INTRODUCTION rt 
1569. The first official explorer to reach Labrador after 
Corte-Real was John Rut. Rut was an officer of the 
incipient Royal Navy of Henry VIII; in 1527 he set out 
to discover the regions of the Great Khan by going “ far- 
ther to the west.’ One of his two ships was wrecked near 
the Strait of Belle Isle, where he encountered “many 
great islands of ice,” and had to turn back. In 1534 
Jacques Cartier explored the coast inside the Strait of 
Belle Isle. It has been said that he discovered the Strait 
of Belle Isle, but it is certain that the Strait was well 
known before 1534. It was called “le destroict de la 
baye des Chasteaux”’ (the strait off Chateau Bay).  Car- 
tier’s comment on the coast has already been quoted. 
He also said, however, that “if the land were as good as 
the harbours, it would be a good country.” 
The results of later voyages may be briefly summarized. 
In 1577 Martin Frobisher sailed along the coast of northern 
Labrador. “Foure days coasting along this land,” he 
says, “we found no sign of habitation.” ‘All along this 
coast yce lieth, as a continuall bulwarke, and so defendeth 
the country, that those that would land there, incur great 
danger.” In 1586 Davis spent a month on the Labrador 
coast, searching for a northwest passage. Besides the 
openings already known, Cumberland Strait, Frobisher’s 
Strait, and Hudson’s Strait, Davis rediscovered Davis 
Inlet in 56° and Hamilton Inlet in 54° 30’. It is to him 
that we owe the most exact knowledge of the coast until 
modern times. In 1606 John Knight arrived on the Lab- 
rador coast in latitude 56° 25’. He and his men were 
attacked by the Eskimos, and only with great diffi- 
culty were able to beat them off. Eight years later a 
