LONDON TO LABRADOR.
It was in the year 1903 that I paid my first visit to the Labrador
peninsula. I went with the view of seeing what sport in the way of big
game shooting was to be obtained there. It must be acknowledged that,
so far as my chief aim was concerned, the trip proved a failure, for I
saw the tracks of only one stag and actually fired my rifle but twice,
bagging only an Arctic hare and a seal. Beyond this I had a certain
amount of sport with the shot-gun, chiefly ptarmigan and wild-fowl; but
my main purpose in going to Labrador remained unfulfilled and the herds
of barren-ground caribou lived on unthinned. Yet I never regretted the
long weeks spent, many of them in weary toil, during that first visit.
I had gone to the country hoping to be able to pick up on the spot some
craft in which it would be possible to navigate one of the many rivers
whose waters flow into the Atlantic, and thus to make my way into the
unexplored interior. In this also I was disappointed. Labrador possesses
no boat suitable for river use, as the people never venture beyond the
bay heads, and the only craft obtainable in Jack Lane’s Bay took the
shape of a flat-bottomed boat, capable of carrying two men and a little
baggage. I had with me Jack Wells, a Newfoundlander, who had been cook
to Mr. F. C. Selous on his second expedition after caribou into central
Newfoundland. Wells and I embarked in the flat and succeeded in making
a two-days’ voyage up a river that flows into Jack Lane’s Bay. Here we
saw numerous bear tracks, and should, I think, have been successful in
killing some game had it been possible for us to penetrate a little
deeper into the country. But soon we found ourselves shut in by hills
and forests, the water in the river grew shallower and shallower, and
at last, even though one of us hauled and the other shoved, we could
make no progress, and so had to beach our boat and trust to shanks’
mare. In this way we covered a certain amount of country, but our way
was always blocked by lakes and thick wood, until finally, in the early
days of October, we were compelled to return, as the last steamer, the
_Virginia Lake_—since lost in the spring seal-fishing, but which at
that time used to carry the mail to the little fishing stations upon
the outer islands—was already due at Hopedale, 70 or 80 miles away, on
her last trip southwards before the winter. In order to catch her I had
to purchase a trap-boat, and in this craft we made our way through the
famous Windy Tickle in the face of contrary winds, arriving at Hopedale a
few days before the arrival of the steamer, which had been delayed by bad
weather on her northerly passage.
Such is in brief the story of my first experience of Labrador, which,
although I obtained no such game as I had expected, I thoroughly
enjoyed, more especially as it brought me into contact with the Moravian
missionaries, among whom I made some fast friends, and, indeed, for the
next seven years I annually received from them letters containing all the
news of the coast.
On this first trip I found the report that settlers are unwilling to
penetrate into the interior was founded on fact, and I realised that if
I were to return to Labrador, as I intended to do, and to get behind the
rampart of forest and mountain which had turned me back, I must bring
with me both craft for river use and companions from the outside world.
I discovered also that beyond the _komatik_ or dog-sledge journeys of
fur-hunters and the yearly Eskimo quest which takes place in the spring
after the caribou, hardly any effort had ever been made to journey west.
Of the great wilderness which represents the interior I was able to gain
no information worthy of the name. “It is a place where men starve,” said
settler after settler, and when I questioned them as to the possibility
of penetrating into its recesses I was met with a shaking of heads and
with prophecies of death and disaster.
In fact, few things have struck me more than the almost universal fear
which lay upon the fisher population of this barren coast with regard
to the great hinterland upon whose eastern lip they live. It was the
one subject upon which their imaginations never failed them. To lose
the way, to be drowned in some rock-staked torrent, to die miserably
of starvation—in such glib phrases they voiced their many forebodings.
And it must be acknowledged that in that year of 1903, the prophets
were strengthened by the calamitous issue of the expedition of Leonidas
Hubbard. The story of his gallant struggle and his death so bravely
met in the valley of the Susan, are too well known to bear more than a
passing word. He and his two companions, Wallace and Elson, had started
with the intention of reaching Indian House Lake on the George River;
they had taken with them a short allowance of food, and by a fatal
mischance early in their wanderings they turned the prow of their canoe
into the wrong river, up whose turbulent waters they worked their way,
portaging at times over soft marshes and through thick wood. They finally
sighted from a mountain the great waters of Michikamau Lake, and were
there delayed by contrary winds and storms until the snow began to fall
and the approach of winter forced them to turn back and to attempt to
retrace their steps. Their provisions exhausted, and sore stricken with
illness and famine, they pushed on until they came within a march or
two of safety, when Hubbard could go no further, and Wallace and Elson
reluctantly left him to bring help. How that help arrived too late, and
how both the two stronger men nearly succumbed is a story that most have
read. I will only say that had I to choose among the dozen travel books
of the world, I would place among them Elson’s unvarnished narrative of
how he and Wallace and finally he alone (Wallace having endeavoured to
return to Hubbard with food) walked out through the snow to Grand Lake.
