CHAPTER XXXI. 



Navigation of Hudson's Bay and Strait. — Continued. 



character of the ice in hudson's bay — neither icebergs nor 

 arctic ice — opinions favourable to the practicability of 

 the route by dr. r. bell of ottawa — extent and productive- 

 ness of the hudson's bay basin — future great importance 

 of the Hudson's bay route as a commercial highway. 



^? EITHER icebergs nor Arctic ice-floes are ever met with in 

 Hudson's Bay, and the only local ice found there is that 



K which forms along the shores of the Bay and in the rivers 

 " J^> emptying into it. In no case does the shore ice extend out 

 more than fifteen miles from the land ; and, aside from this, the great 

 body of the Bay, like the centre of the Strait, is open winter and 

 summer alike. 



The shore ice of Hudson's Bay breaks up from the first to the 

 15th of June, according to location; and that which is not melted 

 under the strong rays of the sun and warm land breezes in the 

 southern portion of the Bay finds its way to the ocean through 

 Hudson Strait, carried by the general trend of the waters. 



Ice is never an obstruction to navigation in Hudson's Bay except 

 in certain seasons in the northern portion. The eastern shore of the 

 Bay is generally high and rocky ; but its western shores, as also the 

 shores of James Bay, are low and level, stretching far into the 

 interior. The Bay is, in every sense of the word, a vast inter-ocean 

 600 miles wide and nearly 1,000 miles long, with an area of about 

 500,000 square miles. 



The basin of Hudson's Bay — that is, the vast stretch of territory 

 drained by the rivers flowing into it — is about 2,100 miles from east 

 to west, or from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies, and to the 



