136 CANADIAN ENVIRONMENT OF THE OIJANANICHE 



And Lake Mistassini is not a third of the distance 

 from Quebec to Hudson Strait across the great Labra- 

 dor peninsula, though the trail to Mistassini from the 

 city of Quebec is longer than the journey from Que- 

 bec to New York. From a comparatively small cor- 

 ner of the territory traversed by this trail there could 

 readily be taken the total areas of the Adirondacks, 

 the Rangeleys, and the Yellowstone National Park. 

 And yet not a third of this immense fish and game 

 preserve has been traversed by tourists or sportsmen, 

 the part actually visited by any white 'man having been 

 reached by only two or three isolated parties, who have 

 crossed it in but one direction and drawn through it 

 merely a single trail. It is next to impossible to form 

 any adequate conception of the extent and value of 

 this vast peninsula as a national and even a continen- 

 tal preserve of game and game-fish ; so proportionate- 

 ly insignificant, in comparison with its practically un- 

 known territory, are the localities concerning which 

 we have any positive knowledge. In the interior of 

 that unknown land there is (in 1896) a hitherto un- 

 surveyed extent of country larger in its area than 

 that of Newfoundland and of all the maritime prov- 

 inces of the Dominion combined. But it is known 

 to be frequented by immense herds of caribou, and 

 portions of the country have yielded untold quanti- 

 ties of valuable furs to the Indian hunters for the 

 Hudson Bay Company. 



From the enormous size of some of the rivers and 

 lakes in the Labrador peninsula, and from the num- 

 ber and weight of the fish which they contain, it is 

 certain that much of the interior of the country is a 



