IN AUDUBON'S LABRADOR 



time the people at Blanc Sablon insist that 

 there never has been any forest there and that 

 no timber exists within four or five miles of 

 the Straits. Yet, the first day I saw upon the 

 terraces east of Blanc Sablon such plants as 

 have just been enumerated, I was convinced 

 that a forest must have been there, since these 

 are so distinctly woodland species and so de- 

 cidedly not plants typical of the Arctic barrens 

 and tundra. So my delight can be imagined 

 when, crossing with Kidder the tableland east 

 of Blanc Sablon, we came upon buried logs and 

 soon after found numerous stumps protruding 

 from the moss. Some of the stumps, now much 

 crumbled, were still a foot or more in diameter 

 and indicated an ancient forest of considerable 

 size. Just when the forest lived it is difficult to 

 say, but if it still throve in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury Cartier did not give a very clear indica- 

 tion of it. Only by such indefinite expressions 

 as, 'except at Blanc Sablon there is nothing but 

 moss and small stunted woods,' and 'without 

 any soil or woods, save in some valleys,' did he 

 indicate a possible forest cover. But here at 

 least was a remnant of the forest which had 

 once sheltered Car ex Dewey ana, Actea rubra, 

 254 



