 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific story. In the mounting fury of world conflict, events in the Pacific are taking on ever greater importance. Here is the story of the Pacific and the millions of people who live around this greatest sea. The drama of the people whose destiny is at stake in the Pacific war. Here as another public service is the tale of the war in the Pacific, and its meaning to us and to the generations to come. Music Canada on the Pacific. On that steamer. It's impossible. You've got to get me on it. Don't slam your fist on this counter. Who's got a better right? I've been traveling for this Hudson's Bay Company since before you was born. There is room for another man on that steamer. Well, you've got to find room for me. Every one of these men is trying to get passage on that steamer to Langley, and I tell you there's no more space. There's room for me on the top deck somewhere. Gold or no gold, I can't get you on it, and that's all there is to it. That steamer isn't going to pull out a Victoria without me. I'll see Finlayson. Finlayson can't help you any more than I can. Well, I'll see Finlayson. You won't go. Go ahead and see Finlayson. Go ahead. Who is it? It's Grinnick, Mr. Finlayson. Who? Grinnick. Grinnick is perfect. All right, I'll let you in. Look, Mr. Finlayson, you've got to help me get on that steamer to Langley. You're no prospect, Grinnick. You're a trapper. And what have I made out of it? After all the years I've trapped for you in the Hudson's Bay Company, what have I got? Nothing. Mr. Finlayson, you've got to help me get across this straight to Langley. Gold hunters have come here before, Grinnick. But every man in Victoria here is leaving for the gold fields up the Fraser. They've gone gold-crazy. Yeah, and men are coming in every day from the outside. There's a whole tent city growing up outside the stockade. Are you going to be led by the nose by those two Yankee prospects? They must have found some dust. They probably did, a little. And they took it down to San Francisco and did a lot of talking about it. And now just because a mob follows them back up here, why are you... They think they're going to find gold, Mr. Finlayson. They're standing in line, waiting to buy grub at the trading store. They're loading canoes and dugouts and pack horses to go up the river. And they're paying cash for everything they can lay their hands on. But what can they get? The blacksmith has been hounded for picks and shovels and iron ladles. They bought him out. Victoria simply isn't stuck to outfit this mob. But the ones that get up the Fraser River first are going to get the gold. And you've got to help me get on that team at Langley. Hey, Finlayson. We demand that you charter another steamer to get us across the straight to the mainland. Quiet, quiet. We want to get over to the mainland and we're going to get there. Quiet, quiet. We want a steamer, Finlayson. Quiet, how can I get you a steamer? There isn't another one in Victoria. Get one for us. You're a sailor, aren't you? Yes, I've been a seamen all me days. And I'm through with it now. I'm going up to Fraser River. I can't help you. Hosmer, Hosmer. Yeah? Clear these men out of my office. I'm going with them. Yeah? Oh, for me too, I've quit. But you're a clerk, Hosmer. What do you know about prospect? I know as much as the rest of them. And all we want to you, Finlayson, is above. Well, I haven't got one. You're a sailor. Why don't you build yourself a raft? That's a good idea. My father was in Victoria when that happened. Back in 1858. Not much more than a boy he was. Then a month another ship came in with nearly a thousand gold seekers. After that, boats and ships came in every few days, bringing from a hundred to a thousand men each. Victoria grew from a trading post to a wild frontier town. Gold seekers flocked in from every direction. They crossed over the mainland and pushed up into the Fraser River country. Hey, look at that, Monty. The rocks broke off, eh? Yes. The old rock trail sit down into the river. We can't go any further. Yeah, we've got to get through. Take off your shoes. And the only way we can steal over these rocks without slipping and going down into that river is better put it. Now get a mover now. Get moving. Some scrambled along the walls of the river. Some dragged pack animals as far as they could and then abandoned them. Some fought their way up the river in Canoes when they could go no farther. They cashed the canoes in trees or hid them under the moor. They pushed through the wilderness, blazing trees so they could find a way back. Icy winds and snow swept through the mountains. Many fought on until disaster struck them. Some were lost in avalanches of snow, never to be found again. Some pushed on, making camp wherever they could. How much farther do we have to go, Montee? You should have stayed aboard your ship, sailor. If we can't find no gold, it's better that we go back. Others have found it, sailor. But you're a trapper, isn't it? And you, Montee, you've been a prospector all of your life. Well, I'm not going back. But we're running out of food. There's deer and caribou tracks all around us. Throw some water under campfire, sailor. What's going on? Which way are we going now? There's another creek on the other side of that ridge down there. See it? That's a long way. I've seen it to be gravel on both sides of it. Select the fire, sailor. We're moving. All right. All fixed, idiot. They slogged over the ridge, over the rugged ridge, and down into the gravel of the valley. They dug into the gravel and spread it out on the palms of their hands and let it run through their fingers. Look at that. Look at that. There's little pebbles. That's gold. Gold? Give them a