338 LABRADOR 
“head rope,” and hang down perpendicularly. The legal 
mesh is not less than six inches in diagonal measure. At 
the outer end, the line of nets, called a “‘fleet,’’ is held by 
heavy anchors, and then a pound is formed by turning 
back with another net at an angle of forty-five degrees in 
the direction from which the salmon are expected to strike. 
At times yet another net is added, so that the triangular 
pound is closed, leaving merely a door. The salmon do 
not strike a net in daytime so readily as do sea-trout. 
They seem, however, to get confused in the pound, and in 
this most are taken. 
The Hudson’s Bay Company, who are by far the largest 
salmon buyers on the coast, own many nets. They also 
own houses, or “posts,” as they are called, at all the best 
points of land in the long inlets, and the planters use these 
and turn in half their fish as rent. For the balance they 
get goods from the company’s store. 
Most of the salmon catchers are fur trappers, although 
those who live on the outside land do little or no “‘furring.”’ 
Indeed, many have fallen into poverty and have neither 
traps, safe guns, ammunition, nor even clothing and food 
to enable them to get out and face the Arctic cold of winter. 
This is now the poorest class of men in Labrador. 
Formerly the Hudson’s Bay Company had a large salmon 
cannery in Eagle River. The building is still standing, but 
the trade has been abandoned for want of sufficient fish 
to maintain a scale of business large enough to enable them 
to compete with British Columbia and other places. The 
salmon industry is generally in a bad way, as the price of the 
salted article has steadily declined, till this year instead of 
$6 and even $8, only $3 a hundredweight was paid. The 
