CHAPTER XLIX. 

 A Proposed Two Years' Expedition. 



THE BEST METHOD OF SETTLING THE QUESTION OF THE NAVIGATION 

 OF THE HUDSON'S BAY ROUTE — NECESSITY OF ERECTING BEACONS 

 AND MAKING A SURVEY OF THE COASTS — A WINTER EXPEDITION 

 NECESSARY. 



r JiNOUGH favourable to the practicability of the navigation of 

 iip| \ the Hudson's Bay route is now known to warrant the 

 Dominion Government in taking decided and comprehen- 

 sive steps to prove it still further. It is not enough that a 

 steamer shall be sent out now to pick up the observers that have 

 been stationed to make observations for three or four months and 

 then to return and report what has been seen and experienced ; and 

 to tell the world how low the mercury sank in January at Cape 

 Chidley and at North Bluff and at Nottingham ; or to publish a 

 record of the greatest gale at Nachvak on the Labrador, or even 

 to chronicle the probable fact that Digges Island was in the midst 

 of mountains of ice six months out of twelve. Something more 

 than this should be done, and it is the business of this brief chapter 

 to sketch out roughly a humble opinion of what that something 

 ought to be. 



In the first place, the expedition of 1885 should continue unin- 

 terruptedly for two years. For the purpose a strong steam vessel, 

 such as the Neptune or the Bear of the Newfoundland sealing fleet, 

 should be chartered for two years, and provisioned for eighteen 

 months and sent up to Hudson's Bay with instructions to cruise in 

 the Bay and Strait all the summer of 1885, all the winter of 1885-6, 

 all the summer of 1886, and all the winter of 1886-7. Then she 

 mio-ht return to Halifax in the fall of 1887 with a complete solution 



