68 LABRADOR 
Mugford, Hind has estimated to cover fifty-two hundred 
square miles. Beyond the outer banks the bottom drops 
off into water hundreds of fathoms deep — at the real edge 
of the continental plateau. 
As a rule, the tides are practically unimportant in the 
navigation of the Atlantic coast of the peninsula. They 
are to be reckoned with in the narrow parts of Belle Isle 
Strait and in the region about Cape Chidley. The only 
overfalls likely to affect a small boat are to be expected 
off Forteau, off Point Amour, in the narrow tickles near 
Cape Chidley, and in Belle Isle Strait. In the strait the 
current runs about three knots an hour both to the east 
and to the west. On the northeast coast the current 
generally runs slowly to the southward. Strong winds 
will affect these velocities about a knot an hour either 
way.’ 
The tides of the far north are, on the other hand, quite 
remarkable. On one occasion I attempted to force the 
nine-knot steamer Strathcona against a full ebb tide in the 
tickle south of Cape Chidley Island. At the narrowest 
place, where the defile is only a hundred yards in width, 
the water was a boiling torrent, filled with whirlpools. 
The steamer, though at full speed ahead, was carried astern. 
We were forced to run back and await the turn of the tide. 
We reckoned the current at fully ten knots an hour. 
The range of tide on the Atlantic coast varies from five 
to eight feet; at Cape Chidley it is thirty-five feet, while 
1 Fuller information may be obtained in the monograph on the tides 
of this coast by Dr. W. Bell Dawson, Engineer in charge of tidal 
surveys for Canada, Department of Marine and Fisheries, Ottawa, 
Canada. 
