Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-08-24
THELABRADOR COAST
A Voyage in q Schooner Along That
Barren and Deserted Shore.
APPETITES OF TIE ESQUIMAUx.
Two of Them Who Easily Got Away With
56 Oranges, Skins and ALL
SOCIAL LIFE In THE WINTER NIGHT

| SOCIAL LIFE In THE WlNTER MIGHT
CORRESPONDENTS OF THE prsPATcH.I
On BOARD SCHOONER SOPHIE, August
12.-From Hopedale we proceeded north
west skirting the shore, continually lodging
islands, icebergs and homeward-bound fish
ing craft There is no change in dreary
scene. The shores present the same lofty,
massive, desolate outline. AT our distance
occasionally the moss upon them, under
certain conditions of atmosphere and sun
light, gave the appearance Of heathery
heights such as you will see when cruising
along the noble northern shores of Ireland,
from Lough Foyle around Malin Head to
Lough Swilly; but we knew there was no
verdure there, and naught but stone. With
that consciousness these shores are ever
stern, repellant, awful; and no influence
save that curious fascination to semi
Arctic exploration one may have hint
of in going thus far toward eternal ice
and silence, can justly prompt any rational
being in following our course for aught
home.
We agreed on sailing as far as human
life permanently existed along the coast,
and again had opportunity to carry passen-
gers free without license. These were a
sort of novitiate Moravian missionary who
belonged to Hebron and had come to Hope
dale with homeward- bound fishers, and two
Esquimaux pilots who had brought vessels
to the south. I was interested chiefly in
the formers narrative of life at this remotest
American mission, and in the powers of the
latter to assimilate our provisions. In all
my wanderings never saw two creatures in
the semblance of humans with such swinish
capacity and rapacity. We had few boxes
of oranges on board. They had never seen
the fruit before was curious to know if
they could once be sated with 1t. We made
the attempt but failed. These two animals
actually ate 56 oranges, skins and all, in
one hour and 40 minutes.
A MoRAvIAN MISSION.
Passing Main, an important Moravian
Mission where the Home Society annually
sends large ship with supplies and for
furs, and Okak Island and village, where
there are struggling huts, a few traders and
trappers, and where the Esquimaux come in
the summer to fish, we finally reached He
bron, and, without anchorage, left our
strange passengers, who were taken ashore
in a kayak sort of hide-bottomed boat,
almost precisely like the curragh of the
Irish Aran Islands-followed by a pro-
cession of kayaks filled with grinning and
chattering Esquimaux; when we proceeded
on our now wholly dreary voyage to- Cape
Chudleigh.
Here, as Captain Deschamps set the course
OF the Sophie toward the st. Lawrence
again, in go degrees north latitude, our eyes,
if but for brief half hour, rested upon the
uncharted shores of Hudson's Strait and
could at least see along the steely blue
waters the way where so many intrepid
searchers for Polar seas had passed never to
return.
The result of the information secured
during our few weeks cruise leads me to be-
lieve that the portion of Labrador east of a
line extending due north from the mouth of
the St. Lawrence river to Hudson's Bay, is
the most worthless part of the whole world.
Indeed it is scarcely worth visiting even as
a curiosity in sterility and desolation. In the
1000 miles of coast upon which there is any
pretense of population, the total number of
resident human beings all told will not ex-
coed {, 900 souls. This number includes all
Indians of the Montagnais, Nasquapee and
Esquimaux tribes. Estimating the peninsu-
la as quadrilateral with sides averaging
500 miles in length, moderate computa-
ton, this would give an area of 16O, 600, 900
acres; and just one human being to about
N, 600 acres.
NOT VERY FERTILE.
That there are 100 acres of land capable Of
cultivation within this mighty expanse has
been remorselessly disproved for over $50
years by the efforts of Jesuits and other
missionaries, by those OF Christianized
Indians, and by all settlers who have been
lured upon these shores to starve and perish.
1t is possible that during two, and possibly
three months of the summer 5000 fisher
men may be found of Labrador; 5000
within the Gulf of st. Lawrence, and q, 900
along the Atlantic Labrador shores. These
are residents of the United States, Nova
Scotia, Cape Breton and Prince Edwards
Islands, and Newfoundland. They have no
interest here whatever save to come and
grab and 60. There are not enough stand
ing trees in all the Labrador district
named, and that comprises all of Labrador
proper, available for building timber, to
pay for transporting to any place and light
ing the first fire in q single sawmill. All
the frantic efforts Of the Dominion Govern
ment to discover mineral deposits have been
unavailing.
What then does Labrador possess? An
unmeasured and measureless reach of stone
and ice, covered here and there with moss;
again occasionally patched with stunted
spruce; oftener for hundreds of miles SCARED
and blackened by burned spruce stumps be-
tween which finty rocks project like cruel
spears; with countless impossible rivers
plowing in ungovernable torrents through
hideous gorges; 1000 whites utterly unable
to leave their prisonment or better their con-
dition, living half of the year like beasts, and
the other half little better; z, 900 Indians SUBJ
sisting on salt fish and raw, with OCCASION
ally bit of musty -four or meal: 800 to 400
Esquimaux dogs; any number of wolves,
and countless seals and fish. Now that's all
there is to Labrador besides a climate of
Greenland; and even the seals and fish do
not exclusively belong to it, for they are a
common product of the ocean, and as COM
mon to all other northeast shores. Any land
so God-forsaken that the government possess
ing it cannot survey it, or procure any form
OF statistics concerning it, is veritable cast
away indeed. 1t is impossible to obtain sta
tistics of even seals and fishes. But from the
known loss in naval and commercial expedi-
tions, and the wreckage of coasting and fish
ers' vessels along the coasts, since Labrador
was discovered, it would be q safe calcula-
tion that for every dollar in value OF fish or
fur secured upon the Labrador coast for the
past 400 years, an equal or greater actual
loss by somebody has been sustained. And
when the additional frightful loss of life has
been taken into account, the inexpressible
worthlessness of the entire peninsula may be
to some. extent conceived.
ALERT RELIGIOUS EFFORT.
But there is q certain interest the world
over in how even so hopeless a folk as the
Labradorians may live, and in that out
reaching of alert religious effort whatever
its faults Of method, which aspires through
great personal hardship and suffering to