SCIEXriFIC RESULTS 51 



Besides the local ice, additional masses of pack from more northern 

 sources are discharged into Fox Basin through Fury and Hecla 

 Strait. Mecking (IDOG, supplementary map) (fig. 25, p. 50) shows 

 that the pack ice from the Arctic Ocean enters the northern end of the 

 Gulf of Boothia and amasses in the lower end of the latter. The con- 

 gestion is i^artly relicA-ed by the escape through Fury and Hecla Strait, 

 from whence the pack continues southward through AVelcome Sound 

 and Fox Channel. The escape of ice from all of these cachments 

 is greatly hindered, nevertheless, by obstructing islands and narrow 

 channels. 



The famous ice-choked condition of Hudson Strait itself may be 

 due not wholly to the ice from Hudson Bay and Fox Channel but 

 partly to the great floes of Baffin Bay ice, which from our knowledge 

 of the currents are certainly brought to this locality. Hudson Bay 

 itself, due to the fact that its fast ice rapidly dissipates, being only 

 2 to 3 feet thick, does not contribute such large quantities of pack 

 to the Atlantic as it first might appear. The major part of the pack 

 which hampers Hudson Strait during the spring, moreover, con- 

 sists largely of the Baffin Bay variety, augmented by smaller con- 

 tril)utions of fast ice which have formed in Fox Channel (see 

 McLean. 1929, p. 13) and along the sides of Hudson Strait itself. 



It is interesting to speculate in what proportions the pack drift- 

 ing out through the lower end of Baffin Bay and the ice setting out 

 of Hudson Strait contribute to the total mass that drifts southward 

 to the Grand Bank. Mecking (1906, p. 106) shows that the most of 

 the pack to Xewfoundland comes from Baffin Bay, it having formed 

 there or brought to the bay through the waterways of the Arctic 

 Archipelago. Munn, on the other hand, stresses the sea-ice discharge 

 through Hudson Strait.^" If the pack to Labrador be divided ac- 

 cording to its sources — (a) Baffin Bay ice, (h) Arctic ice via Baffin 

 Bay, and (c) pack ice through Hudson Strait, we believe the 

 toilowing respective weights are representative : 60, 30, and 10. 



PACK ICE ALONG COASTS OF LABEADOR AND KEWFOUNDLAND 



Ice appears at the mouth of Fox Channel and in Hudson Strait 

 in October and November, the time varying somewhat from year to 

 3'ear, depending on meteorological and oceanographical conditions. 

 The pack ice out of Hudson Strait, and the first of the glacons and 

 floes which have begun to swell southward from Davis Strait join 

 off Cape Chidley, the northern extremity of Labrador. The com- 

 bined i)acks, first in narrow strings and strips, and then in a much 

 broader, heavier stream, reach the northern Labrador shelf early in 

 November. December witnesses the advance along the coast and 

 its arrival off Newfoundland in Januarj-. Fast ice during this 

 period makes inside the headlands and harbors, the freezing time 

 for the northern section being November, and for the southern 

 estuaries December. Newfountlland harbors freeze in January but 

 the ice is seldom very heavy and readily breaks up in April.^^ Sea 

 ice. it is said, will make in open water on cold calm nights in the 



=^ The drift of a tool box incased in ice from the inner waters of Hudson Strait out and 

 down the Labrador coast to Nain proves ice for Xewfoundland comes from this outlet. 



=" Til.' harbor of St. .Johns is often blockaded by the northern pack during the months 

 of February and March at the time when the sealing steamers wish to depart. Exit is 

 sometimes only accomplished by moans of much cutting through the sheets, and often 

 blasting when the pack is especially heavy. 



