 The National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations present the Pacific Story. This is the story of the Pacific, the drama of the millions of people who live around this greatest sea, where the United States is now committed to a long-term policy of keeping the peace. This is the story of the situation in the Pacific, of the men and events which are today influencing the shape of the world for generations to come. Canada, looks to the west, are washing the shores of a new Canada, where the rolling waves of the Pacific were cut by hundreds of ships making the ports of Canada before the war. They were cut by tens of thousands during the war. Canada looks to the west, across the broad Pacific to the islands and lands beyond. In the space of six years, the Canadian West made decades of progress, developed from the coastal fringe of the Pacific, deep into the land of the Great Timber, the rivers, the lakes, the gold, the oil, the uranium. In the space of six years of war, Canada became one of the great nations of the world. Canada won her place on the battlefield. She is now the fourth most potent fighting power among the United Nations. Canada won her place at sea. She now has the third largest and strongest navy. Canada won her position in commerce. She is now one of the three great trading nations of the world, and of equal and perhaps greater significance are two other wartime developments. Canada not only shares the secret of the atomic bomb of the United States and Britain, but has one of the richest radium and uranium sources in the world. Western Canada grew up during the war. Roads, air bases, port facilities, railways were built. Traffic flowed through Western Canada. Men, war equipment, supplies. The Northwest became a bridge to Asia. Engineers uncovered vast resources showed that this vast wealth will play an important part in Canada's future as a world power. On the coast, the port cities boomed. This is Vancouver. Jay DeLars, this is the first time I saw it 12 years ago. Well, yes. Let's see, that was 1934, wasn't it? That's right. Well, in the preceding year, Vancouver's production amounted to something like $55 million. Ten years later, it was something like 288 million. Increase of, let's see, something like 400%. Mmm, remarkable. A good part of that was the result of the war, wasn't it? Yes, but now the war's over. And you can see for yourself what's going out on these ships. Yes. Back from the harbor of Vancouver teams with industry. Great boundaries, machine shops, sugary fineries, cable factories, packing plants, marine engine shops, trucks, factories, airplane plants, breweries, brick and tile ovens, furniture shops. Along the waterfront, the great sawmills and shipyards. Yes, different from the place I saw 12 years ago. You see, the opening of the Panama Canal made Vancouver the distributing base for western Canada. Goods brought through the canal were unloaded here and distributed throughout western Canada. Now, with Canada looking to the west, Vancouver's becoming a distributing centre for trade from Asia and all over the Pacific. That's why there are so many more ships here now. That's right. Last year, nearly two-thirds of all the vessels arriving at all the big ports of Canada were recorded right here. You mean that more rivals were recorded here, the port of Vancouver, than all the other great ports of Canada put together? Yes, twice as many. Inland, from the port of Vancouver, 600 miles to the northeast, on the prairies of Alberta is Edmonton. The fur trading post established here, on the North Saskatchewan River in 1795, is now a thriving city, the gateway to the north. There's coal here and oil. And Edmonton is the main marketing outlet for the bountiful agriculture of northern Alberta. But what has made Edmonton important in the war years is its location. Look at that airfield. This is one of the main air bases on the air route to Alaska in Soviet Russia during the war. The low-leaf planes were fairly true here, up to Fairbanks, Alaska, where the Russian pilots took them over and flew them across Beering State into Siberia. That is why you've made this such a great air base. We had to. When Canada entered the war in 1939, we had only 70 planes here on this airport. During the war, we were handling more than 5,000 flights a month. 5,000 a month? Yes, and we could have handled 10,000. Well, I came here 12 years ago there. Well, there couldn't have been more than a dozen or so planes here. The runway were all these strips. I'd almost forgotten they were ever that small. Will there be enough air traffic here, now that the war's over, to warrant this enormous air base? With more and more of the air route going over the Great Circle route to Asia, and with many projected air routes going over to the north pole, it's likely that Edmonton will become something of a permanent international air center. Actually, Edmonton is more the gateway to the north now than ever before. During the war, Edmonton was the southern terminus of the Alaska Highway, hewn through the wilderness to Alaska. Roads from all directions converge on Edmonton, and the Alaska Highway snakes out to the northwest to make its way through timber and bus keg country to Fairbanks. By road and by air, Edmonton became the connecting link between Alaska and the United States. North of Edmonton stretches the Athabasca River, north to Lake Athabasca, and north of this, into the Great Mackenzie Country flows the Slave River, into Great Slave Lake. This is the way I came to the Mackenzie Country that first time. Yellowknife on the north shore of Great Slave Lake was born a boom town. Yellowknife is the biggest settlement in the Kenzie District. That's so, and it started the year after I was up here the