THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 13 



further that the glaciers of Baffin Island are comparable in size 

 to the glaciers of British Columbia, we may meet the objection, 

 "But surely the land is covered with snow all summer." This, of 

 course, cannot be the case. If it were, a glacier would gradually 

 develop. As a matter of fact, the snowfall in the Canadian arctic 

 islands and on the north coast of Canada and Alaska is less than 

 half and in manj^ places less than quarter of what it is, for instance, 

 in Montreal or Petrograd or the hills back of Christiania. It is 

 less than in Chicago, Warsaw, northeast Germany or the High- 

 lands of Scotland. The amount is difficult to estimate exactly for 

 the snow is so frequently disturbed by the wind, but in all probabil- 

 ity the typical arctic snowfall would not, if translated into water, 

 amount to more than four or at the most six inches per year, where 

 the snowfall in certain inhabited portions of Europe and America 

 amounts to ten times that much. Sverdrup estimates the total 

 annual snowfall of Ellesmere Island, the most northerly island yet 

 found in the world, at about one-tenth of the weather bureau esti- 

 mate for the annual snowfall of St. Louis, Missouri. Most of what 

 little snow falls in the far North is soon swept by the wind into 

 gullies and into the lee of hills, so that from seventy-five to ninety 

 per cent, of the surface of arctic land is comparatively free from 

 snow at all seasons. What we mean by "comparatively free" is 

 that a pebble the size of a plum lying on the ground would have 

 more than an even chance of being partly visible above the snow. 



Closely allied to the idea that all land in the north is covered 

 with eternal ice and snow is the one that the climate is an ever- 

 lasting winter of intense cold. Whether this is true is largely a 

 matter of definition. A person brought up in Manitoba or Mon- 

 tana would be inclined to think that there is no winter in the south 

 of England, while a native of Sicily or India might consider the 

 climate of England all winter. We might begin by defining sum- 

 mer, and defining it as that season when ponds are unfrozen and 

 the small rivers flow ice-free to the sea. This season may be five 

 months long, as it is on the arctic circle north of Great Bear Lake in 

 Canada; four months, as in Victoria Island; three months, as in 

 Melville Island; or even shorter, as in the islands discovered by 

 us to the north. But there is always a summer, the presence of birds, 

 with the hum of bees and the buzz of insects more unpleasant and 

 with green grass and flowers. 



The question of whether the arctic winter is intensely cold is 

 also a matter of definition. Temperature is a field where every- 

 thing is comparative, even though you concede to the thermometric 



