apart from the glassy tectites, which may be the end product of an 

 earlier cosmic bodyof vitreous composition, which also broke up — 

 started peppering this planet only about the time man was pre- 

 paring to become organized, and then did so with great emphasis, 

 they may have had the profoundest effect on his history and that 

 of other forms of life. 



OFFSHORE HOSTS 



One day we may be able to drive to the Chubb Crater and look 

 into these matters for ourselves. Today, however, most of this 

 province is still more or less unapproachable. Its known centers 

 of interest are to be found around its periphery, and 75 per cent 

 of this is represented by coast line. Hudson Bay is a very odd 

 sea which, although not without its quota of submarine life and 

 its shore and oceanic birds, always appears to be somewhat 

 dead. In winter it freezes splendidly and remains a great flat 

 sheet of white nothingness for months. However, as soon as we 

 enter the Hudson Strait, between Baffinland and Ungava, we 

 encounter quite other conditions. This is a channel leading from 

 the true oceans, and into it all manner of deep-water denizens 

 penetrate; while, as we round Cape Chidley at the east end of 

 Ungava Bay, we find ourselves in that arm of the Atlantic which 

 leads to Davis Strait. From this flows the mighty Polar Current 

 of cold water, which brings abundant food for a multitude of 

 animals such as fish, seals, and whales. This current flows south 

 along the Labradorian coast, and to it come endless hosts of sea 

 life both below and above water. Here coastal sea birds such as 

 Puffins, Guillemots (or Murres), Razorbills. Gannets, gulls, and 

 others crowd in great swarms, nesting on the rugged rocky 

 coasts and roaring out to sea to fish by day. In the waters are 

 fish, stratified layer upon layer to great depths. 



Jutting out into the ocean from the eastern tip of Newfound- 

 land are the famous Grand Banks, to which Europeans have 

 apparently sailed since the beginning of the Christian era, if not 

 before, to fish for cod; and to this also come the ocean predators 

 to feed on the fish. Also, wallowing along behind, come the 

 whales of all sizes, from the little porpoises and the ocean 

 speedsters, the dolphins, to the great, bumbling Rorquals and the 

 even more ponderous Black and Greenland Right Whales to feed 

 upon the multitudinous little crustaceans and other plankton. 

 Then there are also the terrible Killer Whales, the greatest flesh- 

 eaters presently on this planet, of which the larger bulls can 

 measure up to thirty feet in length, weigh forty tons, and have 

 mouths armed with big enough teeth to take a bite four feet 

 wide out of the underbelly of a mighty Blue Whale, or actually 

 dive into the mouth of a Right Whale and tear out its one-ton. 

 bulbous, fleshy tongue. 



All around this coast and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the 

 sea swarms with life. The world of the oceans is not a part of 

 our story, but nonetheless that of its coasts has played such a 

 notable part in both the natural and human economy of such 

 a large peripheral belt of this continent that it must be taken 

 into account in any description of the natural history of the 

 whole. Sea products have always been not only a major constit- 

 uent of the coastal life of all land masses, they also have a pro- 

 found effect extending very deeply into the largest continents. 

 Further, they provide an abundance of salts and other minerals 

 that are not readily available to animal life in the middle of 

 large land areas, but that almost all animals crave. This seems 

 to bring both short-term and long-term immigrations of all man- 

 ner of living things to the ocean fringes, while sea products are 

 somehow carried or otherwise filter inland to great distances; 



and this by other agencies, as well as human ones. The Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence is a major source of "sea food" on this continent. 



WHALES AND SEALS 



Whaling has always been pursued from the ice front at the 

 north head of Baffin Bay all the way down the coasts of Green- 

 land, Labrador, and on to New England, both by the early colo- 

 nists, the earlier Norse, and the Eskimos and Amerindians 

 before them. The Norse relied to a considerable extent on this 

 enterprise in Greenland, pursuing the White-sided and other 

 species of dolphins, the large Greenland Right Whale when 

 possible, and particularly specializing in the capture of the fabu- 

 lous Narwhal, a small species of whale of a special family 

 which otherwise contains only the equally strange Beluga or 

 White Whale. The Narwhal grows to sixteen feet, but the adult 

 males carry on the front of the head a tremendous, spirally- 

 twisted, spiked tooth which may measure as much as twelve 

 feet. In olden times these twisted ivories used to be imported 

 to Europe and used for the legs of episcopal thrones, and, cut 

 into sections, as sword hilts. Today this industry has become 

 redundant, but the capture of the Beluga is still of importance in 

 the area, notably in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. There a regular 

 fishery from small boats using rifles to shoot the animals and 

 then harpoons to land them has continued through the years. 



The Beluga is born a nondescript dirty brown-colored crea- 

 ture, but as it grows it gets whiter and whiter till the adult bulls 

 are of a pristine, opaque whiteness that surpasses the whiteness 

 even of newly fallen snow. These animals have very thick but 

 supple skins overlying a four-to-eight-inch layer of blubber 

 which forms a delicious article of Eskimo diet called mukluk. 

 The larger whales actually have skins hardly thicker than a 

 sheet of carbon paper. Some dolphins, and the porpoises (which 

 are really quite different creatures), have thick enough skins to 

 provide leather of high grade, but that of the Beluga surpasses 

 them all in this respect, and has always been the main reason 

 for their pursuit by man. 



Of the larger whales and whaling we will not speak; for, 

 although several of their kinds enter the fjords of this province 

 regularly to feed during their annual migrations, they are not 

 animals of the land. Some other marine mammals, however, 

 must be mentioned. These are certain seals, three species of 

 which occur off these coasts in untold numbers and which still 

 visit them annually in sufficient quantities to form the basis of 

 a considerable industry. These are known as the Greenland Seal 

 (Phoca groenlandica), the Hooded Seal (Cystophora cristata). 

 and the Bearded Seal (Erignathus harbatus). The last is today 

 comparatively rare. Off the Labrador coast and in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence the young of the Greenland seals are born on the 

 sea ice in late March, and it is then that the sealing ships de- 

 scend upon them, massacring the helpless little white, fluffy 

 babies which cannot even swim. The method used to collect 

 their pelts was once the most revolting activity ever devised 

 by man, entailing clubbing them on the head and immediately 

 stripping off their pelts. However, the clubbing was often neg- 

 lected, and the helpless little creatures were skinned alive and 

 left to flounder on the ice. It is to be hoped that these practices 

 have now (as the industry officially declares) been discontinued. 



Kittiwakes, a small species of gull, common on both sides 

 of the Atlantic. Their eggs were at one time eagerly sought 

 after by mariners. 



34 



