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Title: Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador
An Address Presented by Lt.-Colonel William Wood, F.R.S.C. before
the Second Annual Meeting of the Commission of Conservation at Quebec,
January, 1911
Author: William Wood
Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14866]
Language: English
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Commission of Conservation
Canada
ANIMAL SANCTUARIES
IN
LABRADOR
AN ADDRESS PRESENTED
BY
LT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD, F.R.S.C.
Before the Second Annual Meeting
of the Commission of Conservation
at Quebec, January, 1911
OTTAWA: CAPITAL PRESS LIMITED, 1911
_Animal Sanctuaries
in Labrador_
An Address Presented
BY
LT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD
BEFORE
THE SECOND ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION
HELD AT QUEBEC, JANUARY, 1911
An Appeal
All to whom wild Nature is one of the greatest glories of the Earth,
all who know its higher significance for civilized man to-day, and all
who consequently prize it as an heirloom for posterity, are asked to
help in keeping the animal life of Labrador from being wantonly done
to death.
There is nothing to cause disagreement among the three main classes of
people most interested in wild life--the men whose business depends in
any way on animal products, the sportsmen, and the Nature-lovers of
every kind. There are very good reasons why the general public should
support the scheme. And there are equally good reasons why it should
be induced to do so by simply telling it the truth about the senseless
extermination that is now going on.
Every reader can help by spreading some knowledge of the subject in
his or her home circle. Canada, like all free countries, is governed
by public opinion. And sound public opinion, like all other good
things, should always begin at home.
The Press can help, as it has helped many another good cause, by
giving the subject full publicity. Free use can be made of the present
paper in any way desired. It is left non-copyright for this very
purpose.
Experts can help by pointing out mistakes, giving information, and
making suggestions of their own. And if any of them will undertake to
lead, the present author will undertake to follow.
It is proposed to issue a supplement in 1912, containing all the
additional information collected in the mean time. Every such item of
information will be duly credited to the person supplying it.
All correspondence should be addressed--
COLONEL WOOD,
59, Grande Allée, Quebec.
Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador
BY
LIEUT.-COLONEL WILLIAM WOOD, F.R.S.C., ETC.
MR. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN:--
To be quite honest I must begin by saying that I am not a scientific
expert on either animals, sanctuaries or Labrador. But, by way of
excusing my temerity, I can plead a life-long love of animals, a good
deal of experience and study of them--especially down the Lower St.
Lawrence, and considerable attention to sanctuaries in general and
their suitability to Labrador in particular. Moreover, I can plead
this most pressingly important fact, that a magnificent opportunity is
fast slipping away before our very eyes there, without a single effort
being made to seize it. I have repeatedly discussed the question with
those best qualified to give sound advice--with naturalists,
explorers, missionaries, fishermen, furriers, traders, hunters,
sportsmen, and many who are accustomed to look ahead into the higher
development of our public life. I have also read the books, papers and
reports written from up-to-date and first-hand knowledge. And, though
I have been careful to consult men who regard such questions from very
different points of view, and books showing quite as wide a general
divergence, I have found a remarkable consensus of opinion in favour
of establishing a system of sanctuaries before it is too late. I
should like to add that any information on the subject, or any
correction of what I have written here, will be most welcome. The
simple address, Quebec, will always find me. The only special point I
would ask correspondents to remember is that even the best
recommendations must be adapted to the peculiarities of the Labrador
problem, which is new, strange, immense, and full of complex human
factors.
Perhaps I might be allowed to explain that I speak simply as a
Canadian. I am not connected with any of the material interests
concerned. I do not even belong to a Fish and Game club. My only
object is to prove, from verifiable facts, that animal life in
Labrador is being recklessly and wantonly squandered, that this is
detrimental to everyone except the get-rich-quickly people who are
ready to destroy any natural resources forever in order to reap an
immediate and selfish advantage, that sanctuaries will better
conditions in every way, and that the ultimate benefit to Canada--both
in a material and a higher sense--will repay the small present expense
required, over and over again. And this repayment need not be long
deferred. I can show that once the public grasps the issues at stake
it will supply enough petitioners to move any government based on
popular support, and that the scheme itself will supply enough money
to make the sanctuaries a national asset of the most paying kind, and
enough higher human interest to make them priceless as a possession
for ourselves and a heritage for all who come after.
If, Sir, you would allow me to make one more preliminary explanation,
I should like to say that I have purposely left out all the usual
array of statistics. I have, of course, examined them carefully
myself, and based my arguments upon them. But I have excluded them
from my text because they would have made an already long paper unduly
longer, and because they are perfectly accessible to every member of
the Commission which I have the honour of addressing to-night.
