THE FISHERIES. 1 33 



Labrador coast, but passing up, as Hind in his work on 

 the Labrador peninsula states, as far as Hudson's Strait 

 — Stone has caught 200 barrels in a season. He has to 

 pay twelve barrels for a hogshead of salt, the price of 

 which is now (1864) very high. He secures 800 quin- 

 tals of fish at I Si', a quintal, which amounts to £']20 for 

 a successful season's work. He can cure the fish on this 

 coast during the short summer, and is now building a 

 shed for this purpose. 



Of salmon 1 80 quintals are taken in a good season ; they 

 are pickled and sell at the rate of $5.00 a quintal (112 

 lbs.), so that he would realize about $900 from this fish- 

 ery ; but considering that he had a family of ten chil- 

 dren, it is not probable that on the average he more 

 than comfortably supports his family, and in many sum- 

 mers the fisheries on this desolate coast are a failure. 

 And to show what little chance there is to retrieve his 

 fortunes by the products of the winter's hunting, he told 

 me that last winter nothing was shot about Chateau Bay 

 from Christmas until the first of February. During the 

 entire winter but a single partridge was shot, while at 

 the same time they were very abundant at Blanc Sablon, 

 showing that possibly these birds are somewhat migra- 

 tory, going in flocks from one point to another in search 

 of food. There are now neither beaver nor otter, nor 

 silver nor black foxes to be had ; only two or three 

 wolves were shot, and two deer. When I asked him 

 what the people would do if the hunting and fishing con- 

 tinued to fall off, he replied hopefully, and in his fisher- 

 man's dialect, " Oh, we'll have a spurt by and by." He 

 added that the S.W. wind was in'summer "the coldest 

 wind that blows." Winter comes on in November; by 



