Doorway to 

 North America 



The Arctic Ice Raft, Greenland, 

 the Islands, and the Barren Lands 

 of Keewatin and Ungava 



Men have been coming to the continent of North America from 

 other lands since sometime during the last so-called ice age. 

 They came from two sides: the first, it would seem, from the 

 west; the Europeans, from the east. Both parties consequently 

 gained a somewhat lopsided impression of the land because both 

 looked at it from only one angle, as it were. To the Eskimos and 

 the Amerindians coming from Asia the horizon was to the east; 

 to the Europeans and Africans it was to the west, though the 

 Spaniards approached from the south and then veered west. The 

 last remaining avenue of approach is from the north, and this is 

 in any case the most desirable. It is not only modern and logical 

 but it is also a convenient route, for we are primarily interested 

 in those natural aspects of this continent that are not the out- 

 come of human activity. These display an orderly procession and 

 one arranged basically by latitude so that the easiest path along 

 which to march across them is from north to south. 



Maps are splendid devices but because we have to put them 

 on flat, two-dimensional pieces of paper and have developed the 

 habit of putting the north at the top, they give us, in most cases, 

 a distorted idea of reality, and the more so the farther north or 

 south we go. If, however, you look at a globe, both this and 

 many other things will become immediately apparent. There is 

 a huge circular area up north, well over 8,000,000 square miles in 

 extent, of which more than 2,600,000 square miles are land or ice 

 lying on land. From the center of this round area (namely, the 

 North Pole) to its edge is 1600 miles. Almost three-quarters of the 

 total land surface of our continent thus lies therein: namely, 

 2,506,000 out of a total of 9,355,000 square miles. 



Within this arbitrary circle there is great variation in cli- 

 mate, land surface, and vegetation. The over-all concept that 

 most of us hold of this great part of the surface of our earth is 

 quite erroneous. For instance, there is no North Polar icecap; it 

 is an ice raft, which is something quite different — though there 

 is an icecap on Greenland. Icebergs and sea ice are not the same; 

 the former is formed on land and is fresh, the latter is formed 

 in the sea and is salt at first but goes fresh in two years. Al- 

 though the soil of the Arctic is saturated and there is standing 



Polar bears crossing Arctic ice pans. The lanes of water be- 

 tween the old hummocky pans have refrozen and the ani- 

 mals may have to trek to open water to hunt. 



