Day 10. I had Cream of Wheat this morning with raisins and a spoonful of peanut butter. Then, to paddle. I had an odd memory. I was six. Sargent Preston of the Yukon was on the radio, and its sponsor, Quaker Oats, offered an unusual campaign for kids to buy one square inch of the Yukon Territory, for 25 cents. I bought mine, and still have the deed:
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It was a gimmick to sell cereal. It worked: “The whole idea of selling square inches of land came from Bruce Baker who pitched Quaker Oats cereal on issuing 19 MILLION “deeds” for square inches in the Yukon. Of course there was a radio program tie-in with advertising done during the radio show “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon”. The promotion was a tremendous success with children jockeying parents to eat Quaker cereals for the land titles.” Problems arose when a large number of people began buying square feet. They wanted to know where their piece of the Yukon was. The game was up. Quaker Oats withdrew the adds.
The north has been ‘used’ a lot, and for a long time: early exploration (finding the Northwest Passage), reputations (many an explorer’s reputation was made, and lost, in the arctic), extracting beaver pelts, whales, fox, and mink (the Hudson Bay Company being the most well known). Today, there’s trophy hunting for bears, caribou, muskox, and wolves. The extraction of mineral wealth: the largest mining concerns are nickel-copper; but also gold, iron ore, tin, uranium and phosphate are extracted. Recently, industrial grade diamonds have been discovered, and mined, along with rare earth minerals. Missionaries mined indigenous populations for converts. Another form of mining occurs through the Romance of the arctic: survival, last wilderness, testing of self, and soul craft.
Through all time the tundra has survived relatively unscathed. It’s vast. A great wilderness with a minority of people compared to it’s land mass and animals. It carries on regardless of who’s in power, and what crises are occurring for humans. Can the tundra survive our current climate crisis? My belief is she will. The score could be 99 to 1 but Nature Bats Last. I bet she’ll win.
On that note, I’d like to wish my readers a happy holiday, and may the fire in your hearts warm your family and friends this Christmas. I’ll resume the journey in early January, 2023….!!
