90 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Jan. i6 , 1909. 
They simply camped by their kill and gorged 
themselves until the whole was devoured. We 
gave the starving creatures what we could, but 
all of our provisions would have gone but a 
little way even if we could have spared them. 
The continual begging of the natives and es¬ 
pecially of the Indians along Hudson Bay was 
a great annoyance to us. At first we gave as 
liberally to them as we could, but we soon re¬ 
alized that for our own safety we must stop 
The Eskimo tents are usually very much bet¬ 
ter made than those of the Indians. The for¬ 
mer are covered with seal skins sewed together 
and afford a good protection; the latter, which 
are much smaller, are built by simply leaning 
a number of poles together at their tops to form 
a cone-shaped frame and then throwing skins 
loosely over them. One shelter we saw was 
four feet high and five feet through on the 
ground. Into this the family of three crawl. 
RAPIDS ON STILLWATER RIVER, LABRADOR. 
doing so. At one time much waving from two 
natives brought us to shore only to hear the 
old story of misery and hunger. In this case 
we were fortunately able to help them by shoot¬ 
ing a white seal, which, with considerable 
labor, we towed to the beach. This furnished 
them with food for a long while. They told 
us that it was very good and that none would 
be wasted; we regret now that we did not taste 
it ourselves. 
A little experience with Indians near Rich¬ 
mond Gulf was less pleasant. To these we gave 
food and some small gifts; in return they stole 
from us a number of small articles and a valu¬ 
able fish net, everything in short that they could 
get. These Indians are the most degraded of 
any natives we have ever met or hope to meet. 
Many of their habits could not possibly be told 
here; in many of their methods of living and per¬ 
sonal traits they seem to be lower than the animals. 
The natives’ idea of medicine was amusing 
and they were continually pestering us for some.' 
Any kind would do, for they evidently thought 
it all equally good and wanted it whether they 
were sick or well. On one occasion two In¬ 
dians who had seen our little medicine chest 
followed us on the coast and • begged for a 
long distance. These men were in a peculiarly 
shaped canoe which I have seen nowhere but 
on the Hudson Bay coast. It has an enormous 
sheer, a round section and blunt waterlines; 
with its great draft amidships it is very good 
in rough water, but a hard paddler in still water 
and very bad for rapids. The Eskimo kayaks 
are far more perfect boats, but we could not 
induce the Indians to try them. The omiak, 
in which the Eskimo transports his numerous 
wives, dogs and' outfit, is a much smaller and 
more poorly constructed boat than the omiaks 
of the Atlantic coast. 
and there they lie very poorly protected from 
the rain and weather. The smell from these 
shelters is very offensive, even many yards 
away. 
On one of the islands of Hudson Bay we 
found a family of Eskimo consisting of a man, 
a girl and a boy. Their shelter was a miser¬ 
ably built conical affair like those of the In¬ 
seemed to puzzle and interest her. And she 
was no less surprised to notice that we were 
not continually scratching as they all were. 
Evidently she regarded us as beings of strange 
and peculiar habits. 
No account of travel in Labrador can be com¬ 
plete without some mention of the terrible pest 
of mosquitoes. These were always present in 
immense swarms from the beginning of our trip' 
to the end, and sometimes they made life al¬ 
most unbearable. Nothing could be heard but 
their buzzing. 'Whenever we attempted to eat 
they were down our throats and in our eyes and 
faces, and in spite of our head nets and fly 
dope we were always badly bitten. The natives 
seemed to mind them almost as much as we did, 
their remedy being rancid seal oil with a cover¬ 
ing of filth. I am satisfied that were one so 
unfortunate as to be caught out at night with¬ 
out protection he would be either crazy or dead 
by morning. 
Our tents were provided with a fine mesh 
bobinette inner tent, but some would always 
find their way inside or come up from the 
ground. At times our light so attracted them 
we have gone outside to see if it were not rain¬ 
ing, for the constant tapping of the mosquitoes 
against the canvas sounded so exactly like rain 
that it was impossible to tell the difference. On 
many nights I had to give up the observation 
of stars for latitude and longitude because a 
candle could not be kept lit long enough to ad¬ 
just the artificial horizon.^ We unfortunately 
had no chimney, and the mosquitoes swarmed 
so thickly that without this protection the flame 
was quickly smothered. There were but few 
nights cool enough to afford us any relief; we 
found that it required a temperature within a 
few degrees of actual freezing to subdue them. 
To one who is ambitious to hunt or explore 
in an unknown country, the whole of northern 
Labrador offers a virgin field. Even Hudson 
PORTAGE NEAR RICHMOND GULF, LABRADOR. 
dians; their kayak had been destroyed in a 
storm and they had no means of getting away 
or of procuring food. Luckily we managed to 
shoot a seal for them. The girl was actually 
pretty, the only attractive Eskimo that we have 
ever seen. That my wife wore a skirt and also 
that she had not dead fish tied to her back 
Bay is but little known and almost wholly un¬ 
visited. Except for a little steam barge of the 
Hudson Bay Company which touches at Whale 
River about Aug. i of each year for a single 
day, there is no communication with the out¬ 
side world. An attractive plan for an expedi¬ 
tion would be to start from James Bay in the 
