Note 621 — Chapter X · —Man's Relation To The Water

The economy of the water is not confined to its artificial distribution over arid fields, but includes also the exploitation of the mineral and animal resources of the vast world of waters, whether the production of salt from the sea, salt lakes and brine springs, the cultivation of oyster beds, or the whole range of pelagic fisheries. The animal life of the water is important to man owing not only to its great abundance, but also to its distribution over the coldest regions of the globe. It furnishes the chief food supply of polar and sub-polar peoples, and therefore is accountable for the far-northern expansion of the habitable world. Even the reindeer tribes of Arctic Eurasia could hardly subsist without the sea food they get by barter from the fishermen of the coast. Norway, where civilization has achieved its utmost in exploiting the limited means of subsistence, shows a steady increase from south to north in the proportion of the population dependent upon the harvest of the deep. Thus the fisheries engross 44 per cent. of the rural population in Nordland province, which is bisected by the Arctic Circle; over 50 per cent. in Tromso, and about 70 per cent. in Finmarken. If the towns also be included, the percentages rise, because here fishing interests are especially prominent.621 Proximity to the generous larder of the ocean has determined the selection of village sites, as we have seen among the coast Indians of British Columbia and southern Alaska, among all the Eskimo, and numerous other peoples of Arctic lands. [See map page 153.]