Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-01-13
DREARY LABRADOR.
It Is Pronounced the Most Worthless F:
 of the Whole World.


 of the Whole World.
 The result of the information secured during our few weeks cruise leads me to believe that the portion of Labrador east of 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 curios- ity 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 exceed 5000 souls. This number includes all Indians of the Mon tagnais, Nasquapee and Esquimaux tribes. Estimating the peninsula as quadrilateral with sides averaging 800 miles in length, moderate com putation, this would give an area of 160,0O0,0O0 acres; and just one human being to about 27,OOO acres. That there is 100 acres of land capable of cultivation within this mighty ex- panse 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. It is pos sible that during two, and possibly three, months of the summer, 4G,OOO fishermen may be found off Labrador; 15, 900 within the Gulf of St. Lawrence and 25, 900 along the Atlantic La brador shore. They are residents of the United States, of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Islands and Newfound- land. They have no interest here what ever, save to come and grab and go. There are not enough standing trees in all the Labrador district named, and | that comprises all of the Labrador proper, available for building timber, to pay for tram 2orting to any place and | lighting the fist fire in a single saw l mill. All the frantic efforts of the Dominion Government to discover mineral deposit. have been unavailing. | What then does Labrador possess? An unmeaSureu and measureleSs reach of stone and ice, covered here and there with moss; again occasionally patched | with Stunted spruce; oftener for hun | dreds of miles scared and blackened by burned spruce stumps, between which fiinty rocks project like cruel spears; with countless impossible rivers blowing in ungovernable torrents through hid eous gorges; 4,O0O whites utterly unable | to leave their prisonment or better their | condition, living half of the year like beasts, and the other half little better; 2,OO0 Indians subsisting on salt fish and raw, with occasionally bit of musty | flour or meal: 300 or 400 Esquimaux dogs; any number of wolves and count l less seals and fish. Now that is all | there is to Labrador besides 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 common to God forsaken that the government pos sessing it can not survey it procure any form of statistics is a verita ble cas t. away indeed. It is impossible to obtain statistics of even seals and fish. But from tho known loss in naval and com mercial expeditions, and the wreckagc of coasting and fishers vessels along the coasts, since Labrador was discovered, il would be safe calculation that fo1 every dollar in value of fish or fur se- cured upon the Labrador coast for the past four hundred years, an equal ol greater actual loss by somebody has been sustained. And when the addi tional frightful loss of life has been taken into account, the ineXpressiblo worthleSsneSs of the entire peninsula may be to some extent conceived.-Cor Springfield Republican.