This diary is included in Mrs. Hubbard’s accurate and excellent work, “A
Woman’s Way through Unknown Labrador,” which tells how three years later
she carried her husband’s plans to a triumphant conclusion. The book is
published by Mr. John Murray and ought to be widely known.
I will not criticise Hubbard’s arrangements here, indeed the best
criticism of them is the expedition made by Gathorne-Hardy and myself
with which this book is primarily concerned.
Luckily in 1903 I gained a certain amount of experience and knowledge
which later stood us in good stead. From the day I bade good-bye to the
rugged and rocky coast, I looked forward to returning and attempting
a second journey into the interior, the prospect of which had taken
possession of my mind. It was seven years, however, before time,
opportunity and the men came together, and during those seven years the
work of other Labrador expeditions must be noted. The first was that of
Mrs. Hubbard, to which I have already referred; the second, consisting
of a party of six, was led by Dillon Wallace. Both these started from
North-West River at the head of Hamilton Inlet and successfully reached
Ungava Bay, following the course of various known and unknown rivers and
ultimately arriving at the Hudson’s Bay post by way of the rapids of
the Lower George. William B. Cabot of Boston, who was on the coast in
1903, had meantime turned his attention to a route of his own, by which
he visited the Indians in the neighbourhood of the Height of Land. His
travels and explorations, carried out, I believe, alone at times, and at
times with a single companion, were fine performances, the history of
which it is to be hoped that he will some day publish. It would be absurd
to make any reference to Labrador exploration without including the name
of Dr. A. P. Low, now Deputy Minister of Mines in Canada. Dr. Low’s
explorations have been chiefly made in Central and Western Labrador, and
his must always remain the great name connected with those regions.
Were I writing a full account of exploration in the Labrador peninsula,
there are of course many other names far apart and divided by centuries
of time that should find a place here, from Bjarni Herjulfson the
Norseman to John McLean, from Corte Real to Dr. A. S. Packard, the
American naturalist. But that is by no means my intention, I merely give
a brief resumé of the work of the last decade, and the fact remains that
up to the year 1910 no attempt had been made, except by way of the Indian
route before referred to, to cross the totally unexplored region lying
between the Atlantic coast and the George River.
In 1903 the idea had already occurred to me that in order to reach
Indian House Lake, which is a widening of the George—or, as the Indians
prefer to call it, the Barren-grounds—River, it might not be necessary
to approach the sources of the George from the south, the route hitherto
followed by exploring parties, but that a party of men striking straight
inland from the Atlantic coast might reach its objective by crossing the
intervening region, of which the highest point forms the divide between
the eastern and western watersheds.
My plan to reach the George differed from any other in that, if
necessary, canoe travel could be practically eliminated. After advancing
as deep into the country by water as fortune would permit, the idea was
to _cache_ our canoe and to proceed with light packs of 40 or 50 pounds
per man, at a pace which would reduce the time that a more heavily
equipped expedition, with its many relays, would require to perhaps a
third. There was, of course, some element of chance in this plan, as full
rations could not be carried, but then no company of Eskimo ever started
out for the interior in the olden days without that same drawback:
they went forward on their sledges over the ice until they found the
deer-herds. If their provision or their dog-food became exhausted
before they reached the herds, the worst happened, and the tribe by the
coast waited for the hunters’ return in vain. Our method was simply a
translation of the old-time native spring-hunt to summer conditions,
and, of course, on a much extended scale, with this in our favour, that
in summer the probability of finding sustenance on the country would not
be confined to meeting with caribou, but our larder might at any time be
replenished by such fish and fowl as we might kill. On the other hand,
dog-travel is far faster than any pace possible to human beings, and we
were likely to have to spend much longer in the interior than any party
of Eskimo had ever done.
