Within the past half century the Canadian Government and the Hudson's Bay Company have established a number of settlements in the Canadian Arctic with Eskimo families drawn from different areas. These include the settlements on Southampton Island and at Great Whale River, Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord. Although these families have been living close to each other for years they maintain distinct sub-cultural differences in dialect and customs. Some cultural exchange has undoubtedly occurred but very real forces presumably exist within the factions that prevent any general exchange that would obscure their distinct collective identities.

The very low population densities in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, and the apparently rugged physical environment, tend to minimize one's conception of the possible effect of man's activities in these regions. In fact, of course, populations concentrate in fewer centres than in warmer regions: more than half the population of the Yukon Territory lives within 30 km of Whitehorse, and more than half Alaska's is associated with Fairbanks and Anchorage. The apparent ruggedness is offset by slow regenerative processes in areas disturbed by man. The presence of the impermeable permafrost layer over much of the Arctic and sub-Arctic prevents the dispersal of man's waste products and facilitates pollution of water and land. The air itself over centres of population is often exceptionally vulnerable to pollution.

These words were written by an American senator from California about his experience in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. In the Canadian north of the 1890's, government meant public order. The first resident servants of the Dominion Government were an Inspector and twenty men of the North-West Mounted Police who were assigned to the Yukon in 1894 to “represent all the different departments of government in the district” (Canada, Department of Interior 1907, p 15).

With the longest coastline in the world, Canada has a vital need for oceanographic information and it has been a matter of national policy for some years to increase substantially the scale and scope of Canadian oceanographic research and survey. A major step in the implementation of this policy, taken in mid-1962, was the opening of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, since February 1968 known as the Bedford Institute (BI).

In the early days of United States activities at McMurdo, tracked vehicles were used for station transport of men and supplies. These functioned well, if slowly and expensively, over snow and ice but were impractical over land because of track wear. Wheeled vehicles were introduced but, while satisfactory over earth roads, very quickly bogged down in snow; this difficulty was to some extent solved by the substitution of high flotation, chevron-tread, or ribbon-tread (sand) tires, for conventional tires. By 1966, the Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory (NCEL) had developed high-strength, heavy-duty snow roads capable of supporting vehicles weighing up to 31 500 kg, and wheeled vehicles replaced tracked vehicles for station use.