The Baffin Island Expedition, 1950

Abstract

I venture to begin my paper with a considerable digression on the general subject of exploration in Arctic Canada, and on the problems of expeditionary planning. I believe that this Society last heard of Canadian Arctic exploration in January 1951, when Peter Scott described his expedition to the mouth of the Perry River, and before that it was as far back as the summer of 1948 that Dr. T. T. Paterson spoke on Arctic Canada, at the meeting at which medals were presented to Dr. Camsell, Inspector Larsen and Mr. Manning. Mr. Manning, who was then awarded the Patron's Medal, is now Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Arctic Institute of North America. The Institute, of which I am a staff member, is very youthful in comparison with the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge and even more youthful when com? pared with this Society. But in its brief existence since the end of the last war it has, I believe, done a good deal to stimulate Arctic research in the general area of North America. Mr. Scott's expedition was in fact supported in part by the Arctic Institute, and so was the last Arctic project carried out by Dr. Paterson.