42 LABRADOR 



in summer as far as lat. 56 north and some as far as Hud- 

 son Strait. These people come down from both sides of 

 Newfoundland in sailing craft of every conceivable kind, 

 many sailing in vessels under twenty tons, and some in open 

 skiffs. Yet it is very rare to hear of any having been lost 

 from stress of weather. The dangers of the ice have simply 

 been ridiculously exaggerated. The one or two cases where 

 collisions with ice have occurred have been due to the 

 fisherman's hastening along on dark nights in order to 

 reach a fishing station sooner than another vessel. In 

 fact, these accidents are due to the contempt bred of famil- 

 iarity, and to the consequent boldness which no pleasure 

 party would ever dream of displaying. 



The want of charting can be entirely made up for by the 

 knowledge of these fishermen, who can readily be shipped 

 as part of the crew, acting as pilots at the same time. Nor 

 is this knowledge so marvellous after all, when one con- 

 siders the number of times that they have navigated these 

 same waters, and that they have sounded almost every 

 part of it again and again with their hand-lines as they 

 fish year after year along the coast. Moreover, the cliffs 

 are generally so steep-to that the bowsprit would strike 

 before the keel. Poor anchors and chains are the causes 

 of almost all our losses. Only when it comes to the inside 

 calm waters up the fiords, where, as a rule, the Newfound- 

 landers do not go after fish, does their local knowledge come 

 to an end, and the pleasure of exploring for oneself begins. 

 But as the water is then necessarily sheltered from any 

 possible swell from the Atlantic, and as an anchor can at 

 a pinch be dropped anywhere, the danger to life becomes 

 almost absolutely nil. In the fiords it is often impossible 



