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 