wash and pun. Give them a wash and pun. Give it to me. Yeah, yeah. Here. Hey, love me. Really, gal? Hold your tongue. Look. Look at. Look at the gold. Gold, really? More gold than I've ever seen in my life. Look at. Look at. British Columbia. Victoria became the capital. And 13 years later, in 1871, British Columbia joined the Dominion of Canada. This was the beginning. Yes, Captain George Vancouver had taken possession of Vancouver Island three quarters of a century before and Captain Cook had landed on the island years before that. But it was the Fringe River Gold rice that was the birth of Canada on the Pacific. We're a new country out here, a young and strong and promising country. People used to think of us as the back yard to Eastern North America. They forgot we look out over a great ocean. Now many changes have taken place across the Pacific. Great things are happening. The Pacific's battleground. China, the sleeping giant, is rousing. Russia is becoming a power in the Pacific. We're no longer a back yard. We become a front porch looking over the Pacific. One day we may even become the front door to the east itself. This is the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia. Check out below there. Watch it. All right, take it away. Take it away. Hatch number one has failed. We're ready for hatch two. All right, setting down hatch one. Open hatch two. Great activity here. Say, Foreman, what are you loading here? Weat. Swing that blow around. Vancouver here is the world's chief brain port. Foreman, where does this cargo wheat bounce? This cargo? In England. Wouldn't it be cheaper to freight it over land to the east and then ship it across? No, sir. This wheat comes from as far east as Saskatchewan. And still is cheaper to ship it through Vancouver here than it is through the east. All the way down the west coast here and through the Panama Canal? Yes, a matter of fact, we can ship British Columbia lumber from here through the Panama Canal up the Atlantic coast and down the St. Lawrence to Hamilton, Ontario in competition with the lumber cutting Ontario itself. Do you think then that Vancouver may become as important as the big eastern Canadian city? Vancouver here is Canada's third city in size now. And on the way to becoming its leading port, we're already competing with the east for the middle country between them and us. That's important. Take my word for it, Mr. someday Vancouver is going to be the capital of the whole western Canadian empire. Number two hatches already. Excuse me, I've got to get back to work. Vancouver is a great city today. A city of 306,000 people. Yet it's only 58 years old. It came into being when the Canadian Pacific Railroad was built across Canada from Montreal to the Pacific coast. Many people didn't see the value of building that railroad out here. There's no sense to it. There's only 10,000 white people in all British Columbia. Build a railroad across the mountains for them? How do you know a railroad can be built across those mountains? It'll take years if a railroad can be built as long as it has. A railway leading to nowhere. A man named William Van Horn took over the job of building the railroad. At Winnipeg, he started climbing up the clock. We'll need all of it. Coming in so fast, we haven't got a place for it. Grails from England and Germany. Lambo from Minnesota and Rattportage. Stone from Stonewall. Ties from the forests around here. I'm going to build 500 miles of railway this week. My pundits for the season isn't long enough. Before you get organized, you're wasting my time. We'll be laying back across the prairie before. 5,000 men and 1,700 teams worked like mad on the prairie that summer. The days were too short. So Van Horn put on night gang, working by the light of land. Come on, man. Come on, man. Get it going. Bring that paper over here. Go to cross the prairies. In the mountains, they had the real trouble. Look out, that pack fully slipping off the trail. Down there. Mr. Van Horn, I doubt we'll ever be able to put this railroad through here. We've got to put it through. Well, I've built railroads all my days, but I've never seen anything so dangerous and difficult. Every foot of it through solid rock and hard pan. Up through gorges and along narrow ledges like this one. Across mountains, Torrance. I don't know, Mr. Van Horn. The government gave Van Horn 10 years to build the railroad Montreal to the Pacific. He built it in five. Those that drove the last bike were a third round the world. United the nine provinces of Canada since we're nations. And beyond the seas, men saw that a new day had come. China and Japan. The highway of steel to the defense of the nation. This train reached the Pacific from the east in 1885. And where the railroad came to the Pacific, Vancouver was born. And with it, Canada on the Pacific was born. The world became aware of our great mountains, rivers, lakes, of our resources, our western coastline. But it was the completion of the Panama Canal that built up our country here and changed us from the back country of the east to an almost independent region. I look at Vancouver here. Here's a shipping executive. Tell me how important is the Panama Canal to us in western Canada? Well, it's been the making of it. Because of the canal, we can ship a great many products to Europe and the eastern markets that without the canal could never leave the west here. And not only that, the canal has enabled us to ship out experts that the matter, of course, used to go eastward by rail and late to ports on the Atlantic. That's been a big factor It's turned Vancouver from a provincial town into a metropolis. It's made western Canada a rising young... As Vancouver and western Canada grew, people from many lands came