ANIMAL SANCTUARIES IN LABRADOR 487 



and game birds on the coast, there are some unusual forms of 

 sport appealing to adventurous natures. Harpooning the little 

 white whale by hand in a North Shore canoe or shooting the 

 largest and gamest of all the seals— the great " hood" — also out 

 of a canoe, requires enough skill and courage to make success its 

 own reward. The extension and enforcement of proper game 

 laws would benefit sport directly, while indirectly benefiting all 

 the other interests. 



5. Zoophilists. — The zoophilist class seems only in place as an 

 afterthought. But I am convinced that it will soon become of at 

 least equal importance with any other. All the people, from 

 zoologists to tourists, who are drawn to such places by the 

 attraction of seeing animal life in its own surroundings already 

 form an immense class in every community. And it is a rapidly 

 increasing class. Could we do posterity any greater injury than 

 by destroying the ten Englands of glorious wild life in Labrador, 

 just at the very time when our own and other publics are be- 

 ginning to appreciate the value of the appeal which such haunts 

 of Nature make to all the highest faculties of civilised man ? 



The way can be made clear by scientific study. The laws 

 can be drawn up by any intelligent legislators and enforced quite 

 as efficiently as other laws have been by the Mounted Police in 

 the North-West. The expense will be small, the benefits great 

 and widely felt. The only real hitch is the uninformed and 

 therefore apathetic state of public opinion. If people only knew 

 that Labrador contained a hundred Saguenays, wild zoos, 

 Thousand Islands, fiords, palisades, sea mountains, canons, great 

 lakes and waterfalls, if they only knew that they could get the 

 enjoyment of it for a song and make it an heirloom for no more 

 trouble than letting it live, they might do all that is needed 

 to-morrow. But they don't know. And the three Governments 

 cannot do much without the support of public opinion. At 

 present they do practically nothing. The Ungavan Labrador 

 has neither organisation nor laws. The Newfoundland Labrador 

 has organisation but no laws. And the Quebec Labrador has 

 laws but no observance of them. 



However, Quebec has laws, which are something, legislators 

 who have made the laws and leaders who have introduced them. 

 The trouble is that the public generally has no sense of responsi- 

 bility in the matter of enforcement. It still has a hazy idea that 

 Nature has an overflowing sanctuary of her own, somewhere or 



