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The White Pass & Yukon Route railway was built to meet the demand for transportation to the gold fields of the Yukon River basin during the Klondike Gold Rush. Completed in 1900, it was a feat of engineering and one of the steepest railways in North America. It ran 177 km from Skagway, Alaska, to Whitehorse, Yukon. Today, tourist rail excursions run on a portion of the original line.

To some extent, the history of engineering is the history of humanity's progress in using tools and observations on the nature of matter to overcome physical limitations and to modify, harness and control the natural environment.

With the beginning of sustained European settlement in what is now Canada, a new set of goals, values, demands and expectations was placed upon the land.

Military aviation began with the use of balloons for observation as early as 1794, during the French Revolution.

Mackinaw Boat, a strong flat-bottomed boat, pointed at each end and with a hold in the middle, was used by fur traders during the French regime for running downstream. It was later adapted for open water by the addition of 2 sails and a steering oar. By the 1870s a distinctive type, 6.7 m to 8.

Malpractice is intentional or negligent failure by any professional, eg, doctor, lawyer, accountant, to meet the standards of reasonable competence in his field. These standards are set taking into account the circumstances in which the professional is acting.

See HEARING LOSS; DEAF CULTURE.

Hardware Historically, computer hardware has been divided into 3 broad classes: large mainframe computers, somewhat smaller minicomputers and the personal computers (PCs) or microcomputers that have become familiar office and home fixtures since the mid-1980s.

In recent years genetic diseases have become better understood since they are dependent on a fault in the normal gene sequence that controls body activities.

IMAX emerged from the Expo 67 cultural context. Corporation co- founders Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor and Robert Kerr all participated in some of the popular large- and multiple-screen film experiments that were part of the Montréal Expo.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), frequently called "mad cow disease," is a progressive, fatal disease of the nervous system of cattle.

Weather modification has been used in an attempt to increase rainfall and snowfall, to suppress hail, to clear fogs, to modify tropical cyclones and to suppress lightning. The term "weather modification" is not normally used to describe inadvertent changes in our WEATHER.

Hydrogen (H), the simplest, lightest and most abundant chemical element, is the main fuel for the nuclear fusion reactions which power the sun.

Icebreakers were first used in the Canadian Arctic in the 1920s to deliver supplies and services to Native and isolated settlements during the short summer season, and to back up claims of Canadian sovereignty over the NORTHWEST PASSAGE and ARCTIC ARCHIPELAGO.