CH. XLIV] 
Conclusion 
385 
These lands bordering on or rising from the continental 
shelf form the Arctic Regions as we know them. But 
between the Parry Archipelago and the Siberian shelf 
there is the vast area in and to the north of the Beaufort 
Sea, to which I have just referred and of which we know 
almost nothing. Our knowledge of the Arctic regions will 
remain incomplete until this area has been discovered and 
explored. 
When we now look back on the history of Arctic 
enterprise from the earliest times it is impossible not 
to be struck with the high qualities it brought so frequently 
to light, and the fine record of courage and endurance 
it presents for our admiration. The objects have differed, 
but there has throughout been the same splendid contempt 
for danger and hardship, and the same resourcefulness 
and habit of quick decision brought out by the nature 
of the work on which the explorers were engaged. 
The Norsemen, and afterwards the Danes, have 
been the colonisers, undertaking the hardest and most 
difficult work of all, and they furnish a record of com- 
mercial success and civilising influence on the natives 
which places them in the first rank among Arctic labourers 
in a hard but fruitful field. Next come the English 
adventurers seeking for a shorter route to India by the 
north-west, the north-east or the north ; and thereafter the 
period of fishers and trappers, when it was shown of what 
immense value were the products of the Arctic regions. 
First the Dutch established whale-fisheries in Spitsbergen 
and Davis Strait, and then the English who, in the person 
of Scoresby, combined commercial profit with scientific 
research. The labours of these daring whale-fishers 
enriched and gave prosperity to numerous communities, 
while beginning later, but working contemporaneously, 
we see the Hudson's Bay Company opening up the 
wilderness, accumulating wealth, and largely influencing 
Europeans and natives for good. 
The Russians, too, achieved a great work in delineating 
the whole northern coast of Siberia. Then came the 
great era of Ross, Parry, and Franklin ; a time of heroic 
effort, of vast discoveries, and above all of the ceaseless 
training of men in ice- work, the training of men, that 
is, alike for science and for war. In this Arctic work 
M. I. 
25 
