INTRODUCTION 11 



1569. The first official explorer to reach Labrador after 

 Corte-Real was John Rut. Rut was an officer of the 

 incipient Royal Navy of Henry VIII; in 1527 he set out 

 to discover the regions of the Great Khan by going " far- 

 ther to the west." One of his two ships was wrecked near 

 the Strait of Belle Isle, where he encountered "many 

 great islands of ice," and had to turn back. In 1534 

 Jacques Cartier explored the coast inside the Strait of 

 Belle Isle. It has been said that he discovered the Strait 

 of Belle Isle, but it is certain that the Strait was well 

 known before 1534. It was called "le destroict de la 

 baye des Chasteaux" (the strait off Chateau Bay). Car- 

 tier's comment on the coast has already been quoted. 

 He also said, however, that " if the land were as good as 

 the harbours, it would be a good country." 



The results of later voyages may be briefly summarized. 

 In 1577 Martin Frobisher sailed along the coast of northern 

 Labrador. "Foure days coasting along this land," he 

 says, "we found no sign of habitation." "All along this 

 coast yce lieth, as a continuall bulwarke, and so defendeth 

 the country, that those that would land there, incur great 

 danger." In 1586 Davis spent a month on the Labrador 

 coast, searching for a northwest passage. Besides the 

 openings already known, Cumberland Strait, Frobisher's 

 Strait, and Hudson's Strait, Davis rediscovered Davis 

 Inlet in 56 and Hamilton Inlet in 54 30'. It is to him 

 that we owe the most exact knowledge of the coast until 

 modern times. In 1606 John Knight arrived on the Lab- 

 rador coast in latitude 56 25'. He and his men were 

 attacked by the Eskimos, and only with great diffi- 

 culty were able to beat them off. Eight years later a 



