196 A SUMMER SAIL TO THE LABRADOR COAST 



a month later. At the ' Narrows ' near Rigolet, where the tide 

 rushes with great velocity into Esquimaux Bay, a sheet of water 

 thirty miles long by about eight in width, salmon may be caught 

 by a spoon-bait or artificial minnow. Here they begin to disappear 

 again towards the end of August, thus seeming to remain little 

 more than a month during the brief Labrador midsummer, which 

 corresponds in climate to that of the south coast of England in May. 

 They do not seem to range farther north than about 56 north 

 latitude. The northern fish are small relatively to those of more 

 southern waters. A friend of the writer saw no signs of salmon 

 in a recent trip up the Barren Grounds and Eraser Rivers, where 

 probably no man ever cast a fly before. In the latter stream he 

 caught a number of very large trout of extraordinary brillian- v 

 of colouring. The different types of trout to be seen in North 

 American waters are simply marvellous in their variety. As 

 Izaak Walton has observed, ' You are to note there are several kinds 

 of trout . . . which differ in their bigness and shape and spots and 

 colour '. This is especially true of the Labrador trout, some of whirl i 

 run to enormous size, seventeen and even nineteen pounds weight 

 having been recorded. 



The three rivers running in at the head of Sandwich Bay are 

 more freqently resorted to than any of the others for fly fishing. 1 

 The traveller may step off the Glencoe, or some other one of Reid's 

 comfortable steamships sailing fortnightly from the Port of St. 

 John's, at the Hudson Bay Station, called Cartwright Harbour, 

 at the mouth of the Bay. Here are to be seen the monument % 

 of John and George Cartwright, who more than a century 

 since accomplished so much exploration of the Labrador peninsula. 

 The voluminous journals of the latter, who was once an oflfu r 

 of the Navy, afford an interesting picture of life and nature on t he- 

 coast , little changed at the present hour. The factor can readily 

 furnish a tight, well-manned little sailing-craft which will convey 

 the sportsmen, guides, tents, and camp paraphernalia to the mouth 

 of the river. The sail up the Bay is delightful, although the 

 ' Narrows ' is sometimes a bad place to get through owing to the 

 racing of the tides. The Bay is walled in by high mountains, some 

 of them clothed with dark ridges of evergreen trees alternating with 

 brighter patches of birch and poplar. The northern side is edged 

 by the Mealy Mountains. Here and there a sugar-loaf lump rising 

 high above the lower peaks even in midsummer is seen to be capped 

 with snow and ice. Now and then a few sea-fowl are put up n 

 the wing patchpolLs, yellow bills, and bottle nose scoters -disturbed 

 in the act of diving for shellfish at a little distance of! the ledges. 



1 The White Bear usually affords good fishing after the end of Jutu . 



