26 DRIFT ICE. 



rent would be otherwise unimpeded, and cause much damage in 

 this way. In spring the water is covered with what, in Labrador, is 

 termed sheshe ice ; this is a thin mass of slob (another expression 

 used here) that has formed by frost or snow, or a combination of 

 both, during the night, which in the morning when the sun comes up 

 breaks up and goes floating about in the water, often attaching 

 and carrying away with it still other pieces of stray ice, and 

 becoming generally dangerous. Small boats, that are at this season 

 numerous, since the dog sleds can no longer be used, often get 

 entangled in these masses, while a turn of the weather brings cold 

 that cements them into the ice which forms an impassable barrier 

 to further progress. The boat cannot urge a way through it, and 

 the foot cannot yet walk on it, the craft drifts at the mercy of the 

 tide, the currents, and the wind, and is often carried out into the 

 Gulf, or thrown in contact with the shore, while woeful tales of 

 starvation are known to be only too true from this as other like 

 causes. The ice causes another sort of damage here, which is a 

 source of great annoyance. Large numbers of pieces of ice are 

 found at the first breaking up of the bays and waters, until August, 

 and often even later. I have known a piece to strand on some 

 fishing ground, and with a rising tide go on its slow but in a 

 measure almost irresistible way directly through the well laid nets 

 of the fishermen, carrying them off bodily into the sea. Of course 

 this cannot be helped, yet I have witnessed this spectacle, with the 

 unfortunate fellows thus loosing their net, from the shore, unable 

 to do anything with them to recover the lost property. Naviga- 

 tion in the Gulf and River St. Lawrence is usually closed the first 

 of December, and remains so until the first of May ; even after 

 that, drift ice in large quantities is liable to occur for a month more. 



