CHAPTER III. 

 The Labrador. 



BLANC SABLON — THE ICEBERGS — THE PEOPLE AND PURSUITS OF 

 THE LABRADOR — THE NEPTUNE IN A WIND-STORM. 



On a bold, and bleak, and sterile shore, 

 Where the polar wnids through the icebergs roar, 

 And the wretched poor of the Labrador, 

 Hungry and cold, and in want evermore, 

 Drudge out a fisherman's life. 



J§p||N the 22nd of July, the Hudson's Bay Expedition sailed 

 from Halifax, and was amid the icebergs of the Straits of 

 Belle Isle on the 2Gth, having spent an hour of that morn- 

 ing in the wild-looking little harbour of Blanc Sablon. 

 Blanc Sablon was interesting to us, as marking the boundary line 

 between the Dominion proper and the Labrador. The latter, of 

 course, is a dependency of Newfoundland. It was blowing a gale 

 when we visited it ; but subsequently I learned that a gale is the 

 normal state of the Labrador weather. The bay, or harbour, is 

 apparently well protected by George and Greenly islands, and by 

 the coast of the mainland, which is high and so shaped as to form, 

 with the islands, a partial land-lock. But you must not be guided 

 by appearances on the Labrador. Shelter or no shelter, the wind 

 was howling in the Neptune's rigging, and the waves were 

 breaking into white-caps all over the basin. I could not tell how it 

 got over the hills and headlands to us, but it got there all the same. 

 I do not believe that there is a square foot of the whole coast above 

 ground where one can escape a furious wind. And so it blew on 

 that Saturday morning. 



There are three fishing stations at Blanc Sablon. The Jersey 

 station on Greenly Island, and the rooms belonging to Job, Brothers 



