10

———————e

“Boss of the Arctic’

Meet Captain Voronin

By YURI KONOVALOV

MOSCOW.

Cyan VLADIMIR VORONIN, whose name is a
; byword up North, received me in the cabin of the
icebreaker. Seated at his desk surrounded by a mass
of charts of recently explored regions, family portraits
and navigation instruments, he looked more like a sci-
entist than a seaman. Before him lay books, drawings
and manuscripts. The oilskin and the heayy boots he
Wears when on duty were all that betrayed his true
calling.

You wouldn’t give him more than 40, although actu-
ally he is 54. Vladimir Voronin was born and bred in a
little village on the shores of the White Sea inhabited
by fishermen and seafarers—rough, tall, broadshouldered
men, who have retained some of the physical attributes
of their distant forebears, the Novogord warriors who
landed on these deserted shores some 800 years ago.
These hardy seasiders have won a reputation as skilled
navigators and fearless explorers.

Captain Voronin is one of them. His open face with
its sandy moustache is familiar to all inhabitants of the
Soviet Aretic from the Kola shores to the Bering Strait
and from Cape Chelyuskin to the northernmost latitudes
of the Polar basin.

The icebreaker on which our interview took place
was preparing to set out on a new voyage to meet an
Allied convey which ceuld not navigate the ice without
its aid.

“This will be my 44th year of navigation in the Arc-
tic,” said Vladimir Voronin. “I was a lad of 10 when I
made my first trip on my- father’s fishing schooner in the
White Sea. I remember the Arctic as Sverdrup and
WNordenskjoeld knew it, the Arctic that was subdued by
brave men like Nansen and Amundsen, Sedov and Rusa-
nov. In those days you would be sure to encounter white
bears there much more often than ships. Now the tra-
ditional white bear has given way to Soviet vessels pene-
trating further and further into the Arctic. There isn’t
a single area today that hasn’t been reached by our
icebreakers and transports. We are the masters of the
Arctic, but what with its fogs, storms and icebergs, it
gives us plenty of trouble. However, that can’t be helped.
Every large house means trouble for its owner.”

HE Arctic is life itself to Voronin. He has sailed over
the Great Northern Sea Route so often that its ice-
fields are as familiar to him as the rugs on the floor of his
own home. He plied it on the Sibiryakov in 1932 and on
the Chelyuskin in 1933. For several years he convoyed
vessels through its icebound waters as captain of the
jcebreaker Yermak, and later in command of the splen-
did new icebreaker Joseph Stalin.

“Talking of the Arctic, the struggle with the elements
and the difficult but never boring work there,” the cap-
tain said, “you cannot help thinking of those who dedi-
cated themselves to its study and in so doing risked their
lives and often sacrificed them for the sake of science
and progress.

“T met Sverdrup when he set out on the Eclipse in
search of the Sedov expedition. In Troms I met Amund-
sen and was amazed by the passion with which this
gallant Norwegian spoke of the day when the blank
spots of the map would vanish and the secrets of the
Arctic would be revealed to every schoolboy.

GS

Speaking of his war experiences, the captain ob-
served that “for us and for our friends this war is the
road to peace. We shall stick to this road until the end.
We are the masters of the Arctic, as the Germans have
had ample opportunity to realize. Not so long ago I had
occasion to guide a convoy through the Polar latitudes.
The Germans tried to disrupt the operation. When the
German scout plane appeared overhead. we knew what
to expect. : :

“The U-boats were not long in coming. But we were
prepared for them. The men of the signals service knew
their job well and the appliances on board the convoy
vessels helped us to lecate the enemy without delay.
The result was that we attacked the Germans imstead
of them attacking us.

Just then the captain was summoned to the bridge
and the interview was at an end. The icebreaker was
ready to put to sea. Vladimir Voronin, the “boss of the
Arctic” as his sailors call him, was about to launch on

a new Arctic year.

Old Route
Highway
To ook

BOMBAY

OW a camel track centuries
old has been remodeled inte

a broad motor highway over
which 7,000 tons of supplies are
rolling every month from India
to the Soviet Urtion has just been
disclosed by the Agency-General
for India. The route has brought
India’s resources to within a
week’s road journey from the

southern border of the Soviet
Union.
It is the East Persia route,

built swiftly but secretly by a
pick-and-shovel army of 30,000
men, women and children from
Yahidan near the Iranian-Balu-
chistan frontier through Iran to
Bajgiran. It was constructed
mainly as an alternate to the
West Persian railroad route from
the Persian Gulf, in case that
were cut by the German Army.
Now it supplements it.

