IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



views those narratives where fact passes 

 perplexingly into fable, seeks (like so many 

 another) to follow the explorers in their 

 voyaging, and pitches upon St. Thomas on 

 the South Shore as their final landfall — 

 their Vinland. They came (it will be re- 

 membered) to a place abounding in grapes, 

 and it is noteworthy that St. Thomas is just 

 below the Island of Orleans where Jacques 

 Cartier found such a plenty of the wild grape 

 that he named it L'Isle de Bacchus. We 

 may not cruise with the writer to Helluland 

 and Markland in the Norsemen's wake, 

 past cape, fiord and strand, hard to pick up 

 through the fogs of time, but a few words 

 of comment should be within your patience. 

 'The Wonderful Beaches' fit amazingly 

 with the sands of the Quebec Labrador. 

 Pointe des Monts is not the stumbling- 

 block that Steensby imagined. Had he 

 known the river otherwise than by maps he 

 might have found in Isle aux Coudres a 

 likelier 'Straumsey' than Hare Island offers 

 him. And the fierce tides and rips of the 

 northern channel bring 'Straumsfiord' to 

 mind. His guess is uncommonly reason- 

 able and persuasive that sea-beaten marin- 

 ers in small craft would choose to coast a 

 new-found shore rather than launch darkly 

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