SANCTUARIES.
A sanctuary may be defined as a place where Man is passive and the
rest of Nature active. Till quite recently Nature had her own
sanctuaries, where man either did not go at all or only as a
tool-using animal in comparatively small numbers. But now, in this
machinery age, there is no place left where man cannot go with
overwhelming forces at his command. He can strangle to death all the
nobler wild life in the world to-day. To-morrow he certainly will have
done so, unless he exercises due foresight and self-control in the
mean time. There is not the slightest doubt that birds and mammals are
now being killed off much faster than they can breed. And it is always
the largest and noblest forms of life that suffer most. The whales and
elephants, lions and eagles, go. The rats and flies, and all mean
parasites, remain. This is inevitable in certain cases. But it is
wanton killing off that I am speaking of to-night. Civilized man
begins by destroying the very forms of wild life he learns to
appreciate most when he becomes still more civilized. The obvious
remedy is to begin conservation at an earlier stage, when it is
easier and better in every way, by enforcing laws for close seasons,
game preserves, the selective protection of certain species, and
sanctuaries. I have just defined a sanctuary as a place where man is
passive and the rest of Nature active. But this general definition is
too absolute for any special case. The mere fact that man has to
protect a sanctuary does away with his purely passive attitude. Then,
he can be beneficially active by destroying pests and parasites, like
bot-flies or mosquitoes, and by finding antidotes for diseases like
the epidemic which periodically kills off the rabbits and thus starves
many of the carnivora to death. But, except in cases where experiment
has proved his intervention to be beneficial, the less he upsets the
balance of Nature the better, even when he tries to be an earthly
Providence.
In itself a sanctuary is a kind of wild "zoo," on a gigantic scale and
under ideal conditions. As such, it appeals to everyone interested in
animals, from the greatest zoologist to the mere holiday tourist.
Before concluding I shall give facts to show how well worth while it
would be to establish sanctuaries, even if there were no other people
to enjoy the benefits. Yet the strongest of all arguments is that
sanctuaries, far from conflicting with other interests, actually
further them. But unless we make these sanctuaries soon we shall be
infamous forever, as the one generation which defrauded posterity of
all the preservable wild life that Nature took a million years to
evolve into its present beautiful perfection. Only a certain amount of
animal life can exist in a certain area. The surplus must go outside.
So sanctuaries are more than wild "zoos", they are overflowing
reservoirs, fed by their own springs, and feeding streams of life at
every outlet. They serve not only those interested in animal life, but
those legitimately interested in animal death, for business, sport or
food. I might mention many instances of successful sanctuaries,
permanent or temporary, absolute or modified--the Algonquin, Rocky
Mountains, Yoho, Glacier, Jasper and Laurentides in Canada; the
Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Cañon, Olympus and Superior in the United
States; with the sea-lions of California, the wonderful revival of
ibex in Spain and deer in Maine and New Brunswick, the great preserves
in Uganda, India and Ceylon, the selective work of Baron von Berlepsch
in Germany, the curious result of taboo protection up the Nelson
river, and the effects on seafowl in cases as far apart in time and
space as the guano islands under the Incas of Peru, Gardiner island in
the United States or the Bass rock off the coast of Scotland.
Yet I do not ignore the difficulties. First, there is the universal
difficulty of introducing or enforcing laws where there have been no
operative laws before. Next, there is the difficulty of arousing
public opinion on any subject, however worthy, which requires both
insight and foresight. Then, we must remember that protected species
increasing beyond their special means of subsistence have to seek
other kinds of food, sometimes with unfortunate results. And then
there are the several special difficulties connected with Labrador.
There are three British governments concerned--Newfoundland, the
Dominion and the province of Quebec. There are French and American
fishermen along the shore. The proper protection of some migratory
species will require co-operation with the United States, perhaps with
Mexico and South America for certain birds, and even with Denmark for
the Greenland seal. Then, there are the Indians, the whole trade in
animal products, the necessity of not interfering with any legitimate
development, and the question of immediate expense, however small, for
a deferred benefit, however great and near at hand. And, finally, we
must remember that scientific knowledge is not by any means adequate
to deal with all the factors of the problem at once.
LABRADOR
But in spite of all these and many other difficulties, I firmly
believe that Labrador is by far the best country in the world for the
best kinds of sanctuary. The first time you're on a lee shore there,
in a full gale, you may well be excused for shrinking back from the
wild white line of devouring breakers. But when you actually make for
them you find the coast opening into archipelagoes of islands, to let
you safely through into the snug little "tickles," between island and
mainland, where you can ride out the storm as well as you could in a
landlocked harbour. This is typical of many another pleasant surprise.