Such, then, was the plan in embryo, and it only remained to find the time
and the men. Everything comes to him who waits, and the first of my two
requisites fell to my lot in due course; with regard to the second good
fortune aided me. I had often talked over the matter with my friends G.
M. and A. C. Gathorne-Hardy, and in 1910 the former found himself able to
accompany me.
Once Hardy and I had thoroughly discussed ways and means, we agreed that
a good canoe man must form the third member of the party. I therefore
wrote to my Canadian hunter, Ed. Atkins, and was delighted to have the
following answer: “I received your letter; I will take that trip with
you. How many caribou are we allowed to kill in Labrador?” This was
excellent, as Atkins has very few superiors at canoe work in any country;
indeed if there be such, I have yet to see them ply their art. For the
rest we determined to take two canoes and to trust to picking up a fourth
man in Labrador, should we eventually decide to augment our party.
Having made up our minds to try to draw a line across the blank area
which on the maps represents north-eastern Labrador, between the Atlantic
and the George, we tentatively settled upon the Moravian station of
Nain, which lies between 56 and 57 degrees north latitude, as the
best point of departure from the coast. The next thing to be done was
to arrange some scheme of travel that would ensure our reaching that
place in good time for our venture during the brief Labrador summer.
Communication with the peninsula is almost entirely kept up from St.
John’s, Newfoundland, but the Arctic current that sweeps down the coast
carries immense ice-floes even as late as July, and these constitute a
serious hindrance to ships coming from the south. With the purpose we had
in view, however, we could not risk any delay which might lose us even
a few days of the open season. Luckily an alternative route was offered
to us, for by the courtesy of the Board of the Moravian Missions we were
enabled to purchase passages by the Mission vessel, _Harmony_. This
little ship, starting in June from London, makes her annual trip across
the Atlantic, and through the floes of the Arctic current straight to the
shores of Labrador. As she crosses the current instead of steaming up
its length, as boats from the south are forced to do, she is usually the
first arrival on the coast.
This matter arranged, we ascertained what provisions we could buy
locally from the Moravian stores, and the answer to this being entirely
satisfactory we had only to await the date of sailing.
So far everything had been in our favour, our canoes, tents and baggage
were already prepared, when I suddenly received a cable from Atkins to
say that he could not accompany us on account of illness in his family.
[Illustration: The _Harmony_.]
[Illustration: The _Harmony_ in the Ice.]
This was a blow, but before long a cable sent to Mr. Henry Blair, the
well-known St. John’s agent, produced the news that a Newfoundlander
named Robert Porter was willing to take Atkins’ place. I replied at once
directing Porter to leave for England in order to sail with us on the
_Harmony_, as from experience I knew the uncertainty of making a timely
connection upon the Labrador coast. So in order to get to Labrador, a
distance of only 600 or 700 miles from St. John’s, Porter travelled
nearly 5,000. He turned out to be 45 years of age, a good canoe man
who had gained considerable experience both on the Exploits River in
his native land and during various expeditions in the Yukon territory,
where he had spent some years. He had also passed two winters trapping
in southern Labrador, but had no knowledge of the northern part of the
country. We found him to be an extremely hard-working and dependable
fellow.
Our little party once more raised to its full strength, on the 22nd June
we went aboard the _Harmony_ in the London Docks and the same morning
weighed anchor. Generally the old ship covers the 2,400 sea-miles of the
North Atlantic which divide London from the shores of Labrador in about
eighteen days, but we were not destined to be so fortunate on this trip,
and by sundown on the eighteenth day there still remained many horizons
between us and Makkovik, the first Moravian settlement for which we were
bound.
Almost all the way across we carried a head wind, once making but
fourteen miles in the twenty-four hours, and the average day’s run
throughout the first part of the voyage only amounted to some 70 or 80
miles. But the _Harmony_ rolled and plunged forward perseveringly, and
at last, after encountering a three-days’ fog, during which nothing but
the occasional shadowy form of an iceberg broke through the narrow grey
circle of sight while the little ship lurched wearily on the heavy swells
till there was scarcely a bone in our bodies that did not complain, we
saw a dim bare island through a rift in the mist—the first land fall
of Labrador. June and July generally find even the North Atlantic in
a gentle mood, but such was not our experience, though, as it was a
singularly open season we saw little floe-ice in the Arctic current. Yet
we were not sorry when the days spent on the bridge watching the smallest
steamer that crosses the Atlantic (200 tons register) battling with seas
and head-winds, were at length over.
