The Mason County journal. [volume] (Shelton, W.T.) 1886-1927, 1890-02-14
DREARf LABRADOR.
It Is Pronounced the Most Worthless Part
Of the Whole World.

Of the Whole World.
The result OIL the information secure.
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
LOCO 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, a 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 starve and perish. 1t is pos
sible 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 by
burned spruce stumps, between which
fiinty 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 Sz1 year like
beasts, and the other half little better;
1000 Indians subsisting on salt fish and
raw, with occasionally bit of musty
flour or meal; 800 or 400 Esquimaux
dogs; any number of wolves and count
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.
all other northeast shores. Any land so
God-forsaken that the government pos
sessing it can not survey it or procure
any form of statistics is veritable cast.
away indeed 1t is impossible to obtain.
statistics of even seals and fish. But
from the known loss in naval and COM
mercia1 expeditions. and the wreckage
of coasting and fishers vessels along the
coasts, since Labrador was discovered, 1t
would be a safe calculation that TOR
every dollar in value of fish or fur se-
cured upon the Labrador coast for the
past four hundred years. an equal or
greater actual loss by somebody has
been sustained. And when the addl-s
tional frightful loss of life has been
taken into account the inexpresslbie
worthlessness of the entire peninsula
may be to some extent conceived
Springfield Republican.