first time. Yes, back in 1935. Yes, sir, it was right back in there that the gold was discovered. People flooded in here. Something like the Klondike Gold, I suppose. No, no, no, nothing like that. Everything was lawful and orderly. We built a town up here on this rocky peninsula here, overlooking Yellowknife Bay. By 1941 we had six producing gold mines here, but by 1942 we were so short of labor that we had to close down a while. A bunch of us stayed on, though. Are all these people old-timers, these people coming in here? Yeah. No, no, there are new people coming in here all the time. You see, there was a gold rush, a second one here to 1944. Oh, yes, that's when those new discoveries were reported. That's right, upon the Great Yellowknife property. And that's what started people coming back. I heard about that. Oh, you never saw anything like it. Everybody came up here full of optimism, as if they couldn't help making a fortune, and quite a few of them did pretty well. Well, it's pretty lonely place for those who didn't make out, isn't it? What do you mean? Well, after all, Yellowknife here is only a small dot of civilization on this great McKenzie wilderness. It can't be more than 400 miles from the Ark Circle. Well, it's not as lonely up here as it might seem. Plains land here almost every day from Edmonton and Fort Smith. You see, there's one of them up there now. Mm-hmm. Matter of fact, the Royal Canadian Air Force uses this field here as one of the bases to fly supplies out to those army units in exercise muskox. Drop the supplies by parachute, isn't it? Yes. But Yellowknife here doesn't have to depend on aircraft or supplies, does it? Oh, Lord, no. In the summer, boats bring supplies in here almost every week. South and west of the Gold Town of Yellowknife, the McKenzie River flows out of Great Slave Lakes northwestward to the Arctic Ocean. Right, brother, back there. Right, brother, go! The McKenzie winding through the majestic wilderness is one of the 10 great river systems of the world. For hundreds of years, the white man has been flying this magnificent river. For thousands of years before the white man came, other men used it. Hello, sir. We've been booting up and down the McKenzie here all the years of my life. 40 years or more. Right, brother, back there. Right, brother, go! The McKenzie waterway with its river and lakes is 2,500 miles long, a distance almost equal to the width of Canada. It drains an area of 700,000 square miles. In all of North America, the McKenzie has only exceeded in length and drainage area by the Mississippi and the Missouri system in the United States. Aye, sir, I've buried everything up this river that you can think of. We bring down the first. They've been doing that on this river for 150 years, and we bring up supplies. Aye, sir, everything from mining machinery to ladies' corsets. Left rudder back there. Left rudder, go! Well, it's changed very little in the last 12 years. Aye, the river hasn't changed much. It's still deep most of the way and there's still the low water places. That's why these boats have got to be built to get through the low water to still buck the rough swells in the lakes and carry enough power to push up stream against the six-mile current. Yeah. How many months of the year can you plow the river? Oh, four or five months at least. We'll be getting into Fort Providence right soon now. Yes. You see, what this is is really a freight line. We packed a massive freight up this river during the war not only off the Mackenzie alone, but up all the tributaries. And chances are we'll be packing a good deal for many years to come. Oh, there's four providence ahead of us there. Forty miles up the Mackenzie River from Great Slave Lake is Fort Providence, outpost of civilization in the wilderness. 150 miles farther up the river is Fort Simpson. First air plane landed on skis here at Fort Simpson 25 years ago. They've been landing up here ever since. But we still hold most of the freight. 150 miles beyond Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie is the trading post of Wrigley. Wrigley's been here a long time. Trappers bring their furs in here and we carry them down the river. 160 miles above Wrigley at the confluence of the Mackenzie and the Great Bear River is Fort Norma. On the right, brother. Another 60 miles or so and we'll be getting into Great Bear Lake. We must be getting very near the Arctic Circle. The Arctic Circle runs right through it. A little more than 100 miles north of here. Great distances, wind swept and subarctic. Rivers and lakes that have been icy cold for ages overhung with the sky the color of lead. 60 miles eastward on the Great Bear River into Great Bear Lake sprawling between the low lying hills four great peninsulas jut into the lake. Four peninsulas like fingers from all directions pointing into the icy waters. Across the 200 mile wind swept expanse of the lake is Fort Radium. I've namely been discovered your radium here back in 1930. What could he have been doing a way up here more than a thousand miles into the wilderness? Well, he was flying over the lake. I see. They land float planes here in summer and planes with skis in winter. Well, then this labine looked over the terrain from the ground and result was mining operations were started here. Named it the El Dorado Mine. Now this mine's been in operation ever since? No, no, it had to close down in 1939. But we opened it again two years later. To get uranium for the atomic bomb? Yes, then of course since then we've expanded operations. See, this makes this spot here in the wilderness one of the most important places in the world, doesn't it? Well, yes. The El Dorado Mine on the shore of Great Bear Lake in Canada's northwest works most of the day and