 As the world progressively divides itself into two camps, the Free and the Communist dominated, the northernmost part of the globe becomes increasingly important, for the shortest route from one camp to the other lies across the pole. Today, Greenland, Canada and Alaska form a geographic cordon of security, guarding the Western Hemisphere against the possibility of aggression across the top of the world. Army presents picture. An official report produced for the armed forces and the American people. Alaska. The Eskimo word has a magnetic ring to it. It means the Great Land. And this is justified, for there are more than half a million square miles of it. In 1867, at the urging of Secretary of State William H. Seward, we bought the territory from Russia for a little more than seven million dollars. Seward's folly, the American public called it then. It was a lot closer to Russia than it was to us, and the general feeling was they can have it. Seldom in history has a nation's attitude changed so totally or so abruptly. It was in the 1890s that gold became an epidemic fever in the North Country, and the Alaska gold rush was on. Of course, even in those hectic days, there was time for the cultural side of life. And on occasion, exuberant outbursts of good-natured high spirits. Alaska today is not much like the Alaska the storytellers remember, but then it never was. Still, even allowing for exaggeration, the change is rather startling. Anchorage is the largest city and looks very much like any other progressive, fast-growing American town. Other centers like Juneau, Fairbanks, and Ketchikan are coming along rapidly too. The neat streets, lawns, and homes of suburban living are like those you'd find anywhere. Still, many of Alaska's original citizens live as they have for generations. It's a busy life and a happy one, and the Eskimo has taken the changes in his country as he has always taken what life has brought him with a quiet and rather amazing adaptability. So no one is surprised, least of all the Eskimo himself, to find that the skills of the 20th century come as easily to the new generations as hunting and trapping did to their grandfathers. In this transition, the excellent state vocational schools have played an important part. Gold mining is still big business in Alaska, but today most of the paydirt is moved, washed, and processed by giant machines. Ironically, gold mining alone has brought in more than a hundred times the $7 million we paid for the land in 1876. Alaska's biggest gold mine, however, has turned out to be the sea. Her fishing industry brings $70 million a year into the state, and her canneries provide two-thirds of all the canned salmon in the world. During the summer, when sunlight is nearly endless on the fertile valleys, the growth of Alaskan farm vegetables is almost unbelievable. Cabbage is, for example, come one to the bushel, it seems. Even so, the growing season is short, and 95% of Alaska's food must be brought in. Winter, of course, means snow and plenty of it, but nothing much worse than you'd see in our northern Midwest and mountain country. The loosening of winter's grip with the coming of spring makes the country seem, if that's possible, even more beautiful than before. It's in spring that the salmon make their yearly and miraculous pilgrimage up the rushing streams to spawn. As the trees put out their new leaves, wildlife of all kinds is abundant. The Americans stationed in Alaska need never go far to see nature's citizens, serenely undisturbed by the odd preoccupations of humankind. The present is booming, but the future of Alaska holds even wider promise of greatness, and the young people of the state are preparing for it. In this, the schools at their disposal as well as the instruction are of the finest quality. Even in the remotest reaches of the state, no child need lack the growth and guidance which formal education can give him. After high school, many go to the excellent University of Alaska at Fairbanks. At Fort Greeley, another and vastly different kind of school has its headquarters. Formal classroom lectures are part of the school's work to be sure. Orientation, technical background. But the real classroom of the cold weather and mountain school is the Alaskan wilderness itself, some of the most beautiful but challenging country in the world. Here, the student learns the precise, sure methods of movement on sheer rock, which are the life insurance of the mountaineer. He learns to put his confidence in the nylon ropes, which are essential to troop movement in this kind of perpendicular country. And he keeps at it until repelling down a sheer cliff seems as natural as crossing the street. Each year, the Army's cold weather and mountain school graduates men who will take back to their units a mastery of terrain beyond anything they had thought possible to them. This kind of skill, confidence and ability will keep our ground forces ready to operate any time and any place the need may arise. The Army in Alaska is not restricted to the wilderness, however. Fort Richardson, for example, is home to many of the Army personnel stationed here. At Elmendorf Air Force Base, the mission of keeping our hemisphere safe from air attack takes precedence over everything, which means that the aircraft of the Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command must be ready any time, all the time. In Alaska, too, is the western anchor of Dewline, the distant early warning system which keeps watch over the skies of the polar area. The stations of Dewline are manned by the Army, but security is a job for all the services. Air Force radar planes patrol the flanks of Dewline, and the offshore waters are crisscrossed by Navy radar picket ships. An additional safety factor is provided by the stationery offshore radar stations of the Air Force. All services working together to give full effectiveness to the line of radar sentry posts, which stretches from its western anchor in Alaska eastward across the top of the world. As you move eastward into northwest Canada, the change is not visually noticeable. That is to say you are still surrounded by some of the most breathtakingly majestic country on earth. This part of Canada still looks just as it did when the first rugged trappers and hunters and later the gold prospectors came into it. For Canada as a whole, however, today is busier, more fruitful, more full of promise than any time has ever been. The Canadians, some 18 million of them, have in their hands the second largest