If you look at Canada from a geographic perspective, it's hard to deny that we're a polar nation. Yet most of us have views that are firmly fixed equatorially. It's not enough to explain this neglect by saying the North is too cold. The centre of Australia is damned hot. Canada's North simply hasn't entered the national consciousness.

  Our press must accept some of the blame. They regularly mutilate our geography, decapitating our country with what might be termed a polar guillotine. Our newest national newspaper sustains the tradition; its weather maps sever Canada just north of Edmonton. Contrast the images in our newspapers with those in their U.S. counterparts, which show a mainland surrounded by a huddle of relocated dependencies - Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and even American Samoa.

  The neglect of Canada's North is nothing new. A century ago, we were on the brink of losing control of our northernmost islands. European and American explorers not only launched expeditions without consulting Canada, but they also claimed and named much of our polar landscape. Ships from these nations also harvested the great northern herds of whales. In 1902, Ottawa finally realized the need for decisive action. A single vessel was dispatched to lay territorial claims and, in an early effort at cost recovery, to issue $65 whaling licences. With the impeccable timing we've come to expect from our federal government, the licences were imposed just as the last whales were killed.

  After this brief venture, activities lapsed until the launch of the Canadian Arctic Expedition in 1911. Members of this group spent four heroic years pursuing science in Canada's western Arctic. Expedition leader Vladjimir Steffanson might have expected an adulatory welcome on the completion of this mission, and he was indeed lionized, but unfortunately not in Canada. He returned to the United States, where he was elected head of the New York Explorers' Club and ended up leaving his memorabilia to Dartmouth College.

  Jump forward to December 1954, when our nation's 14th prime minister, Louis Saint-Laurent, stood before the House of Commons for the second reading of the bill to establish the Department of Northern Affairs. In his preamble, he noted that Canada "has administered its great northern territories with a complete absence of mind."

  The launch of this new department precipitated action. Scientific activity was energized by the construction of new research bases and by the 1958 launch of the Polar Continental Shelf Project (PCSP). For a while, it appeared that Canada might establish a substantial presence in northern science.

  Certainly the PCSP soon evolved into one of the few user-friendly and cost-effective federal organizations. It continues to play an absolutely critical role in the support of polar science. Its aircraft transport researchers into the field; its bases in Resolute and Tuktoyaktuk offer accommodation. But the Tuk facilities have been shuttered since 1998 because of the lack of researchers. Business at Resolute is down as well; fewer than 150 researchers worked there this summer versus more than 300 just a decade ago, and most visitors this year were foreign. The dearth of clientele is more serious at other facilities. The Research Centre in Igloolik hasn't seen a researcher in two years.

  Why this collapse of interest? In part, it's because Canada doesn't possess a single facility that provides the necessities of life for modern science. We're locked into an outdated exploration mode of research, when modern programs require analytical support. But the primary reason that scientific efforts have collapsed is the lack of funding. PCSP has seen its budget shrink from $6.8 million in 1990 to its current $1.6 million. Canada now spends just 20 cents per capita in support of polar science. Our southern neighbour spends 15 times as much. It's too easy to suggest that this discrepancy is simply a byproduct of wealth. Australia, New Zealand and a host of other countries in northern Europe, which have a lower per-capita GNP than Canada does, spend nearly as much as the United States on polar research.

  Aside from the collapse in funding for organizations that support northern science, Canada's polar researchers have no source of targeted funding. By comparison, the United Kingdom recently launched a new $4-million fund to support work by its scientists in the Antarctic.

  The lack of funding has gone on for so long that the demographic profile of Canada's arctic scientists is a real cause for concern; young scientists are not being trained. For 20 years, my laboratory has been the sole university team working on the animal life in the million or so lakes in arctic Canada. The only tundra plant ecologist left at a Canadian university is moving towards senescence. Wheelchairs may soon be the major mode of tundra exploration. The neglect of science not only places our North at risk - it's setting the stage for national embarrassment.

  Other countries are seizing the opportunities presented by Canada's retreat from polar science. A new wave of scientific colonialism is sweeping our Arctic. The U.S. National Science Foundation recently built a Polar Cap Observatory in Resolute, a $40-million facility that dwarfs any Canadian research facility in the Arctic. You may recall the much-heralded return of one of our icebreakers, the Des Groseilliers, from its 1998 mission in the polar ice pack - the so-called SHEBA project. Given Minister David Anderson's photo ops as the ship returned to port, many Canadians probably believed our nation led this initiative. In fact, the United States picked up 95 per cent of its cost, and virtually all the researchers were American.

  Last summer, as a U.S. team dissected the magnificent fossil forest on Axel Heiberg Island, the Louis S. St-Laurent, our largest icebreaker, was catering to the needs of researchers from the Nordic nations who had chartered it. A few Canadian scientists were along as tour guides. What a sad way to celebrate the new millennium! What a sad irony that the scientific colonialism of our Arctic was fostered in a vessel named after our only prime minister to recognize Canada's place in the ice.

  In the late 19th century, our nation was sutured together by the iron roosters that have been so celebrated by Paul Theroux. As we enter the 21st century, the need for territorial integrity has moved to a more cerebral plane, reliant on the sharing of distinctive experiences and interests. If we act, the North can play an important role in protecting our national identity from erosion on a networked planet. Political intervention is the first step in energizing our national interest in the North. Federal and provincial governments must recognize the centrality of Canada's polar regions to our well-being.

  In 1984, the U.S. Congress passed the Arctic Research and Policy Act, which formally recognized the United States as a polar nation. We have no similar legislation, no polar science policy and no budget. Its enaction here in Canada would be a definite step in the right direction, but is only a partial measure.

  We also need to launch a serious effort to reposition the minds of young Canadians - to direct their perspectives northwards. If done well, education can play an important role in crystallizing our national identity. Energetic, imaginative educational projects capitalizing on new technology could finally edge the neuronal hub of our people beyond the 49th parallel.

  We can build a Canada in which the North looms large, a future where all Canadians not only share a sense of pride and attachment to our great polar lands, but also eagerly engage in their own polar pilgrimages. It is a future worth anticipating.

Prof. Paul Hebert is chair of the Department of Zoology.