
covering whatever may be its depth, it is inn
possible for any one to tell whether that
covering is a foot or forty fathoms, as far as
the superficial indications are concerned, and
no such person is going to take ten-foot
pole and 60 thrustng into snowdrifts to con-
firm his assertions for the benefit of his
readers.
The peculiar hard consistency of the Arc
tic snow is due, according to Eskimo author
ity, to two reasons-the packing power of
the polar gales and the action of the ex-
tremely low temperatures of that region.
At lea both of these conditions will have to
be fulfilled before these Arctic architects
will use the fall SHOWS for building their
curious winter homes of that material, or
probably, to put it palmer, after enough
snow has fallen to make house building safe
on the side of quantity a regular old boreal
l blizzard must have swept over it and the
{ thermometer must have had siege of de
preston before they consider 1t fit to cut
into blocks and put together into houses
! Lieut.. Frederick Schwatka.
"Cribbed, Cabined and Confined"
D What enemy of a race, dependent for STAN
inc nd +l,e a.