Across The Heart of Newfoundland 
Story of A Journey Through a Fish and Game Region at the Front Door of Civilization But 
Hitherto Unexplored 
Narrative of a Trip by Raynal C. Bolling and Livingston E. Jones From the Journal of the Former. 
FOREST AND STREAM regards this story as one of the most interesting and im- 
How few people realize that portions of Newfoundland, the “Ancient 
Colony” are still unexplored and unmapped! The young men who made the trip described 
herewith, were for twenty-six days as much out of civilization as though they had been 
in Central Africa. They were the first to cross Newfoundland along the route described, 
and they discovered quite a number of new lakes and found much new hunting ground. 
The story of their adventures will run through several issues of this paper. 
TRIP into the bush never really 
begins until hard-soled shoes 
and white collars have been 
laid away in the trunk. It was 
a bright August morning when 
the S. S. Bruce of the Reid- 
Newfoundland Co. brought us 
to Port aux Basques, which is 
named from the Basque fishermen who used to 
put in for water and harbor. The steamer that 
we had expected would take us to the mouth of 
Little River on the south coast was reported 
two days late, and as our time was limited, we 
spent the morning trying to find a power-boat 
large enough to take us and our two men, John 
Gillett and ‘Will Allen, together with equipment, 
along the ninety odd miles of rocky coast. There 
were but three boats we could find, and after 
a regular Spanish-American negotiation with 
each of the owners from whom it was impossible 
to get a definite answer, we were much dis¬ 
couraged until Bolling proposed that we take the 
railroad to Badger, and from there, work south 
across the island, instead of following our pre¬ 
vious plan of working north from the mouth of 
Little River. 
The men were pleased because we were at 
least to start in a country that they knew, Gillett 
having driven the lower Exploits River. 
A freight train was about to start, and with 
the kind assistance of Mr. Mosdell, the agent of 
the railway company, we were able to stow our 
duffie in a box car, lash two) 18-ft. canoes on 
top, get aboard the caboose and we were off. 
Leaving Port aux Basques, the road runs 
along the top of cliffs seventy-five feet above the 
ocean, the surf breaking on a narrow sand beach 
directly under the train. Soon the rails leave 
the shore, and the freight jumps and jerks over 
the sprucewooded hills. When the engine needs 
water, we stop on a trestle over a small stream 
and pump through a hose into the tender. At 
one of the stations, a bag of crackers and a 
bottle of pickles were purchased, which, with 
some tea boiled on the stove in the car, made 
our supper, as all the provisions were locked in 
the freight car ahead. Wrapped in our blankets, 
we spent the first night on the floor of the car. 
The constant motion of the train made the floor 
seem less hard than if it were motionless. The 
following night, about 6 o’clock, we reached 
Badger, 300 miles from Port aux Basques, and 
unloaded our outfit in the rain on the railway 
embankment, arranged its several hundred odd 
pounds in canoes and pushed up stream a short 
distance from the little village, looking for a 
place to camp. 
The tents, to assert their independence, leaked 
263 
in half a dozen places all night and kept us 
shifting about for the dry spots. Breakfast was 
cooked in a heavy drizzle, and, after getting all 
of our stuff aboard, we started up the Exploits, 
which is a big smooth river sweeping down 
hill, about 300 yards wide, with fast current, but 
the boulders had all been blasted out for log 
driving. We soon found that the paddles were 
of no avail, and that only the pole would drive 
the canoes. For lunch, we stopped in an old 
lumber camp to keep out of the wet, and while 
there, saw a caribou doe swim and wade across 
the river to our landing, from where she bound¬ 
ed off into the woods. After lunch, we worked 
up stream about eleven miles, and pitched the 
tents at an old river driver’s camp above some 
falls that were about thirty feet high where the 
river comes over a sharp, slaty ledge. 
So far as we could learn, no one had ever made 
a trip through the center of the Island from 
north to south just east of Victoria River. Those 
to whom we talked said that we could not do it 
and would be lost, but we replied that as long 
as we had food, we were not lost. Some years 
before, two men had attempted the trip in 
winter with dog teams on the snow. They were 
finally rescued, but not until they had eaten 
their dogs and were barely gotten out alive. Sir 
John Millais had been well up into the country 
