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The Soviet North, encompassing about 4 million square miles or almost 50 per cent of the total land area of the Soviet Union, is roughly comparable in area to the total land area of Canada. It is exceedingly rich in natural resources and development of these northern regions is most important and necessary to the over-all development of the Soviet Union. As in the Canadian North, long distances, difficult access, and severe climate and terrain conditions, notably permafrost which underlies about one half of the land area of both countries, pose many difficult engineering and construction problems. Northern technology is essentially the same in both countries, there being no basic differences. Large hydro-electric, mining, oil and gas, and industrial projects have been or are being developed. Living conditions are now being improved and multi-storey dwellings are being constructed in new towns and also during redevelopment of their older cities and communities in Siberia., Annual Meeting of the Canadian Construction Association, January 29, 1973, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

This report consists of a complete reproduction of the field notes of the authors made while they participated in the survey for the new site for the town of Aklavik during the summer of 1954.

About one half of the total land area of Canada is underlain by perennially frozen ground, more commonly known as permafrost, and as development moves northward consideration must be given to this feature of the terrain. This Digest briefly describes permafrost and its characteristics and discusses problems related to foundation design in permafrost areas.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the various procedures and techniques that may be used in engineering soil surveys to obtain representative samples of perennially frozen ground in northern areas, so that subsurface conditions may be adequately determined.

During September 1954, at the request of Mr. McMillan, Superintendent, Norman Wells Refinery, one bore hole was drilled at each of two proposed development sites in the Imperial Oil Limited camp area to supply information on the soil and permafrost conditions. However, general statements of soil and permafrost conditons at Norman Wells cannot be made since only one bore hole was drilled at each site. The results are therefore reported as logs of the bore holes with test results where samples were obtained.

A relatively small (4" dia. X 12") ground temperature recording instrument which can run unattended for up to one year has been developed by DBR/NRC and is described in this paper., Reprinted from the Canadian Geotechnical Journal, November 1966, vol. 3 (4), p. 246-250.