The study examined the educational efforts of five resource frontier communities (Thompson, Flin Flon, Lynn Lake, and Pinawa in Manitoba and Red Lake in Ontario) and compared their educational efforts with that of the Province of Manitoba. The measures of educational effort used were then evaluated to determine whether they might be usefully applied to other areas and communities. Data on population, school enrollment, wealth, and educational expenditures were collected for the period 1961 to 1968. Four sets of educational effort indexes were calculated--total operating expenditures and assessment; total net operating expenditures and personal income; net operating expenditures per pupil and personal income per capita; and municipal share of total operating expenditures and personal income. The income elasticity of demand for education was also calculated. Some findings were: (1) total educational expenditures for the communities of Flin Flon, Pinawa, Lynn Lake, and Red Lake, related to the local wealth indicators used, compared favorably with equivalent figures for Manitoba; (2) educational effort indexes for Thompson were generally equivalent to, or somewhat below, the figures for the other communities and Manitoba; and (3) when using the municipal shares of local educational expenditures, the communities' educational effort was reasonably equivalent to Manitoba's for most of the years examined. (NQ)