2o8 The Ottawa Naturalist. 



The Labrador Area. 



By a. p. Low, B.A.Sc, F.G.S.A. &c. 



Introduction. — Dr., Dawson in his paper, read before the 

 Ottawa Field Naturalists Club in 1890, estimated the unex- 

 plored area of the Labrador Peninsula at 389,000 square miles 

 out of a total area of 5 1 1,000 square miles, making it the greatest 

 unexplor;ed area in the Dominion; Since that date we have run 

 exploratory lines from east to west and from north to south 

 through this great area, so that it is now divided into six smaller 

 areas ; and allowing, as in the previous paper, that a line through 

 any region gives a knowledge of the country for twenty-five 

 miles on both sides of it, the total area is now reduced to le.ss 

 than 200,000 square miles. At the least, we can now claim to 

 have a fair idea of the climate, distribution of the forest and 

 .some of the natural resources of this vast region, and have found 

 -thai^t although poor enough, it is not the desolate wilderness of 

 rock and snow which it was popularly supposed to be up to a 

 recent date. 



During the past five seasons it has been my duty to under- 

 take explorations in the Labrador Peninsula, and the total 

 length of the surveys through the unexplored area is approximate- 

 ly 3,500 miles, made up as follows: — In 1892, 500 miles; in 1893^ 

 700 miles ; in 1894, 1,300 miles ; in 1895,400 miles, and in 1896, 

 500 miles. Much of this work was commenced far from railways 

 and civilization, so that the total amount of travel in canoes and 

 boats, or on foot, not counting railway or ship transport, amounts 

 to upwards of 8,000 miles. 



In 1892 I was assisted by Mr. A. H. D. Ross, and we started 

 from Lake St. John, which is situated about one hundred miles 

 north of Quebec city, at the end of the Quebec and Lake St. John 

 Railway. From there the Ashouapmouchouan River was as- 

 cended in a north-west course, some two hundred miles to its 

 head, at the watershed dividing the rivers flowing south into the 

 St. Lawrence from those flowing westward into Hudson Bay. 