The _Harmony_ is a ship with a history. Originally as the _Lorna Doone_,
a tea-clipper destined for the China trade, she was capable with a fair
wind of reeling off her 300 knots’ run. Later steam was put into her,
and she carried the Wiggins Expedition to the White Sea, as well as some
lesser venturers on a gold quest up the tropical rivers of Brazil. Next
she made voyages for nitrate to Chili, then for stone to Jersey. From
the latter trade she was purchased by the Moravian Brethren to carry the
necessaries of life and to form the one link with home for the hardy
missionaries who dwell and work in the six little stations beside the
Polar current, on the shores of what Jacques Cartier described as “the
land which God gave to Cain.” The _Harmony’s_ commander, J. C. Jackson,
is a magnificent sailor, and has few equals among the ice-captains of
the day. The comfort and even the fives of the missionaries in the North
depend each year upon his forcing his cargoes through the ice-floes with
supplies and they could not depend upon a better man. Hardy and I will
always feel grateful for the kindness and courtesy which he showed us on
the _Harmony_, and we both hope that our friendship with him will always
continue.
But to return. We felt our way towards the mainland between half-hidden
islands, the fog closing behind us as we steamed slowly on. By the
afternoon the mist had lightened a little, and a flagstaff on a rock
came into view, beyond it the station of Makkovik, standing, as all
the Moravian missions stand, on the margin of the tide and under the
shadow of sombre hills. The settlement had been enveloped in fog and
rain for weeks, and the white mission house, with its pretty church and
few scattered huts, seemed embedded in depths of moss and woodland, all
richly green. The greenness came as a surprise after the absolutely bare
islands we had hitherto seen.
A few of the Eskimo women and children raised the usual cries
which herald an incoming boat, and a man fired several shots as a
_feu-de-joie_. These people are much addicted to _feux-de-joie_,
particularly when the _Harmony_, whose arrival at the break-up of the
floes is the event of the year, steams into sight.
Makkovik is the most southerly spot where Eskimos now live, for they
are being driven ever north before an increasing white population. The
missionary in charge, the Rev. Mr. Townley, and his wife came off in a
boat from the little wooden jetty and took us ashore. We found the whole
country like a sponge, running at every pore with tinkling rivulets and
streams; but one could well imagine that on a sunny day the bay is full
of a soft beauty very rare indeed on the Labrador. We were not destined
to see it under that aspect, for it rained all night, and at daybreak we
were steaming north once again.
The weather improved and became clearer as we neared Hopedale in the
evening, and were greeted with shouts and several dropping shots from
round the curve of the shore where the Eskimo huts stand. The mission
boat put out at once and the Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Lenz came aboard.
Thereafter for three days they showed us a gentle and winning hospitality
which is hard to describe but delightful to enjoy.
In front of the Mission House, inside the white palisade, the garden beds
were bright with hardy flowers, mostly pansies, and from the greenhouse,
where roses were blooming, they cut lettuce that tasted doubly delicious
after our long voyage. Later in the season lettuce matures in the open,
while rhubarb grows not only sturdily but in luxuriance.
There is some wood still left about the station, and the mission gardens
away up the hill-side held brilliant Iceland poppies and splendid
pansies. In a rockery were some delicate native ferns, and close by a
healthy plant of edelweiss. The colouring of all the flowers, wild as
well as cultured, is extraordinarily vivid, more especially the lilacs
and blues. The Arctic primula is something to remember, with its fairy
stalk carrying three tiny blossoms of an intense and exquisite mauve,
while above, on the dark overhanging mountain, snow still lingered in
long streaks and heavy patches.
Beyond the trees and ordered simpleness of the gardens lay two upland
pools, mirroring the mountains and the wild greenery of their own shaggy
banks. Below, the slope fell sharply to a bay where a grampus was rolling
its huge body under the bluffs of a frowning island. The incoming tide
was icy cold but wonderfully clear, the stones and weeds at the bottom
showing sharp-cut; and here the water had a deep amber translucency
underlying its ripples that I have never seen elsewhere.
[Illustration: The Hunter’s Grave.]
[Illustration: The Break-up of the Ice at Nain.]
While the ship lay at Hopedale, Capt. Jackson showed us the way to some
lakes where, after a first day of small success, on the second we hit off
the evening rise and secured seventeen trout, the larger sized of which
reached nearly a pound in weight.
