East of the large bay where Henry Hudson lost his life is the peninsula
of Labrador. Although it is farther south than Greenland or Alaska, its
shores are very bleak and bare, because of cold winds that blow inland
from the ocean. You can easily guess that this country is the home of
Eskimos who seem the best fitted of all people to live in the lands of
ice and snow.
Some white children are to be found there, however. Their fathers are
fishermen who get a living for their families out of the icy waters of
the ocean. Sometimes, too, they hunt the deer, or set traps for other
wild animals. In the summer time the children search for birds' eggs,
and in the autumn the men and boys keep on the lookout for eider-ducks,
wild swans, ducks, geese and ptarmigan. The meat of these birds is sweet
and tender, while the feathers make warm beds, pillows and quilts.
The children of the fishermen paddle about in the rough waters in their
canoes when many other children would be afraid to venture out from the
shore. They ride over the snow in low sledges drawn by half-tamed, surly
dogs. They spend many a day fishing for cod and salmon. They hunt for
the berries, ripening in the sunshine of the short summer. They play
with their Eskimo neighbors whom they meet once a week to study their
Bible lessons with the kind missionaries, who have come to live among
them.
Each Eskimo house is entered by a long, low passage, made of logs and
turf. The floor of the one big room is covered with boards, and a long,
wooden platform at one end is the sleeping place for the whole family.
On another side is a fireplace lined with pebbles, where the mother
cooks the food for the family. There is a window in the house or maybe
there are two, so that altogether the Eskimos of Labrador can be far
more comfortable than their brothers and sisters of Greenland.
They live in much the same way, however. They dress in furs; they fish;
they kill seals; they hunt the deer; they ride over the country in low
sledges drawn by unruly dogs; they make kayaks, in which they paddle
about among the islands near to the shore. They are not obliged to build
snow or stone houses like their brothers in Greenland. Cold as it is,
forests of spruce and pine grow not very far inland; so that they are
able to get plenty of logs for the walls of their houses. These they
plaster so thickly with turf, that the wind cannot make its way inside.
The Indians of Labrador.
As you leave the coast, and travel inland, you will find that the air
becomes warmer and that there are more trees and plants. The country is
much pleasanter, and no doubt this is the reason that the Indians of
Labrador prefer to live here in winter rather than on the coast. The
redmen are great hunters, too, and as there are many wild animals in the
forests, they spend the autumn and winter trapping and shooting. Here
and there along the ponds and streams you may see the bark wigwams of
the redmen.
Children dressed in skins go skimming past you over the snow fields.
They wear snow-shoes on their feet, so they can travel fast. When they
are tired of this sport, they can take a ride on a dog-sledge, or play
with their puppies. The boys help their fathers set traps for martens
and foxes; they go on porcupine hunts; they search for beaver villages,
and sometimes they come hurrying home to say that they have come upon a
bear or the tracks of a lynx or an otter.
The girls learn to embroider moccasins and leggings with beads and
porcupine quills; they bring wood for the fires and drinking water from
the streams; they weave baskets. After a deer-hunt they dry the meat and
grind it to make pemmican. Indeed, they learn all those things that
Indians think are necessary for the making of good and helpful women. So
the days pass and the years follow each other in bleak Labrador.