250 THE LABEADOE PENINSULA. CHAP. xvi. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

 'THE DAEK DAYS OF CANADA.' 



Traditional Accounts of Conflagrations in Labrador Dark Days of 

 1785 Chief Justice Sewell's Account of the Dark Days of 1814 

 Ashes, Smoke, and 'thick Weather' Traditional Account of 

 Volcanoes in Labrador Henri Nouvel's Account of the Earthquake 

 in 1663 Lieutenant IngaU's Statement Captain Baddeley's State- 

 ment M. Gagnon's Account of an Eruption in 1785 in the rear 

 of St. Paul's Bay List of Earthquakes in Canada from 1663- 

 1861 The Fire-Mountain of the Nasquapees Probability of 'the 

 Dark Days ' having been occasioned by Fires in the Interior burning 

 the Lichens and Mosses Mr. Davis' Account Interest of the 

 Subj ect. 



ACCOUNTS of extensive conflagrations in the interior 

 of the Labrador Peninsula are traditional among the 

 Indians, but it is very difficult to form any true concep- 

 tion of the area over which trees and moss were destroyed 

 by fire, from the very imaginative forms of expression fre- 

 quently adopted by these people, as well as from the 

 difficulty of meeting with those who are personally familiar 

 with the whole of the country overrun. It is very evident, 

 from the description given to me by Otelne and Arkaske, 

 Nasquapees at Seven Islands, by Domenique, who had 

 often hunted in Ashwanipi and below that great lake, by 

 Bartelemi and by Michel, both of whom had hunted near 

 Petichikapau, that a vast portion of the table land of 

 the Labrador Peninsula is a burnt country. Fire has 



