The centennial of the Province of Manitoba is something more than a centenarian's birthday. For the truth was that Manitoba, unlike the North-West Territories, which came into existence at the same time, had no good reason for coming into being in 1870. The administration of a territory might have been possible with the resources of the day. but the administration of a province certainly was not.

Northern Canada consists of two political subdivisions. Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories. Some 3.8 million km2 of land and the large continental shelf lie north of lat 60°N, which is the southern boundary of the two territories. The land area comprises 40 per cent of the whole of Canada. Distances are great, topography varies from flat plains and muskeg to high mountains, and variations in temperature are extreme. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, the north is a land of great change and rapid development, particularly in the field of mineral exploitation. It was once considered that these territories were destined to remain a producer of precious metals only—commodities of high unit value. The turning point in mining developments came in November 1964, when the first shipment of ore from the Pine Point lead-zinc deposits marked the start of the tremendous and continuing surge forward in mining development. The oil and gas industry has also shown a keen interest in the potential of northern Canada in recent years and the sedimentary basins are all but covered with oil and gas exploration permits. A significant gas strike has been made in the Arctic archipelago and, far away in the south-west corner of the Northwest Territories, a major gas pool is being developed in the Pointed Mountain area.

Judging from the common idea of the church calendar, a witty French meteorologist remarked, the saints of paradise are not above busying themselves in interfering with the weather and, sometimes, with each other's influence. The idea of associating weather with times and season is an old one, and, in Europe, goes back probably to the Middle Ages. It arose, no doubt, through the observation of more or less regular recurrences of certain kinds of weather and by the attribution of such recurrences, first to the gods, then, as Christianity spread, to the saints of the church.

The following pages, the beginning of a series, are the first results of a chronological compilation of expeditions and historical events that will eventually embrace the entire Arctic and sub-Arctic area. We began work on the Canadian segment of the Northern Hemisphere in 1968, with financial support from the History Division of the National Museum of Man, a part of the National Museums of Canada in Ottawa. The History Division is allowing this form of preliminary publication of the work it has supported in the expectation of securing corrections and additions to it, thereby enhancing the usefulness and authority of the list in its final form. The Canadian list, when it is published in full, will carry bibliographical references to each expedition and event, an alphabetical roster of persons known to have participated in the expeditions listed, a roster of ships' names, and a regional and topical index.