28 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



" Ancien Etablissement." On the English maps it was called " Old 

 Fort/' the bay was " Old Fort Bay," and the island at the mouth of 

 the bay " Old Fort Island." The post was not on the island but on 

 the main shore. The error of placing it upon the island, as has been 

 showTi, .would not have been detected but for the discovery of the 

 " Eelation Originale." The names still cling to the localities and on 

 the Admiralty charts of to-day Old Fort bay and Old Fort island are 

 «till laid down, though in the " Sailing Directions " little notice is 

 given to the locality for other harbours along the coast have dwarfed 

 its importance. 



The range of coast called by Cartier " Toutes Isles " is a long dense 

 archipelago of islands shutting in a broad bay into the head of which, 

 falls the Esquimaux river. The whole bay on the old maps was taken 

 as one; but now it is reckoned as three. The easternmost is Bonne 

 Espérance bay, shut in by an island of the same name; the central 

 is Esquimaux bay, where the Esquimaux river falls in. It is shut in. 

 by Esquimaux island, a large island opposite the mouth of the river. 

 The westernmost is Old Fort bay and off its mouth lies Old Fort island ; 

 the accompanying map shows the main outlines of the coast. The 

 locality is well within the western end of the strait of Belle-Isle, and 

 is distant from Blanc Sablon about twenty-five miles in a direct line 

 by sea. 



Although the harbour of Bonne Espérance has now become the 

 chief resort for vessels we have a volume by Mr. Stearns giving an 

 excellent account of this place. In fact. Captain Jacques Cartier, 

 Courtemanche and he are our chief authorities. It is a long stretch 

 from 1534 to 1875, but the stern immobility of this iron bound coast 

 is not relaxed by the passing of centuries. Mr. Winfred Alden Stearns, 

 of Amherst (Mass.) College, visited the region in 1878, 1880 and 1881, 

 making natural history collections, and he remained there one whole 

 year. He stayed with a family which lived on Old Fort island in 

 summer and moved to winter quarters on the mainland to a house at 

 the site of this very Brest or Old Fort which is the subject of our 

 inquiries. 



We need not dwell long on the peculiarities of the place. The 

 Labrador coast was very curtly summarized by Cartier as " the land 

 God gave to Cain." " If the land were as good as the harbours," he 

 thought, "it would be a good country, but there was not a cartload 

 of earth in the whole of it." The riches of that region are in the sea 

 and from its depths generation after generation of hardy fishermen have 

 fed the nations of western Europe, though witli little profit to them- 

 selves. Old Fort bay, as will be seen on the map, runs up into the 