night. The pitch-blend ore from which uranium is extracted is mucked out, pulverized, loaded on barges and hauled across Great Bear Lake. Over Great Bear River, 500 miles and more up the Mackenzie River to Great Slave Lake. And then passage 500 miles to Prince Rupert. Look at that harbor. Ever see anything like it? It's beautiful, completely landlocked and free of wind and storm. I remember it's big enough to anchor the entire British fleet at one time, isn't it? That's right. You see the large vessels at anchor over there? Deep enough to accommodate the largest vessels on Earth at high tide or low tide. What a panorama this is. Look at the city, cute. See, it almost doubled in size during the war. You see, Prince Rupert here is 500 miles closer to the Orient than any other port in the Western Hemisphere. I remember how impressed I was the first time I was here. Well, this port was developed to promote the Grand Trunk Pacific. Oh, yes, yes. The idea was to link the Indian River Valleys, the Schene, the Kispiok, the Copper, the Boatley River Valleys with the Pacific. And in so doing, to link Canada's great west through Prince Rupert with the Orient. Well, that was a long-range plan, but it was realized when World War II came. We've been docking in for over an hour, docking in for over an hour, docking in for over an hour. Through Prince Rupert, war supplies flowed out to the fighting fronts of the Pacific. The U.S. Transportation Corps alone pushed more than a million and a half tons of supplies through the port of Prince Rupert, everything from bulldozers for the Alaska Highway to jeeps for Kiska and that, too. Everything from food and medical supplies to 100,000 tons of high explosives. With the war over, Prince Rupert is ready to assume its new importance as an outlet to the Pacific. You see, we have not only sites for canaries and pulp mills and sawmills and for many other kinds of industries, but we have unlimited water power resources. And that, with what we have, means progress. From Prince Rupert to Vancouver, 500 miles southward among the islands, strewn along the coasts like the stars of the Milky Way, southward by the numberless inlets, yards that flash the shoreline, southward between Great Vancouver Island and the mainland, by the ships carrying cargo to and from Canada. These are the Pacific sea lanes. Here, Canada looks south over the Pacific. These are the trade lanes. So you're back to Vancouver, eh? Yes, I'm back. And I can hardly believe what I've seen. Canada's color, eh? Yes, sir. When I was here the first time, I was scared of being in operation. Right, sir. Spang up almost overnight during the war. In British Columbia alone, something like $155 million worth of shipping was churned out in one year. And a good part of that was done in these yards you see right here. I've seen the ships built here all over the world. Yes. The ships we build here have traveled the globe. And now many of them are carrying our product. Instead of war supplies and men across the Pacific. The key to all this development seems to be communication. Yes, communication. Ships moving in and out of our ports, boats on our great river systems, and aircraft, linkers with the other parts of Canada, with the United States, and Alaska, and with the nations across the sea. So Vancouver here has also become an air terminal. Yes. The airline that started here between Vancouver here and Seattle, a distance of 122 miles, now operates more than 5,000 miles of air route. Uh-huh. It spans the Dominion from coast to coast, from the Arctic to the American border. It now flies something like 10 million miles a year. It's not counting the service across the Atlantic. Oh, this line can't be more than 9 or 10 years old. It'll be 10 years old next spring. It was started by an act of parliament. The object was to develop Canada by tying together the communities scattered across the 3,000 miles of the Dominion. I see. But it had hardly hit its stride when the war came. It was immediately converted to war operation. And even though it was developed at the time when there were shortages of both men and materials, it became during the war one of the great airlines of the world. And now it's being used for peacetime development, the purpose for which it was created. Yes. The war did for aviation here, what it did for our port and our industries and our great natural resource. In the war, Canada grew up. The waters of the Pacific are washing the shores of the new Canada, where a few enterprising men had come centuries ago to probe the wilderness and seek their fortunes on the frontiers. Thousands came during the war. They came to work on the streams, on the lakes, in the mountains, in the timberlands, in the mines, in the cities, the towns, the villages, in the industries, in the ships at sea and in the airplanes roaring through the skies. They came to work and to fight and to look out over the broad Pacific to the future. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the crosscurrents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send 10 cents in stamps or coin to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story is written and produced by Arnold Marquess. The musical score was conducted by Henry Russell. Your narrator, Gaine Whitman. Programs in this series of particular interest to servicemen and women are broadcast overseas through the Worldwide Pacific Broadcasting Company and the National Broadcasting Company. You have been listening to the Pacific Story program and women are broadcast overseas through the Worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. This program came to you from Hollywood. This program was heard in Canada through the facilities of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.