New-York tribune., 1922-11-19


conoelastic; and his method OF presen-
With the persuasive. In his first book,
Ny Life with the Eskimo he was
apparently content to show us prinii
i've and iovabie people not as tney
appear in fiction and movies but as
hey really are. In "The Friendly
sretic," a narrative OF achievements.
tome Of which are unparalleled in the
annals OF exploration, he added one
more to the worlds small stock of
really great books. That book told us
vhat one nan did because he had rid
hirsself of current superstitions and
saisities about the North before ever
ae entered it,
Eow, in "The Nosthward Course of
Empire" which Ia brilliant and
provocative argument, he sets out 90
aemoIish our misconceptions about the
North; FIRST, because to the metaphy-
sician. poet and hilospher--which
Stefansson Is no less than he is man
Of science and explorer-any false be-
lief entertained diminishes by so much
the intelligence, therefore the useful
ness, of the mind that holds it, and
secondly, because to some of his read
ers the facts which ne relates will
have an immediate economic value.
TO Stefansson, then, the North is not
only iivable and friendly country for
any man who enters it without preju-
dice or fear; it is the new frontier
which will inevitably be coloniZed and
brought into full service to mankind.
Inevitably, because it is an axiom of
history that mans tight upward in
civilization has eoincided in part at
least with his march northward over
the earth into a more bracing air.: in
evitably, again, for economic reasons,
for, unless man becomes vegetarian,
he must replensh his fast diminishing
meat supply with the reindeer and
ovibos, which feed over the vast grass
lands of the North.
How vast are those grass lands? one
asks, thinking of Kentucky as Boone
first saw it. of the Texas Sam Houston
knew, of Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana
and Dakota in the days of the open
range. Measured beside the Arctic pas
lures Of which Stefansson writes, these
six or seven hundred thousand square
miles of prairie assume the proportions
of private park, while only the buff
falo herds of a hundred years ago are
comparable TO the wild herds that
range the North. The pasture lands of
the Canadian Arctic, In fact, cover a
little less thar two million square
miles, an area equal to half the United
States.
''rhese grass lands are not only the
northern portion of the continent, but
also the islands that lie north of Can
ada, even to the north coast of the
most northerly of them. The vegeta-
tton is only in part of a specially polar
nature. In part it consists of common
plants, such as various sedges, blue
grass, timothy, goldenrod, dandelion,
bluebell, poppy, primrose, anemone and
the like. More than 115 species of
Towering plants are known TO exist in
Ellesmere Island, the most northerly of
the Canadian islands"
When we consider that meat prices
soar as the cattiemen are forced north
beyond the climatic limits where cat
tie can be profitabiy raised we recog-
Iize the immense economic value of
this one contribution made by Stefans-
son-namely, the bringing out from
under an imaginary waste Of perpetual
ice and snow so vast grazing and
habitable area where cattle native to
the soil, and needing neither stables
nor feed, wait the stockman.
In his introduction to Stefansson's
book DIR. Nelson, chief OF the United
states Biological Survey, reminds us
that the raising of reindeer has al
ready become an Alaskan industry and
that, as a result of Stefansson's work,
il is being undertaken in Baffin Land.
THE contribution of most value to
mankind brought back by Stefansson
IN his appreciation that far Northern
lands are not the dread icy deserts of
the popular belief, but are possessed
OF variety of resources and are avail