country on earth. The potential for development is almost limitless, and so it seems is the energy of the Canadian people. Montreal is Canada's largest city, and the vitality one senses here is typical of the open throttle attitude which obtains throughout this fast changing nation. Even in the picturesque and traditional atmosphere of Quebec, there is the undertone of change, of growth, and looking to the future. The shaping of that future is entrusted to the man who make up the Canadian Central Government in Ottawa. Elements of both the British and American governments combine in the Canadian Parliament. It is under the titular leadership of the Queen, but with the actual responsibility and power in the hands of the leader of the majority party, the Prime Minister. Canada covers an area one-fifth again as large as all the United States together, and if its beauty and promise give rise to a certain pride, that is not surprising. Certainly Americans should understand it, for Canadians and Americans are so much alike in their way of life and their outlook upon it. In some respects, Canada's basic industries parallel those of Alaska. In 1497, John Cabot reported that the sea off Newfoundland was covered with fishes which were taken not only with the net, but with baskets. The fish are still there, still plentiful, about two billion pounds a year the present day catches run. In the great forests which cover nearly half of Canada's land area, softwoods predominate. So in addition to her massive lumbering operation, Canada produces more than half of the world's total supply of newspaper. Her best customer, the United States, provides a market for 80% of this huge output. In the western interior lowlands, an extension of our own great prairie country, you find the wheat fields stretching from horizon to horizon. From here come harvests which are matched nowhere on earth except in the United States. Wheat is Canada's second leading export with more than two and a half million bushels going overseas every year. But wheat is not the only rich harvest in the Alberta, Saskatchewan area. Huge reserves of oil and natural gas have been discovered and their productivity is growing daily. Fineries are going up and plans for the full realization of Canada's petroleum potential are being pushed toward completion. Across what was once wilderness, great pipelines now stretch their way to bring all of Canada within quick reach of petroleum products and the power for production that goes with them. Nothing is allowed to stand in the way. There are two prime keys to industrial capacity, water and power. Canada has one third of the fresh water in the world. Huge dams have harnessed only a small part of the nation's potential, yet Canada already ranks second in the world in terms of hydroelectric power. Canadian heavy industries are on the move as the nation looks toward and works toward a position of ever greater strength and usefulness in the community of free nations. The St. Lawrence Seaway is surely one of the most impressive examples of large-scale thinking and accomplishment in any nation's history. Studded with huge power dams and locks for ocean-going ships, the Seaway stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. In effect, it has added 8,000 miles of coastline to both our countries and made seaports out of Midwestern cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago. Canadians are justly proud of the long and rich tradition of their military heritage. The garrison troops at the Citadel in Quebec personify the military pageantry of that old world tradition. The Canadian armed forces are not just for show, however. Their level of combat readiness is as high as that of any troops on Earth, and their battle records in World War I, World War II and in Korea give ample proof of their professional abilities. Canadian ground troops and air forces are now serving with NATO in Europe, and the troops at home are kept ready to meet the obligations of a free nation in the cause of freedom. In the far north, specially-organized units are equipped and trained for highly-mobile Arctic operations, for in their keeping is the ground security of the Canadian portion of Dueline. Dueline itself was built by the United States. South of this, at the 55th parallel, Canada built the Mid-Canada Line, and near the U.S.-Canada border, a third rank is formed by the Pine Tree Line, which was jointly financed by our two countries. All three keep constant radar watch to the north. As well as our own are always ready to check up on any radar image which doesn't look precisely right to the man at the radar scope. Both this radar-centric duty and the job of keeping aircraft and pilots ready to go are part of a joint Canadian-American operation, NORAD. The initial stand for North American Air Defense Command, which is headed by an American Air Force General with a Canadian air-martial as his vice-commanding. Thus, the two nations work as one to make certain that aggression by air across the polar route will remain highly improbable. Between the United States and Canada, history has forged a bond of common ideals and common interests. So today, Americans and Canadians look to one another for support in the age-old struggle to establish beyond any hope of tyranny to overthrow the concept of individual liberty. Still farther to the east and north is the world's largest island, Greenland. It's a territory of Denmark and one of the most desolate areas on earth. It lies almost entirely inside the Arctic Circle and its main feature is an ice cap whose proportions stagger the imagination. 