Although it has been in use
for many months, only now have
the facts of its construction and
statistics of traffic been pub-
lished. :

A few years before the war the
Soviet Union built a railway line
to the Iranian frontier. Iran ad-
joins Baluchistan, a country
within the borders of India and

under British domination. A

- railway line runs from Zahidan

te Quetta in Baluchistan, con-
necting there with a line to the
Indian port of Karachi.

Countless camels had worn 2
rough way over rock and sand
from Zahidan northwest, then
northeast through Iran to the
Soviet border. It was 800 miles
long, but of this only about 200
miles was passable for trucks.

The job was to build a motor
highway over the other 600 miles
of mountain and desert, some of
the mountains being 7,000 feet
high.

Since no machinery was avail-.

able it had to be made entirely
“by hand.” But haste was ad-
visable, since a German push in
the Soviet Union might have cut
the west Persian route.

HE job was completed in

eight months, an average of
three miles a day. Four foreign
eontracting firms, represented
respectively by a Dane, a Nor-
wegian, a Czech and an Austral-
ian, built the road with the
assistance of Greek, Yugoslav,
Belgian, Russian, Turk, Italian,
Bulgar and Rumanian super-
visors. Workers were recruited
from Iranian towns and villages.
Water and food for men and
beasts were carried by camel.

Mountain passes had to be
widened. In one valley eight
miles of raised roadway was laid
with 12-foot _protection ditches
to divert flood waters. In winter
it was difficult to work because
of the intense cold in the moun-
tain passes and the snow drifted
by a constant north wind. In
summer the temperature reach-
ed 130 degrees, which compelled
2 long noonday stop.

Now, it is said, the quantity of
jute, rubber, Hessian iron and
Steel, copper, tin and mercury
that India can send to the Soviet
Union is limited only by the
number of available trucks.

The political effects of the
route may be lasting. A round
trip can now be made in ten
days. The first such link between
India and the Soviet Union, it
represents a practical means of
fulfilling the perspectives open-
ed up by the Teheran agreement.

Continued from Page Nine

= and cellulose fiber which can be

"is wasted annually in British Col-

Plastics Industry —
for British Columb:

inereased and encouraged.

In this way, the dream ma
come a reality, and we wil
materials now dumped on :
heaps become the necessit:
life tomorrow.

The Industrial Reconstr:
and Social Development ¢,
cil, set up at a conference j;
ted by B:.C€. shipyard unions:
cussed the problems at f=
and adopted several per:
resolutions, among them: :
@ That steps be taken to

mote production and fa:

true plasties are the new types
of resin-impregnuated plyweods

manufactured here in quantity.”
And the provincial govern-
ment’s Postwar Rehabilitation
Council, in its interim report,
states bluntly that: :
“Thousands of tons of lignin

umbia. Use of this lignin in the
manufacture of cellulose plastics
would be worth untold sums to
Canada as a whole. We have
been accustomed to think of
wood as “boards,” and that any tion of light alloys and
material which will not make tics in British Columbia,
good boards is waste. Under this ® Tat iecisiative achonhe

ancient formula, only a small part fa Avanea oxpoeimeni!
of the gross wood volume in our

forests is ever utilized. In the aimed at establishment
form of plastics, wood loses its developement of the p

industry. :
identity and the total wood vol- > Sau
ume in the tree becomes a valu- And speaking of new inc

able commercial product.” for the province as a wholi

ference brief ended

In other words, everybody _ con 5 5 ;
seems to be agreed that a plas- HS ee ean a
ties industry for B.C. is a good ve Sita niin pepete ft ane
thing. And oddly enough, every- ae a eee tO eC a eee
body seems to be agreed upon “<2, 7. 4
the methods the people of B.C. ANSTR We FSOERE END)

must use to establish a thriving eae ONCE eee

OL, 5 joint planning by governme:
: E dustry and labor for the pi
Bese the people must be uni- of pooling these resources, |
ted in their efforts. Laber, machinery, capital and dete
capital and the provincial gov- ation. : : 4
ernment must work together on “The best way in which y
the job. be citizens of British Col
Second, all conditions which to the full is by being ¢
limit development of the indus- of the world, conscious o
try in any section of the country, national and internation
thus leading to unfair competi- sponsibilities.” \
tion, must be removed. And development of in
Third, research sponsored by on the Coast is one of ow
government departments mustbe responsibilities.

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