Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-02-21
DREARY LABRADOR.
1t Is Pronounced the Most Worthless Part
OF the Whole World.

The result OF the information secure.
during our few weeks cruise leads me
to believe 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 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 a
quadrilateral with sides averaging 500
miles in length, moderate com
putation, this would give an area
of 100 600, 900 acres; and just one
human being to about $4,000 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 starye and perish. 1t is pos
slble that during two, and possibly
three, months of the. summer, 10000
fishermen may be found off Labrador;
$4,000 within the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and $4,000 along the Atlantic Labrador
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 ali Of the Labrador
| proper, available for building timber,
| to pay for transporting to any place and
lighting the first fire in single saw
mill All the frantic efforts of the
| Dominion Government 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 hun
\ dreds OF miles scared and blackened bv
| burned spruce stumps. between which
| hlhty rocks project like cruel spears;
| with countless impossible rivers blowing
IN ungovernable torrents through hid,
eous gorges: 1000 whites utterly unable
to leave their prisonrnent or better their
condition. living half of III wear like
beasts, and the other half little better;
1000 Indians subsisting on salt fish and
raw, with occasionally a bit of mustv
hour or meal; 800 or 400 Esouimauy
dogs; any number of wolves and count.
less seals and fish. Now that is all
there is to Labrador besides a climate
OF Greenland, and even the seals and
Hsh do not exclusively belong to it.
lor they are common product OF
the ocean, and as common tc
all other northeast shores. Anyland 81
1oo-forsaken that the government nos
seSslng 1t can not survey it or procure
any form of statistics is a veritahle ga
away indeed. 1t is impossible to obtair
statistics Of even seals and fish Rnt
from the known loss in naval and com.
merclal expeditions, and the wreckape
OF eoastins and fishers vessels along ; n,
coasts since Labrador was discovered. i
would be a safe calculation that fo,
every dollar in value of fish OR fur SO,
cured upon the Labrador coast for Tn,
past four hundred years, an equal o.
greater actual loss by somebody ba
oeeh sustained. And when the addi
'iohal Irlghttul loss of life has bee,
' 1911 INTO account, the inexpressibl,
~or'niessness of the entire peninsula
may De TO some extent conceived Cor
Springfield Republican.