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THE DIFFICULTIES OF 1922 135

days later imagining that they know Canada. It is not
uncommon to find even these “traveled” Canadians re-
ferring to such places as Edmonton or Cochrane as being
in northern Canada. Our Scotchman who depends upon
the map knows better. If you try it out it will be your
experience as it has been mine, that in corresponding
clubs of London and Toronto you will find a far higher
average of members with well grounded opinions about
the whole of Canada in the English club than you will in
the Canadian.

If you remember, then, the principle that ignorance of
the land beyond the frontier is always densest on the
frontier, you will know the fundamental reason why it is
in particular difficult to interest Canadians in an arctic
enterprise and why it is in general difficult to get the
people of any pioneer country to take an interest in parts
of it they have not seen. This explains, at least partly,
why it was that British and American capitalists were
putting money into the building of the Canadian Pacific
Railway at a time when nearly half the people of Canada
itself were firmly convinced of the folly of the enterprise
and passionately opposed to having anybody try it. It is
also a partial explanation of why Canadians of today will
invest money in cattle ranches in the Argentine rather
than reindeer ranches in their own country. It is not
wholly because cattle are an ancient domestic animal and
reindeer new to west Europeans. It is rather because
their frank ignorance of South America has opened
Canadians’ minds to any information about the Argen-
tine, while their limited knowledge of their own country
has prevented them from taking an interest in places not
half so far away or half so difficult to reach.

With American money at last available for carrying

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