There were two sturdy American fishermen waiting at Hopedale for a
chance to go south, who, a couple of weeks earlier, had passed through
a perilous experience. They had formed part of the crew of a schooner
out for cod-fishing, off the coast. One day they had left the boat in a
dory to visit the end of the net. There was a good deal of floe-ice and
fog about, and somehow they lost sight of their schooner and could not
find her again. Night came on and bad weather, and for three days and
nights they tossed about in the dory under stress of wind and storm.
The elder of the two, who knew his bearings well, managed to keep some
idea of direction, and one morning they finally sighted and were obliged
to land upon a small island. A large majority of these islands are not
only barren and uninhabited, but are practically never visited by either
fishermen or Eskimo, as they produce nothing and nothing is to be gained
from them. On such, starvation and death must have been the fate of the
Americans, but by good luck they went ashore on an island occasionally
visited by Eskimo, and the very day they landed a party chanced to put in
and took off the men. The younger of the two was driven nearly mad by the
terror he had undergone, but the elder appeared to take the matter more
stoically. He had curiously enough passed through a somewhat similar
experience two years previously.
On the last night at Hopedale we went aboard the _Harmony_ under a
display of Northern Lights, which streamed out one moment in misty white
rays from horizon to zenith and presently changed to rolling clouds of
intenser brightness, while a white ribbon like a wind-blown torch-flame
took on a lovely rose-and-rainbow edging.
We noticed that the watch had begun to wear veils to protect them from
the mosquitoes.
Early the next morning the _Harmony_ left for Nain, which meant a day’s
run of some ninety-five miles through narrow fiord-like reaches of sea
between the long stretch of uncounted islands and the mainland. At times
black headlands and steep indrawing cliffs seemed to block the way ahead
in a hopeless confusion, but as we approached they would open again into
a further channel. Wherever we came to a larger expanse of water, where
the rocks flung out in a wide loop eastwards, mirages hung upon the
horizon: icebergs in blue water with their own reflection reversed above
them; steep cliffs that towered thousands of feet and extended for miles
would dwindle and shrink as we drew nearer, some to a mere sea-washed
line of reefs. Many of them would in a few minutes alternately expand and
contract like the folds of a gigantic accordion.
The greater part of the coast line and the islands struck us as being
curiously bare and bald, ice-worn, round-headed masses of rock without a
sign of vegetation. Occasionally a shelving hollow would hold its fill
of dwarf spruce and willow, and now and then an incurving mountain flank
show a patch of deep green velvet lichen, but all without exception
were bare of seaweed. There the cliffs do not stand “weed-mocassined in
the sea,” for the Polar current with its burden of ice has scoured them
bone-bare, and almost to the colour of bone. At the same time we saw in
the water quantities of kelp floating by and immense flags of ribbon
weed, which had been torn from northern sea-gardens by passing bergs.
[Illustration: The Arrival of the _Harmony_.]
[Illustration: Eskimo _Kayaks_ in Nain Bay.]
All day the mainland glowered beetling and sombre to the west. Geologists
say that these mighty crags and mountain chains have stood much as
they now stand from the remotest antiquity. Their black slopes and
summits are formed of the Basement Complex, the bed-rock of the world.
The realisation of what this conveys is beyond the grasp of thought,
only some faint shadow can cross the imagination of age-long winds and
tempests, of vast glaciers crushing through these bleak valleys to the
sea, of blackness and of unnumbered blind whirling nights of snow.
The only signs of man’s presence on the shore came to us in a glimpse
of Fanny’s Harbour, which is the most northerly fishing station on the
coast; and seawards a little string of fishing smacks, until, as daylight
began to fail and we were steaming between precipices seven or eight
hundred feet in height, we passed a trap-boat overladen with Eskimo, men,
women, children, dogs and bundles with a _kayak_ tied across the bows.
They howled for joy at sight of the _Harmony_, and fired no fewer than
fifty-six cartridges in honour of her arrival.
It had been a long glorious summer day with hardly a ripple upon the
water, but our pleasure was rather marred by the advent of mosquitoes,
which came aboard from every bluff we neared and grew more numerous as
the hours wore on. We had not thought of taking any measures to defend
ourselves and paid heavily for our negligence.
Suddenly round a sharp corner we turned into Nain Bay, which is shut in
on three sides by heavy mountains, while at its mouth, “where tumbled
islands barrier the sea,” thirty miles of rock, island and curving
channel hold it safe from the outer surges of the Atlantic.