8 THE LABRADOR PENINSULA. CHAP. i. 



distance would be about 650 miles ; while to Cape 

 WolsteDholme, to the west, it is not less than 1,000. The 

 area of the Labrador Peninsula is approximately 420,000 

 square miles, or equal to the British Isles, France, and 

 Prussia combined, and the greater portion of it lies 

 between the same parallels of latitude as Great Britain. 



The whole of this immense country is uninhabited by 

 civilised man, with the exception of a few settlements on 

 the St. Lawrence and North Atlantic coasts, and some 

 widely separated posts of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

 It is thinly peopled by nomadic bands of Montagnais, 

 Nasquapee, Mistassini, and Swampy Creek Indians, and 

 by wandering Esquimaux on the northern coasts. Taken 

 as a whole, it is a region unfit for the permanent abode 

 of civilised man ; and although once rich in fur-bearing 

 animals, and in caribou or reindeer, it is now in many 

 parts almost a desert. It derives great importance, how- 

 ever, from the remarkable richness of the fisheries on its 

 coasts ; hence the establishment and maintenance of per- 

 manent fishing villages on the main land becomes a subject 

 of great importance to Canada and Britain. The condi- 

 tion, character, customs, and traditions of the aboriginal 

 inhabitants of so large a portion of the earth's surface, 

 many of whom have never visited the coast, are full of 

 interest ; and the geography and geology of so vast an 

 extent of country form proper subjects of enquiry at the 

 present day. 



In the absence of any definite boundaries, the entire 

 peninsula is divided into three parts, supposed to be sepa- 

 rate watersheds, to which special names have been given. 

 The area draining into the river and gulf of St. Lawrence 



