New-York tribune., 1922-11-19
The Land OF Ice and Snow
BY Constance Lindsay Skinner

able for occupation By civilized man.
Among this variety OF resources are
oil. coal and copper. A chapter on
transpolar commerce forecasts the
Importance Of the Arctic as a short
route in the near future when travel by
air will be commonplace There is
also chapter on "Established Arctic
| INDUSTRIES which lifts the main sub
Iject OF the book from the realm of
theory into the region of accomplished
fact.
Economic values are presumably ST.
preme in our world and as such they
occupy many of these pages; but one
| suspects that Stefaneson's chief object
in writing his book was not TO insure
| unto future generations illimitahle
filsts mignons. II is in following his
rhistorical argument for the northward
course of empire that the reader gets
| illuminating sidelights on this explor-
er's mental attitude. But first, word
fer the historical argument itself. The
| first civilization of which we have rec
ord rose, fiourished for thousands of
years and fell in the Euphrates and
Nile valleys. To the makers of these
southern civilizations Greece was a
barbarous and useless land. In time
civilizations of another type arose in
Greece and Rome. But learned Taci-
tus voiced the conservative, scientific
opinion of Romans in his day when he
implied that the bad climate and sterile
soil of central Europe would forever
prevent Germany and France from at
tanning high degree of civilization.
The Arab Moors of the eighth CEN
tury, who knew that Tacitus was
wrong about France, nevertheless left
| Britain out of their scheme of con-
hna nny,ia rnsY31
strong and great in such a climate.
Here Stefansson might have cited the
report made by villafane in 1859,
which caused Philip II of Spain to
announce that no further attempts
would be made to colonize Florida.
Villafane said that from Pensacola
Bay to Virginia America was barren
and desolate land unfit for white men
to inhabit. Had not several colonies
already perished there of starvation
and exposure? At the close of the
take, as spoil the island cf Guada-
loupe, so valuable because of its sugar,
instead of ice-bound Canada, which,
apart from the Newfoundland cod and
the Indian fur trade, would never be
good for much; but, alas, political me-
eessity forced them to choose Canada.
Was not the American purchase of
Alaska long and contemptuously de-
noted Stewards Folly" But now men
from sunny Japan are thriving in
Siberia, where in winter the tempera-
ture drops 80 degrees lower than it
ever does in the Canadian Arctic. The
Canadian Arctic winter is not colder
than in some parts of Montana, though
1t is longer. And it is not in itself
unpleasant. It is the season the Eski-
mos like best, the time when they
make long journeys, visit and receive
their friends, have house parties and
Publications. Most white people who
live far enough north to experience
long winters prefer winter to summer.
Canadian born, Vilhjalmur Stefans
son is Icelandic by one line of descent.
Now, the Icelanders, even in the dark
est days of superstition, we're almost
shockingly free from it. When other
medieval mariners were hugging the
| shores in terror of that m monster- ridden
Sea of Darkness, the Atlantic, the
| Morse Vikings--an the best, or the
worst, at any rate the busiest, of them
were Icelanders--were sailing fearless
| ly over it whittier they would. They
were Icclanders who discovered and
colonized Greenland; who discovered
and temporarily settled in America
| Four hundred years after the great
! Viking age a prince of Portugal,
| Henry the Navigator, of Viking lineage
/ through his mother, disbelieved in the
| Sea of Darkness myth and devoted his
life successfully to proving that the
Atlantic was only good sailable salt
water. A few years later kinswoman
of his, on the Viking side of the fam
lily, lady named Isabella, insisted that
her husband sign rather novel and
important contract with certain
Genoese mariner. 1t is fact that<fits
in nicely with the poetic unities that
another Icelander should have first re
| jected the modern framed superstitions
actual disproof in the North-and re-
turned to assault with the weapons of
| truth and reason some of the old block
| houses of ignorance and misconception
which narrow the frontiers of our lives.