E. B. Delabarre, Ph. D. 143 



VI. 



LIFE ON THE LABRADOR COAST, 



The Atlantic coast of Labrador is probably ordinarily 

 considered bleak and almost uninhabited. In reality, it sup- 

 ports a considerable population. In our brief voyage it 

 was impossible for us to meet a very large proportion of the 

 inhabitants, or to study them with any large degree of thor- 

 oughness. The present account lays no claim, therefore, to 

 careful scientific accuracy and completeness, and does not 

 pretend to contain any new contributions of value to knowl- 

 edge. It aims rather to give the impressions we gained of 

 the people both from our personal contact with them and also 

 from the descriptions we received of them from missionaries 

 and others whom we met. These impressions may be inade- 

 quate in some respects, in consequence of the inadequacy of 

 our sources of information. Yet, even so, it will probably 

 be of interest to give such account as we can of the condi- 

 tions of life there as we found them or heard them described. 

 A considerable portion of this section has already appeared 

 in the Providence Sunday Journal, and is here reprinted with 

 permission, with a considerable amount of additional detail. 



A thousand miles or more of desolate seacoast stretch 

 from St. John's, in Newfoundland to Nachvak, near the 

 northern end of Labrador. In the summer time it is 

 crowded with fishing schooners, whose crews toil laboriously 

 for their scanty winter suppHes. But in the winter, except 

 for a few widely-separated and lonely settlements of hardy 

 natives and whites, it is inaccessible, and given over to the 

 undisputed sway of ice and snow. 



The visitor to these shores finds much to interest him. 



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