The northern part of Canada is probably the most isolated, sparsely populated, and inaccessible land mass in the northern hemisphere. The Yukon and Northwest Territories comprise an area of 1½ million sq. miles and contain only 34,000 people, 8,300 of whom are Eskimo. Into this vast area only one navigable river penetrates, and the sea lanes around its perimeter are open for only three months in the year. This isolation and scarcity of people are reflected in the following comments of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects: “In the whole of the Northwest Territories…the military bases, mining camps, trading posts and administrative centres are hardly more than pin-pricks in the surrounding bush and muskeg and barrens. There will be important economic development in this area in the years to come. But it would take the ruthlessness of a Peter the Great to plant any large centres of population there.”