adapted to frontier activities and by the confining of

settlement to areas in which the least possible disturbance

to the pursuits of the established mative population is
likely to occur.

Population Possibilities

Opinions as to the population potential of this area
of 1,000,000 square miles have varied widely, from extrava-
gant forecasts, running to millions, to pessimistic views

as to the capacity of the country to support a substantial
permanent population.

The ultimate capacity of a country to attract and maitv
tain population cannot be assessed on its productivity in
the conditions and circumstances obtaining at any given
time. It depends on the future pressure of population on
land, national policies in immigration and colonization, and
the standards of living acceptable to incoming people,
which vary with times and conditions. On a purely
subsistence basis, which is the condition under which the
vast majority of the peoples of the world live and have their
economic being, the Pacific Northwest country would
support many millions, but it is very unlikely that any
development in human affairs will bring about anything

approaching such a situation in this region in the discernible
future.

On the other hand, this country is rich in natural wealth,
and there is no part of it that is not comfortably habitable
or that cannot be made so. It might be argued that these
more northerly areas are less attractive climatically and
socially than the more densely settled southern sections, and
less accessible from a point of transportation. The section
of this report dealing with meteorology will disprove many
erroneous ideas as to the climate of the area, while progress
in land and air transportation and in communications is
rapidly eliminating social as well as physical handicaps.

It is therefore thought fair to assume, having in mind
that the prime development in the three Prairie Provinces
has taken place within the present century, that the normal
pressure of population on land and opportunity will,
in the discernible future, operate to bring the agricultural
lands in this area, with their complementary industries,
including mining, to a population density similar to the
present density of the agricultural lands of the Prairie
Provinces, with their complementary industries.

On this basis, the computation would be 390,000 for
the North Pacific Region, which includes the 110,000
now domiciled there. This is the minimum, and assumes
no mineral or other projects of greater magnitude than
have developed in the three Prairie Provinces. It takes no
account of the industrial stimulus afforded by the long
Pacific coastline with its doorway to the Orient, of the
potential in the deep-sea fisheries and the great Coast
forests facing on the sea. Moreover, the estimate of
agricultural land is undoubtedly low, since the land char-
acteristics of much of the interior have never been assessed.

{16}

Also, the establishment of stations for the operation of
weather, forest protection, communication, defence, and
other functions of government will be vastly increased.
On the point of transportation it might be noted that the
greater part of this area, notably the Peace River section
and contiguous sections in British Columbia, is open to
future channels of transportation that will place it closer
to ocean ports than almost all of the agricultural lands of
the Prairie Provinces. It seems reasonable therefore to
expect, for the discernible future, say by 1975, a population
of at least 500,000 for the North Pacific Region of Canada. .
It is within the range of possibility that this figure might
be doubled. :

All investigations of population possibilities are based
upon the area of cultivable land. A number of estimates
and many guesses have been made of the population that
Canada might support. Two of them have been more
detailed than others, namely, one by Professor East for the
International Institute of Agriculture and one by Diamond
Jenness, of the National Museum.

Each of these investigations uses a basic figure of about
150,000,000 acres as the available area of cultivable land
in Canada. Professor East, using western Europe as his
example, estimates that 2-5 acres of arable land per capita
are required to permit a standard of living approaching
that of the United States. By an entirely different method
of approach, Mr. Jenness, using the same basic figure for
arable land, arrives at a figure of 4-3 acres per capita.

Taking now an estimate of 15,000,000 acres of cultivable
land in our northwestern region, it is possible to arrive by
Professor East’s method at a population of 6,000,000, and
by Mr. Jenness’ method a population of about 3,500,000
people for this region.

As the country with which we are dealing may be
classed as marginal from the point of view of settlement in
Canada generally, and therefore not likely to have as high
a density of population as elsewhere, it would. be fair to
assume that 3,500,000 would be too high a figure. On
the other hand, the figure given in the section on agriculture,
namely 500,000, while acceptable for the discernible future,
would appear to be too low as an ultimate figure, because
the basis of comparison and calculation is that of the Prairie
Provinces with their population as it is today, and not what
these Provinces are ultimately capable of supporting.
Somewhere between these two extremes may lie the
ultimate figure.

Natives —Within the North Pacific Region, as desig-
nated, there are about 19,459 Indians and 866 Eskimos.
The Indian population is fairly uniformly distributed
throughout the fur-bearing areas of the Mackenzie basin,
Yukon, and northern British Columbia. The fur industry
depends substantially on this Indian population for its
basic production.

The Eskimos live principally on the northern fringe
of the mainland and the coasts of the Arctic Islands. They