In order to make quite sure about conditions up to date, I spent two
months last summer examining some 1500 miles of coast line, from Nova
Scotia, round by Newfoundland to the Straits, and thence inwards along
the Canadian Labrador and North Shore of the St. Lawrence. On the whole,
I found that I had rather under- than over-stated the dangers
threatening the wild life there, and that I had nothing to retract from
what I said in my _Address_ and _Supplement_.
As I spent one month among the fishermen of Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, who commit most of the depredations, and the other month
among the people along the Canadian Labrador, on whom the depredations
are committed, I enjoyed the advantage of hearing both sides of the
story. It was very much what I had heard before and what I said it was.
The argument is, that so long as there is no law, or no law put in
force, every man will do what he likes--which is unanswerably true. I am
also afraid that there is no practical answer to the logical deduction
from this, that so long as bad men can do what they like good men must
do the same or "get left". Good, bad and indifferent, all alike, are
squandering the capital of the wild life as fast as they can, though the
legitimate interest of it would soon yield far better returns if
conservation was to replace the beggaring methods in vogue to-day.
I would urge the earliest possible extension of thoroughly well enforced
wild-life conservation laws to the whole Labrador peninsula; and I would
venture to remind the Commission again, as I did in my _Supplement_,
that the wild life of Arctic Canada is even now in danger and ought to
be efficiently protected before it is too late. But, for the present
purpose, I shall revert to Labrador only; and, for a practical
beginning, recommend the immediate adoption of conservation only in the
"Canadian Labrador".
So far as I could judge from talking things over with the south coast
trappers, most of the fur-bearing animals seem to be holding their own
fairly well in the market. But it should be remembered that, with the
recent great rise in prices, fewer skins may mean more money, and that
even the establishment of fox farms, and the probable establishment of
other fur farms, may not overtake the present increasing demand, which,
in its turn, must tend to deplete the original source of supply still
further, unless strict conservation is enforced. There was a wonderful
supply of foxes a year ago, though nothing to the muskrats which
swarmed down south last fall. But failure of food further north may
have had more to do with those irruptions than any outburst of unusual
fecundity. Caribou apparently remain much as they have been lately. But
the hunger of wolves and the greed of men are two enemies that nothing
but conservation can keep in check. Of course, genuinely "necessary
food" is not at all in question. I know an old hunter, living at
Pokkashoo in summer and St. Augustine in winter, who brought in sixteen
caribou last season. But he gave fifteen away to really necessitous
families and kept only one for himself.
The whale factories at Lark Harbour and Hawke Bay, on the west coast of
Newfoundland, were both closed for want of whales. The only one in the
Gulf that was working last year was at Seven Islands, on the North
Shore, 300 miles below Quebec. I happened to be almost in at the death
of the biggest finback ever taken. But, speaking generally, the season
was not really prosperous. The station of Seven Islands is worked by
Norwegians, who are the most exterminatingly efficient whalers in the
world. They worked their own whaleries to exhaustion and raised so much
feeling against them among the fishermen that the Norwegian government
forbad every factory along the shore. They then invented floating
factories, which may still be used in Canadian waters with deadly effect
unless we put whaling under conservation. The feeling among the
fishermen here is the same as elsewhere, strongly in favour of the
whales and strongly against the exterminating kind of whaler, because
whales are believed to drive the bait fish close inshore, which is very
"handy" for the fishermen.
The spring sealing of 1912 was a failure on the Canadian Labrador, as
the main "harp" herd was missed by just one day. The whole industry is
carried on by Newfoundlanders and men whose vessels take their catch to
Newfoundland, because the only working plant is concentrated there. The
excessive spring kill greatly depletes the females and young, as it
takes place in the whelping season, when the herds are moving north
along the off-shore ice; and this depletion naturally spoils not only
the Newfoundlanders' permanent industry itself but the much smaller
inshore autumn catch by our own Canadian Labradorians, when the herds
are moving south. The Canadians along the North Shore and Labrador look
upon the invading Newfoundlanders, in this and other pursuits, very much
as a farmer looks upon a gipsy whose horse comes grazing in his
hayfield. And the analogy sometimes does hold good. When men under a
different government, men who do not own a foot of land in Canada, men
who do not pay specific taxes for Canadian rights, when these men
slaughter seals on inshore ice, use land and inlets for cleaning fish
and foul the water with their "gurry", and when they also "egg" on other
peoples' islands in defiance of the law, then the analogy is perfect. It
does not hold good, of course, in ordinary fishing, which is conducted
under Dominion licence and vigilantly watched by Commander Wakeham. But
whether Canada is not giving away too much for what she gets in licences
is quite another question.
The excessive spring kill by the Newfoundlanders does not seem to be the
only reason why the local seal hunt is not so good as it used to be. The
whites complain that the Indians along the coast kill an undue number of
seals on the one hand and of caribou on the other. But fishermen all the
world over are against the harbour seals; and generally exaggerate their
depredations, as they exaggerate the depredations of most kinds of
seabirds. Whatever the fate of the harbour seals should be, there can be
no doubt that the harps or Greenland seals, the bearded or
square-flippers, the grey or horseheads, and the gigantic and
magnificently game hoods, should all be put under conservation. I am
also inclined to think that the walrus could be coaxed back to what once
were some of his most favourite haunts. Just now he has no chance
whatever; and he is so extremely rare that the one I nearly rowed the
dinghy into last August, down at Whale Head East, was only the second
seen inside the Straits during the present century.