60 HUNTING CAMPS. 



the 5oth parallel is shut off from the rest of the world by a 

 barrier of ice, its only communication being maintained by 

 a komatik, or dog-sledge, post that arrives about Christmas. 

 During the summer its desolate settlements receive a fort- 

 nightly or three-weekly visit from the mail-boat Virginia 

 Lake, the Hudson's Bay steamer The Pelican on summer 

 service to their posts, The Strathcona of the Deep Sea Mis- 

 sion carrying the gallant Grenfell on his errands of mercy, 

 and The Harmony, which brings supplies to the Moravian 

 Mission stations : these, with the cod-fishery fleets, sum up 

 the usual traffic of the open season. 



As might be expected, Labrador is one of the most thinly 

 inhabited countries in the world. Its native population 

 consists of a few hundreds of Indians in the far interior and 

 a few groups of Eskimo on the coasts. To these may be 

 added the "livyeres," or "live heres," as the white settlers 

 are called, the factors of the Hudson's Bay Company's posts, 

 and last, but not least, the missionaries of the Moravian 

 Church, a body of men who yield to none in the singleness 

 and nobility of their aims, and often a very different thing, 

 alas ! in the adequate methods by which they pursue them. 

 So much for the residents all the year round. In early 

 summer these are increased by the cod fleet from Newfound- 

 land, who at the earliest moment that the weather permits 

 battle north in their schooners and take possession of their 

 little wooden stations which dot the coast from Square 

 Island to Fanny's Harbour. Their season lasts from June 

 to October, and during this period they work as hard as 

 men on a Polar expedition. 



The Labrador, thanks to the Moravians and the Deep 

 Sea Mission, with the indefatigable Dr. Grenfell at its head, 

 is a most God-fearing region. At the cod stations they 

 will not even dry fish on a Sunday. On a certain glorious 

 Sunday morning the head of one of these little colonies re- 

 marked ruefully, " If to-day had been yesterday, I'd have 