here, Sikhs from India, Chinese, Japanese, many Japanese. As far back as 1907 there were riots over the Japanese in Vancouver. Back in 1922 we began controlling Japanese fishermen by licensing them. Long before the war in the Pacific broke out, we were having trouble with the Japanese. Well, if you ask me, there are more Japanese here than there has a right to be. Yes, they're coming in illegally. And since the outbreak of the war in China they're getting more and more arrogant. I say boycott the Japanese. Make it so tough for them, they'll move out. I say that we demand to Japan. Yes. They machine gun the British ambassador to China. How long are we going to put up with them? They're no good for Canada. Well, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police registered the Japanese in British Columbia some 24,000 of them. An investigation was made and they reported that there was no evidence of subversive activities but a number of Japanese were arrested, just the same. Tension ran pretty high after Pearl Harbor and five days later. Sure, they closed all the Japanese language schools and tied up the 1,100 Japanese fishing boats and stopped the Japanese newspapers, but they left the Japanese right down there in the waterfront in full view of our ship traffic, didn't they? Yes, and what about those Japanese farmers around our airport? Yes, and all those Japanese up in the Fraser River Valley, around every one of our big power transmission lines. I say get them out of here. I'm not every last man and woman of Kailash. There were suggestions that the Japanese be moved inland into other provinces, but some of the other provinces wanted them no more than we did. Things were happening fast. Hong Kong was captured. Singapore fell. There were wild rumors about the next Japanese move. Then, on February 18th, the city council, Vancouver, and did you see this in the paper? The city council passed a resolution to remove all Japanese from Vancouver. Oh, by heaven. If the government in Ottawa won't move them out, we will. That's what we should have done in the first place. Nine days later, the government in Ottawa took action. All Japanese were to be restricted and evacuated. They were moved inland. And there's a great question if they'll ever be permitted to move to British Columbia again. Or even to stay in the other provinces where they are now. Most of us out here have made up our minds to send them back to Japan when the war is over. But now our big jobs help win the war. Today, Northwest Canada is playing an important part in the war in the Pacific. We're the link between the heart of the North American continent and the powerful military base of Alaska. Pacific Northwest Alaska, West and Canada and the Northwest in part of the United States is all one strategic area. And the first wartime development out here was the Northwest Staging Room. Sounds like that's it now, sir. I can hear it, but I can't see it. There it is. There it is, sir. See it? It's got big transport. Oh, yes. Yes. You suppose they had trouble finding the airport here at Whitehorse? Well, I hardly think so, sir. After all the time we've been working to get this airport ready. It's been a big job, hasn't it, Muggins? Yes, sir, it has. Not only getting this one ready, but building all those other fields between Whitehorse here and Edmonton. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Big transport they're coming in. Well, it's the first official tour of inspection. All the big wigs. Yes. This is going to be a great air route someday, this Northwest Staging Route. Maybe someday, Muggins, you're going to be proud that you helped build it. Well, I'd like to come in for a landing. Yes. Let's go over to the terminal. Well, how was the trip, Colonel? What would you say, pilot? We were out of snow-capped mountains with deep gorges and porous land, but the weather was great. Yes. How about the navigational aid? With those radio ranges every 200 miles, it's a sink. Good fields you have here at Whitehorse, and all the others between Edmonton and here are just the same. There's a railway link between Canada and the United States and Alaska. Pray that we don't have to fall back on it. I hope we don't have to, Colonel. If we do, it gives us an airway removed from the Pacific coast and fairly free from the possibility of enemy attacks. And in any case, it gives us an air route for the development of this country out here. Things don't look good in the Pacific, Colonel. Well, pray they don't. Thank heavens we've got them this far. That was in 1941. Three months later, it came to the port, come to the Pacific. Come right to our own doorstep. Alaska had become more important than ever before. We knew it might be attacked. We knew that in defending Alaska, we here in western Canada were defending our own advanced base. We set about expanding our facilities on the northwest station. Every man possible is working on our construction gang. We're enlarging our airport, improving ground and air communication and putting up living accommodations in other buildings. Time was short, and we knew it. If the Japanese should get control of the seas, our northwest staging route would be the only supply route to Alaska. Then arrangements were made to build the Alaska Highway, an inland route to Alaska. With our airway, we helped lay out the highway across mountains where muskeg swarms move far. Cutting crews of the United States Army hewed their way through foot by foot. Behind them came tractors to drag off the trees, moldovers to grade the surface, digging machines to sink drainage ditches, construction crews to build 700 bridges. From Dawson Creek to Fairbanks, Alaska, they built this military artery 1500 miles long in six months. And hardly