LABRADOR 



CHAPTER I 



HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION * 

 BY W. S. WALLACE 



LABRADOR has not much history. So far as we know, it 

 was first seen by European eyes in 986. From that time 

 until about 1700 it almost enjoyed the happiness of the 

 country which has no history. There is nothing to record 

 but the voyages of navigators who came and saw the land, 

 and sailed away. Labrador, said Jacques Cartier, was 

 " the land God gave to Cain"; there was "not one cart- 

 load of earth on the whole of it." No one came to live 

 on the coast until about 1700. But if the history of Lab- 

 rador is deficient in quantity, it is marked by an infinite 

 variety. Across the stage there pass in succession the 

 savage bands of the Eskimos, an earlier race than ours; 

 the storm-driven "dragons" of the Vikings; the early 

 navigators, Venetian, Portuguese, English; whalers and 

 fishermen from the Basque Provinces, from France, from 

 the west of England; French-Canadian seigneurs and 

 concessionaires along the Cdte du Nord; English settlers 

 after 1763 above the Strait of Belle Isle (among them 



1 1 wish to express my indebtedness to Mr. W. L. Grant, Beit Lec- 

 turer in Colonial History in the University of Oxford, and Mr. H. P. 

 Biggar, representative in Europe of the Dominion Archives, for assist- 

 ance kindly rendered in the preparation of this chapter. W. S. W. 



B 1 



