The Lure of the Labrador Wild | Page 8

over which still brooded the fascinating twilight of the mysterious
unknown, Hubbard, with characteristic zeal, threw his whole heart and
soul. Systematically and thoroughly he went about planning, in the
minutest detail, our outfit and entire journey. Every possible
contingency received the most careful consideration.
In order to make plain just what he hoped to accomplish and the
conditions against which he had to provide, the reader's patience is
asked for a few minutes while something is told of what was known of
Labrador at the time Hubbard was making preparations for his

expedition.
The interior of the peninsula of Labrador is a rolling plateau, the land
rising more or less abruptly from the coast to a height of two thousand
or more feet above the level of the sea. Scattered over this plateau are
numerous lakes and marshes. The rivers and streams discharging the
waters of the lakes into the sea flow to the four points of the
compass--into the Atlantic and its inlets on the east, into Ungava Bay
on the north, Hudson Bay and James Bay on the west, and the Gulf of
St. Lawrence on the south. Owing to the abrupt rise of the land from
the coast these rivers and streams are very swift and are filled with a
constant succession of falls and rapids; consequently, their navigation
in canoes--the only possible way, generally speaking, to navigate
them--is most difficult and dangerous. In this, to a large extent, lies the
explanation as to why only a few daring white men have ever
penetrated to the interior plateau; the condition of the rivers, if nothing
else, makes it impossible to transport sufficient food to sustain a party
for any considerable period, and it is absolutely necessary to run the
risk of obtaining supplies from a country that may be plentiful with
game one year and destitute of it the next, and in which the vegetation
is the scantiest.
The western part of the peninsula, although it, too, contains vast tracts
in which no white man has set foot, is somewhat better known than the
eastern, most of the rivers that flow into Hudson and James Bays
having been explored and correctly mapped. Hubbard's objective was
the eastern and northern part of the peninsula, and it is with this section
that we shall hereafter deal. Such parts of this territory as might be
called settled lie in the region of Hamilton Inlet and along the coast.
Hamilton Inlet is an arm of the Atlantic extending inland about one
hundred and fifty miles in a southwesterly direction. At its entrance,
which is two hundred miles north of Cape Charles, the inlet is some
forty miles wide. Fifty miles inland from the settlement of Indian
Harbour (which is situated on one of the White Bear Islands, near the
north coast of the inlet at its entrance), is the Rigolet Post of the
Hudson's Bay Company--the "Old Company," as its agents love to call
it--and here the inlet narrows down to a mere channel; but during the
next eighty miles of its course inland it again widens, this section of it
being known as Groswater Bay or Lake Melville.

The extreme western end of the inlet is called Goose Bay. Into this bay
flows the Grand or Hamilton River, one of the largest in Labrador.
From its source among the lakes on the interior plateau, the Grand
River first sweeps down in a southeasterly direction and then bends
northeasterly to reach the end of Hamilton Inlet. The tributaries of the
lakes forming the headwaters of the Grand River connect it indirectly
with Lake Michikamau (Big Water). This, the largest lake in eastern
Labrador, is between eighty and ninety miles in length, with a width
varying from six to twenty-five miles.
The Grand River, as well as a portion of Lake Michikamau, some years
ago was explored and correctly mapped; but the other rivers that flow
to the eastward have either been mapped only from hearsay or not at all.
Of the several rivers flowing into Ungava Bay, the Koksoak alone has
been explored. This river, which is the largest of those flowing north,
rises in lakes to the westward of Lake Michikamau. Next to the
Koksoak, the George is the best known of the rivers emptying into
Ungava Bay, as well as the second largest; but while it has been learned
that its source is among the lakes to the northward of Michikamau, it
has been mapped only from hearsay.
Now if the reader will turn to the accompanying map of Labrador made
by Mr. A. P. Low of the Canadian Geological Survey, he will see that
the body of water known as Grand Lake is represented thereon merely
as the widening out of a large river, called the Northwest, which flows