34 



tion shall have been carried out, it will not be without utility to 

 acquire even this negative information, and write upon them in 

 characters as large as need be, " No thoroughfare." 



I will now ask your further attention for a few moments while I 

 run over and make some remarks in detail on the various unexplored 

 areas as indicated on the map. It must first, however, be explained in 

 what manner the unexplored areas referred to have been outlined. All 

 lines, such as those of rivers, chains of lakes or other travelled routes, 

 along which reasonably satisfactory explorations have been made and of 

 which fairly accurate route-maps are in existence, are given an approx- 

 imate average width of about fifty miles, or twenty-five miles on each 

 side of the explorer's or surveyor's track. The known lines are thus 

 arbitrarily assumed to be wide belts of explored country, and that 

 which is referred to as unexplored, comprises merely the intervening 

 tracts. By this mode of definition, the unexplored regions are reduced 

 to minimum dimensions. Neither are any comparitively small tracts of 

 country lying between explored routes included in my enumera- 

 tion, in which the least area mentioned is one of 7,500 square miles ; 

 nor are the Arctic islands, lying to the north of the continent, referred 

 to. Because of the empirical mode in which the unexplored areas have 

 thus been delineated, it has not been attempted to estimate with more 

 than approximate accuracy the number of square miles contained in 

 each, my purpose being merely to render apparent the great dimensions 

 of these areas. 



In enumerating these areas, I shall not refer to the various explor- 

 ations and lines of survey by which they are defined and separated one 

 from another, as this would involve mention of nearly all the explorers 

 who have traversed the northern part of the continent. 1 shall, how- 

 ever, note such excursions as have been made into or across the regions 

 which are characterized as unexplored. 



Beginning, then, in the extreme north-west of the Dominion, we 

 find these areas to be as follows : — 



1. Area between the eastern boundary of Alaska, the Porcupine 

 River and the Arctic coast, 9,500 square miles, or somewhat smaller 

 than Belgium. This area lies entirely within the Arctic circle. 