had to finish it when the first convoy of trucks rolled over. Northwestern Canada up into Alaska, it was not too soon. The Japanese struck a Dutch harbor in the Aleutians, took Kisker, that too. Alaska had become a great forward base. The northwest staging route and the Alaska Highway had become military arteries to the Pacific front. The highway and the staging route which run almost parallel the use of the highway is greatly facilitating the completion and maintenance of the staging route. The Americans have gained control of the eastern Pacific and supplies are now going to Alaska by the sea route and the Juno Cut-Off. The Alaska Highway is being used to service the air bases of the northwest staging route. Air power is growing in northwest Canada. If the development of Canada on the Pacific is the story of the development of transportation the development of shipping building a railroad the development of the northwest staging route the Alaska Highway and now our air power is growing. This is the boundary base field in British Columbia. That young chap there just won his wings. Where are you from last time? I'm from New Zealand sir. I'm here to learn to fly into the British Commonwealth Air Trading Plant, is it? Yes sir. But first I had a five-week preliminary course in mathematics, mechanics and air armaments at another field. Now that you have your wings you'll probably be shipped out pretty soon. Probably, yes sir. But after the war I'm coming back up here. Great opportunity, sir. Yes sir. I've flown over most of this country and I've got an idea that aviation is going to be the big thing up here. It's rugged country of course but there are mines and industries and forests like I've never seen before. This whole country is a natural for air transport and travel and someday I'm coming back up here. For the first time people are looking up here to this great northwest. One of these days now the attention of the whole world will be on the Pacific. The war in Europe will be over and the world trade will shift in this direction. The war has already taught us that this is all one strategic area Canada, the United States and Alaska. And now world observers are looking forward to what lies ahead. Across the Pacific Alaska's on the Great Circle air route from almost everywhere in North America to almost everywhere in Asia. Yes. That's the basis of our post-war planning. The international airlines will go through northwest Canada here. That's right. And that'll mean the development of the Arctic Frontiers of Canada and Soviet Russia. The air transport has already made Asianic Russia a neighbor of ours. It'll make it more so in the post-war world the northwest staging route will become the air highways of the future. And over these routes great transport will bring us some direct contact. I guess we're about ready to take off. Yes, they took on 40 more passengers here. Beautiful airport they have here in Edmonton. That's your first trip over this line? I haven't been up this way much since the close of the Second World War. Most of the airports on this route to Asia are about like this. Commited even the biggest airliners. Yes, the airports in Alaska and Siberia are just about the same. Where are you bound for? From Moscow. Just open an office there. I'm going down to Babe Ting. I'll get over here every few weeks. You do quite a bit of flying over this way too, don't you? Yes. I'm going down to Tokyo and then jump over to New Delhi and up to Lake Baikal for a little vacation. Our development has been more and more in this direction the last few years and I expect to be making this trip every month or so now. And you haven't been over Siberia in the last few years? No, not since the end of the Second World War. And you've got something to see. Great country. Not only Siberia, but this whole country is through here. From here on up to northwest Canada and Alaska. All aboard. Flight 47 for Alaska. Siberia, China and India. All aboard. Come on, let's get aboard. Good morning, gentlemen. Everything all right with you? Yes, everything's fine. How's the weather at Commodore? We don't pay any attention to the weather anymore. Well, see you next trip, Commodore. You bet. I'll be looking for you. One of the officials of this airline, is he? Yes. One of the top executives. New Zealander. They're flying to British Columbia during the Second World War. Said he was coming back after it was over and here he is. Brought western Canada to the doorstep of the world. We've seen it come. We Canadians here on the Pacific. And now we're watching the development of air power. We come a long way in a short time. This year is gone. We've seen the magic of the transformation brought about by the Transcontinental Railroad and by our shipping since the opening of the Panama Canal. But now, our forests and mountains reverberate with the drone of aircraft motors. This is the music of the future for Canada on the Pacific. Through air power, western Canada will be developed and take its place in the great era of the Pacific. Rise ahead. You have been listening to the Pacific Story presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations as a public service to clarify events from the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of the Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in Stamford Corn to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. We repeat, for a reprint of the Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in Stamford Corn to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The story is written and directed by Arnold Marquess. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Paluso. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is the National Broadcasting Company.