The Hudson s Bay Route Opposed. 519 



at Churchill that year, and did not venture on the return voyage 

 until the following summer. She laid up in Sloop's Cove at the 

 upper end of the harbour, and even then the ice did not cake around 

 here until the end of December. At the same season and even later 

 the Prince of Wales, the Moose Factory ship, struck out for England 

 and got through all right, showing that if the Ocean Nymph had 

 made the attempt- she would have succeeded also. There was really 

 no necessity for her remaining at Churchill all winter. 



I will not further criticize the writings of the Mail's Expedition 

 correspondent, but will turn the reader's attention to a more respon- 

 sible quarter, to the Mail's editorial utterances. No sooner had the 

 Expedition returned than that journal delivered itself of the follow- 

 ing :— 



the Hudson's bay expedition. 



The Mail's special correspondent, who returned the other day with 

 the Dominion Steamer Neptune, from Hudson's Bay, telegraphs from 

 Halifax this morning an interesting sketch of the summer's operations. 

 Of the practicability of the navigation of the Bay itself for five or six 

 months of the year there never has been any question ; but grave doubts 

 exist as to the general practicability of the Strait. The Hudson's Bay 

 Company have been trading between North of Scotland ports and the ports 

 in the Bay for upwards of two centuries, two sailing ships making the 

 round trip every season. The logs show that while the Bay is navigable 

 for nearly half the year, the navigation of the Strait is always attended by 

 a considerable element of delay and danger from floes and packs, and that 

 in some seasons the channel is next to impassable. The experience of the 

 Neptune adds but little to our knowledge of this branch of the subject, and 

 that little is by no means favourable to the theory that the Strait is prac- 

 ticable for a fleet of steamships carrying a year's crop from the North-West 

 to Liverpool. 



The Neptune entered the Strait on August 5th, and after stopping 

 three days at Cape Chudleigh, or as some maps have it, Chidley, pushed 

 across to Resolution Island ; but, owing to snowstorms, fogs, and the vast 

 fields of floating ice, failed to make it, and on the 12th reached Big Island. 

 Here the shore ice ran a mile out from land, while floes swept past in the 

 open water. On the 16th the vessel left Big Island for Prince of Wales' 

 Sound on the south shore, remaining there from the 17th until the 22nd, 

 a heavy gale with snow prevailing uninterruptedly and the sea being filled 

 with floes. Leaving the sound, the Neptune headed for Notingham 