1600 miles long, it is nearly two miles deep. Eric the Red, the Icelander who named this Greenland about a thousand years ago, must have had a peculiar sense of humor. Despite its inhospitable climate, Greenland has been inhabited, though sparsely, for centuries. Until recent years, however, the methods of movement available to ice cap travelers were extremely limited. In the past decade, however, Greenland has become a major center for Arctic research and the testing of Arctic equipment. So today, massive vehicles developed through years of testing on the ice cap enable man to take with them into nature's howling deep freeze, the warmth and comfort of his native climate. The only refuge from the wind and cold is beneath the surface. And here in recent years, man has begun to master this hostile environment. The success of this work is a joint accomplishment. Greenland is Danish soil. And since 1951, American bases have been established here by treaty with Denmark and built through joint efforts by both our countries. During the past 10 years of research and testing, many possibilities were explored. Here, the snow cap underwent extensive field tests of its potential as an agile ice cap vehicle. There were also such exotic concepts as the roller-gon, which ballooned along on huge, softly-inflated rollers. Every potentiality was put to the test. One imaginative example was the propeller-driven snow scout which skimmed the frozen surface at a nimble 35 miles an hour. Existing maps of the area were checked and corrected and weather research became a prime concern for scientists of all services. Atmospheric conditions generated in the ice cap area determined much of the weather of continental Europe. So the collection and evaluation of weather information became a continuing priority project. Here, too, the electronic arm of Dewline has been extended. American and Danish crews labored around the clock to build the four Greenland stations. And the ingenious, high-strength form known as the geodesic dome proved dramatically practical. The housings for the Dewline radar antennas went up in a matter of hours. The stations were completed on schedule in the summer of 1960, filling out a roster of 60 such stations stretching from Alaska to Iceland. In winter, the transportation of materials and supplies needed on the ice cap depends almost entirely on cargo planes. From bases at Tule and Sundestrum, everything from sea rations to steel girders is moved by the workhorse C-130 cargo aircraft. Nevertheless, overland transport on the ice cap remains the subject of intensive study in constant experimentation. In 1960, an Army ice cap expedition under the codename Leak Dog set out to do what no such group had ever done before, that is to cross the entire northern ice cap and return 600 frozen miles each way without a road map or a road either for that matter. Thanks to the decade of testing which had gone before, this ice cap convoy was well equipped for its adventure. Blinding fog so common over the ice was a nuisance, but no serious problem as radar took over the job of guiding the expedition. The crossing itself, however, was only part of the Leak Dog mission. Along the way, scientists made detailed tests. Continuing the long-range ice cap research program begun years earlier. At varying levels, ice and snow density, temperature and precipitation rates were recorded as well as radiation levels at the surface. The caravans work schedule of 12 hours on and 12 hours off left ample time for relaxation inside the steam-heated wanigans as the mammoth tractors pulled them mile after mile across the vast white desert. In July of 1960, elements of the main Leak Dog party reached the northernmost point of land in the world. Highlight of an expedition unmatched in the history of ice cap exploration. At Tully, further evidence of our intent to deny the element of surprise to any possible aggressor dominates the local scenery. Bemuse, the ballistic missile early warning system, is radar sentry work on a grand scale indeed. Each of the huge antennas can spot an approaching missile 3,000 miles away. Thus, the Tully station, with its counterparts at Clear Alaska and in the British Isles, will give us an unbroken radar screen against surprise attack by missiles from across the pole. Vital as such security installations may be, the spotlight in recent months has been elsewhere on the ice cap. Here, beneath the snow is a scientific research community like nothing the world has seen before. This is Camp Century, the U.S. Army built atomic-powered city under the ice. No doubt there were moments when the builders of Camp Century felt a certain amazement at what they were doing and where, but the work was done and done extremely well. Inside the man-made snow caves, the foundations of the living quarters were quickly constructed. Then in rapid succession, the walls were put up in prefabricated sections. Roof beneath a roof was set into place, completing a structure which would hold its inner heat and repel the cold outside. In effect, a house-sized thermos bottle. For breaking up around the entranceways, no finer or more plentiful material could be wanted than blocks of snow cut from the ice cap itself. The heart of this unique Arctic Research Center is an atomic reactor which provides it with power, heat, light. This critical mass of fissionable material is a nearly inexhaustible source of controlled energy for all the needs of this ice-caverned city. And it is a city with streets brightly lit both day and night, though the terms have little meaning down here. There are plenty of exits to the surface, of course, but emergency escape hatches like this one ensure that no blizzard could ever trap the citizens of Camp Century beneath a sudden pile-up of snow. Everything needed to make this research center virtually self-sufficient has been provided, either through the meticulous foresight of the planners or by nature herself, as in the case of this huge deep freeze which costs nothing at all to run and will keep food fresh almost forever. Fresh water is no problem and is not ever likely to be with millions of cubic feet of it all around ready to be melted and used as it's needed. A modern, spotless kitchen provides food that is plentiful, skillfully prepared and attractively served. And if one can judge from its reception, it is thoroughly enjoyed by all. In fact, aside from having no windows to look out of, the resident of Camp Century has all the comforts of home. Of course, much of the research mission of Camp Century is carried on beneath the ice, but much more remains to be learned upon and about the hostile surface of the Great Ice Cap. Thus, constant exploration and testing goes on topside as well, to collect and codify information that will someday make the vast frozen wastes less of a mystery to mankind. This research is paying off, but despite the constant mapping and research and the establishment of warning systems which scan the polar sky for the approach of hostile aircraft or missiles, a full understanding of the secrets which lie frozen in the vastness of the Greenland Ice Cap remains for the future to reveal. So today, a chain of common purpose unbroken by national boundaries stretches from Alaska in the West across the wide reaches of Canada and on to Greenland in the East. Denmark, Canada and America working together to form a cordon of united strength across the top of the world.