Through Trackless Labrador

The life of the Labrador is entirely predatory. It never has been anything else north of lat. 54, and unless mineral discoveries are made, never can be. Its inhabitants live by the chase. The bears, the caribou, the birds, the seals, the salmon, the trout, and the cod form the capital of the country, and the problem of existence is solved by successful destruction.

At the same time, the Labrador (by its own inhabitants and by Newfoundlanders it is always spoken of as theLabrador, the word peninsula being understood) is the most God-fearing land that I have ever visited. This, from Makkovik northwards, is due to the Moravian Mission; in the south to the Deep Sea Mission under the well-known Dr. Grenfell; while Mr. Stewart, of the Continental and Colonial Mission, labours among the heathen Eskimo round the shores of Ungava Bay. If this book serves no other end than to draw attention to the fine work being done year in year out on the Labrador, it will not have been written in vain. The chapter on the Moravian Mission, written from an intimate acquaintance of their life and methods, tells the story of men and women who, with none of the parade or the pose—not always unknown to missionary effort—are living lives beyond all praise.

Our little exploring trip from the Atlantic Coast to the George River over an unknown route may be taken as simply a phase in the predatory life, since in order to accomplish it my companions and I adopted the life of nomad hunters, carrying a bare ration and living by the chase, killing caribou and sinking the carcases in the snow-fed lakes upon the great plateau so as to secure a line of retreat.

During the last few years, since my first visit in 1903, a number of books have been published dealing with the Labrador. These works have, however, treated either of the coast or of the North and South course of the George River, and I feel that, as almost from the day we left Nain to the day on which we returned to it, we were on entirely unexplored ground, this volume must introduce its readers to a new aspect of the country.

The conditions we had to face while crossing the great plateau which lies between the Atlantic and the George River were entirely unforeseen by us, and such hardships as we endured on our march with packs across this stony, mosquito-haunted desolation, were largely due to this fact.

No amount of forethought could have revealed what lay ahead of us, as even at Nain local knowledge only extended to the Fraser lake-head behind Nunaingoak Bay; and as soon as we left the Eskimo deer-hunters’ route, we entered a tract of country which has probably remained untrodden by white foot or red since the beginning of things. It is a difficult matter to describe this menacing wilderness, lying 2,000 feet above sea-level, swept by arctic winds, dotted with marshes and strewn with quartzite boulders of the most ancient of all formations. I have tried with all too small a skill to bring some pictures of this abomination of desolation before the reader’s eye.


It would be quite absurd, however, to judge the whole country by the conditions which prevail upon the high plateau. Recently great interest has been taken in the pulp industry of Labrador, for which a brilliant future is prophesied. In the southern half of the country and in some river valleys these forecasts may materialise; but it should be remembered that in central Labrador thousands of square miles show nothing but patches of dwarf birch, few and far between, of which the stems are no more than finger-thick, hardly substantial enough to boil a kettle.

The death, by starvation, of Leonidas Hubbard has given the interior of the Labrador a bad name which has not been removed by the fine journeys of Mr. and Mrs. Tasker, Mrs. Hubbard, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Cabot. Hubbard’s objective was our own—Indian House Lake; his plan to reach it by way of Hamilton Inlet, the Nascaupee and George Rivers—a route afterwards successfully traversed by Mrs. Hubbard and by Dillon Wallace—was entirely different. As is well known, he and his party went up the Susan River, and after many disasters were forced to turn back. On the retreat, in spite of the efforts of his companions, Hubbard died of starvation. I do not think that some of the more critical of geographers yet appreciate the remorseless ill-luck that pursued Hubbard. I can only say this. Everyday that Gathorne-Hardy and I spent in battling with Labrador nature, increased our respect and admiration for Hubbard. Luck was with us as it was against him, and in wilderness travel it is a truism to say that luck decides the issue.

One of the main interests of our journey lay, I think, in the fact that we adopted as nearly as might be themethods of the Indians. It has been said and written again and again that to travel with the speed and lightness of an Indian is beyond the powers of the white, and is a certain road to disaster. We did not find it so. Of course, had we failed to kill the final caribou we should in another day have found ourselves empty-handed in the heart of a country “where many have starved.” Even then I fancy that with rod and rifle we would have won our way out without much hardship. As it was, with the venison to keep up our strength, we rivalled, if we did not actually surpass, the average speed of Indian travel. On August 30th, at eight in the morning, we left our camp on the George, and by September 10th, at four in the afternoon, we were at Nain. Of these eleven days, a whole one was spent in relay packing, and on three occasions repairs to boots and other wilderness exigencies only allowed us half-a-day’s march. In addition to the ordinary work of camping and breaking camp, we cached our canoe against the winter on the uplands. Nor did we abandon any of our outfit on the journey, and never at any time did our packs average under 50 lbs. in weight. As we had to find our way (for the Indians’ single line to the coast is well known to them) and so went many miles out of our course, I think it may fairly be inferred that white men can attain results in wilderness travel which will bear some kind of comparison with the achievements of the red.