THE KEY TO THE ST. LAWRENCE
Imagine yourself aboard ship with me. We are steaming along off the
coast of Newfoundland, bound north for St. John’s, the capital and
chief port of the oldest and smallest British dominion. Just before
daybreak this morning I was awakened by a glaring light flashing full
in my face. I jumped from my berth and looked out of the porthole.
As I did so three blasts from the whistle tore the air and made the
ship tremble, and were answered a moment later by the w-h-a-a-n-g of a
foghorn from over the water. The dazzling light that had awakened me
flashed around again. I knew then that we were saluting Cape Race, the
southeast tip of Newfoundland, and chief signal station for the ocean
traffic of the North Atlantic.
We were hardly a mile from the shore. If it had been daylight, we would
have steamed closer in. The lighthouse towered high in the air, the
flash seeming to come from out of the sky. Cape Race light is more
than three hundred feet above the water, and, with its foghorn and the
wireless station close by, tells thousands of mariners their position
at sea. It is usually the first land sighted in coming to Canada across
the Atlantic, and marks the point where practically every vessel in
these waters changes its course.
Day has dawned since we passed Cape Race, and we can see for miles
over the bright blue ocean, silvered and dancing under the sun. The air
is so fresh and crisp it is almost intoxicating. Even the dolphins,
leaping and diving in graceful curves beside the ship, seem to share
our feeling that it is a wonderful morning on which to be alive and at
sea.
Now turn to the map in this book, and see just where we are. Like most
Americans, I had always thought of Newfoundland as a sub-arctic country
far to the north of us. Since leaving New York I have felt like an
explorer on his way to the Pole. The fact is, however, that we have
been steaming much more to the east than to the north, and are at this
moment only about sixteen hundred miles from the west coast of Ireland.
We have come hardly three hundred miles north of New York, but so far
to the eastward that we are half way to Liverpool. We are still south
of England, in the same latitude as Paris, and are not far from the
shoals that form the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, famous the world over
as cod-fishing grounds. Here the bed of the ocean rises to within less
than five hundred feet of the surface, and the cold arctic currents
meet the Gulf Stream, causing the fogs so much dreaded in this part of
the Atlantic.
As seen on the map, Newfoundland is a triangle of land that nearly
fills, like a plug, the gaping mouth of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,
but it also commands the sea routes of the North Atlantic, and its
possession by an enemy power would menace both Canada and the United
States. It has an area of forty-two thousand square miles, being larger
than Ireland and of about the same size as Tennessee. At first glance
it seems a part of the mainland, but a closer look shows the Strait
of Belle Isle separating the island from the Labrador coast. Though
in some places only eight or ten miles wide, this strait furnishes a
summer-time passage for transatlantic liners to Canada.
For some years there has been talk of building a dam across the Strait
of Belle Isle, to stop the icy waters of the Labrador current coming
through the Strait into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. This, it is claimed,
would force the Gulf Stream closer to Newfoundland, and give that
country and eastern Quebec a climate as warm as that of New Jersey. How
England would fare in this shifting of ocean waters no one can say;
the history of the world would have been vastly different but for the
present course of the Gulf Stream in relation to the British Isles.
However, no one has yet offered to pay for this project, and shipping
men say it would be impossible to make a dam strong enough to withstand
the enormous pressure of ice, which comes down from the arctic every
year in great floes of from five hundred to one thousand square miles
and sometimes piles up on shore to the height of a five-story building.
The Newfoundland coast greatly resembles that of Norway. Looking
shoreward, we see great headlands jutting out into the ocean, their
precipitous sides rising straight out of the water for three or four
hundred feet. Between them are deep bays and inlets, walled with
sheer rock. At the heads of the coves and smaller bays we can see the
white houses of little villages, clinging to the hillsides above tiny
beaches. On top, these great rock ridges are covered with low scrub,
now in red and brown autumn dress.
Now we are approaching St. John’s, which has one of the famous natural
harbours of the world. Our steamer heads for what seems an unbroken
wall of rock, five hundred feet high, and surmounted by a mighty stone
tower. This is Cabot Tower, erected to commemorate the discovery of
Newfoundland in 1497 by John Cabot, the Venetian mariner commissioned
by Henry VII of England to find him new dominions. Except for the
Vikings, five centuries earlier, Cabot was really the first to discover
the North American continent, as Columbus did not reach the mainland
until some years later.
Just south of the Cabot Tower is Cape Spear, the “farthest east” point
of all North America. It was on these hills that Marconi received the
first wireless message flashed across the Atlantic, and from them that
the first transatlantic hydroplane flight was begun. On these shores,
also, several of our transatlantic cables are landed.
[Illustration: Like pirate ships of old, icebergs in spring hover about
the rock-bound entrance to St. John’s harbour. The channel is so narrow
that the French once closed it to the British ships by a chain from
shore to shore.]
But see, there is an opening in the wall of rock straight ahead, and
we get a glimpse of the harbour and the city beyond. The passage is
only six hundred feet wide, and it seems much less from the deck of our
steamer. Here the French, during their brief possession of St. John’s,
slung chains across the Narrows to prevent the entrance of enemy ships.
Inside the Narrows, the harbour is about a mile long and one half as
wide. It is fringed with a forest of masts and the smokestacks of
steamers. On the right is St. John’s. The hill on which it is built
rises so steeply from the water that we can see the whole sides of
buildings, one above the other along the terraced streets. The painted
brick or wooden structures give the city a rather drab appearance,
which is emphasized by the absence of shade trees. This is partly
because the town has been burned three times, the last time in 1892.
Across the harbour the red and brown hillside is gashed here and
there with the slate gray of stone pits, or splotched with fenced-in
patches of green, so steep that it is hard to imagine how they are
farmed.
[Illustration: St. John’s, the capital city of Newfoundland, sits high
on a hill overlooking the land-locked harbour. It is the centre of the
fishing industry, and the commercial metropolis of the island. Its
atmosphere is distinctly British.]
St. John’s is not quite as large as Portland, Maine, but it is the
chief city of Newfoundland and the centre of the fishing trade. The
whole country has only about a quarter of a million inhabitants. It
is as though the people of Toledo formed the total population of the
state of Ohio. The Newfoundlanders are a mixture of English, Irish,
and Scotch, with an occasional trace of French. The original Indian
inhabitants have practically all disappeared. Most of the people
worship at the Church of England, though Catholics also are numerous.
Both denominations have cathedrals at St. John’s, the Catholic
edifice being especially conspicuous as viewed from the harbour. The
Methodist Church is well established, and there is a sprinkling of
Congregationalists. Education in Newfoundland is sectarian, each church
receiving a grant from the government for the support of its schools.
There is much rivalry between the churches, especially in the villages,
but I am told that some of the Protestants send their children to
Catholic schools, considering them better. The sons and daughters of
well-to-do people usually go to England to complete their education.