Labrador decidedly improves on acquaintance. The fogs have been
grossly exaggerated. The Atlantic seaboard is clearer than the British
Isles, which, by the way, lie in exactly the same latitudes. And the
Gulf is far clearer than New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and the Banks. The
climate is exceptionally healthy, the air a most invigorating tonic,
and the cold no greater than in many a civilized northern land.
Besides, there is a considerable range of temperatures in a country
whose extreme north and south lie 1,000 miles apart, one in the
latitude of Greenland, the other in that of Paris. Taking the Labrador
peninsula geographically, as including the whole area east of a line
run up the Saguenay and on from lake St. John to James bay, it
comprises 560,000 square miles--eleven Englands! The actual residents
hardly number 20,000. About twice as many outsiders appear off the
coasts at certain seasons. So it would take a tenfold increase, afloat
and ashore, to make one human being to each square mile of land. But,
all the same, wild life needs conservation there, and needs it badly,
as we shall presently see.
Most of Labrador is a rocky tableland, still rising from the depths,
with some old beaches as much as 1,500 feet above the present level of
the sea. The St. Lawrence seaboard is famous for its rivers and
forests. The Atlantic seaboard has the same myriads of islands, is
magnificently bold, is pierced by fiords unexcelled in Norway, and
crowned by mountains higher than any others east of the Rockies.
Hamilton inlet runs in 150 miles. At Ramah the cliffs rise sheer three
thousand five hundred feet and more. The Four peaks, still untrodden
by the foot of man, rise more than twice as high again. And the
colouration, of every splendid hue, adds beauty to the grandeur of the
scene. Inland, there are lakes up to 100 miles long, big rivers by the
score, deep canyons and foaming rapids--to say nothing of the
countless waterfalls, of which the greatest equals two Niagaras. This
vast country is accessible by sea on three sides, and will soon be
accessible by land on the fourth. It lies directly half-way between
Great Britain and our own North West and is 1,000 miles nearer London
than New York is. Its timber, mines and water-power will be
increasingly exploited. It should also become increasingly attractive
to the best type of tourist, naturalist and sportsman. But supposing
all this does happen. The mines, water-powers and lumbering will only
create small towns and villages. There will surely be some
conservation to have the forests used and not abused especially by
fire: and the white man should remember that he is the worst of all in
turning a land from green to black. Except in the southwest and a few
isolated spots, the country cannot be farmed. At the same time, the
urban population must have communications with the outside world, by
which regular supplies can come in. This will make the settlers
independent of wild life for necessary food; and wild life, in any
case, would be too precarious if exploited in the usual way. The
traders in wild-animal products, as well as the naturalists, sportsmen
and tourists, are interested in keeping the rest of the country well
stocked. So that, one way and another, the human and wild-animal life
will not conflict, as they do where farming creates a widespread rural
population, or wanton destruction of forests ruins land and water, and
human and animal life have to suffer for it afterwards. All the
different places required for business spheres of influence in the
near future, added to all the business spheres of the present, can
hardly exceed the area of one whole England, especially if all
suitable areas are not thrown open simultaneously to lumbering, at the
risk of the usual bad results. So there will remain ten other
Englands, admirably fitted, in all respects, to grow wild life in the
most beneficial abundance, and quite able to do so indefinitely, if a
reasonable amount of general protection is combined with well-situated
sanctuaries.
The fauna is much more richly varied than people who think of
Labrador as nothing but an arctic barren are inclined to suppose. The
fisheries have been known for centuries, especially the cod, which has
a prerogative right to the simple word "fish." There are herring and
lobsters in the Gulf, plenty of salmon and trout in most of the
rivers, winninish in all the tributary waters of the Hamilton, as well
as in lake St. John, whitefish in the lakes, and so forth. Then, the
stone-carrying chub is one of the most interesting creatures in the
world.... But the fish and fisheries have problems of their own too
great for incidental treatment; and I shall pass on to the birds and
mammals.
Yet I must not forget the "flies"--who that has felt them once can
ever forget them? Labrador is not a very happy hunting-ground for the
entomologist. But all it lacks in variety of kinds it more than makes
up in number of individuals, especially in the detestable trio of
bot-flies, blackflies and mosquitoes. The bot-fly infests the caribou
and will probably infest the reindeer. The blackfly and mosquito
attack both man and beast in maddening millions. The mosquito is not
malarious. But that is the only bad thing he is not. Destruction is
"conservation" so far as "flies," parasites and disease germs are
concerned.
Labrador has over 200 species of birds, from humming-birds and
sanderlings to eagles, gannets, loons and herons. Among those able to
hold their own, with proper encouragement, are the following: two
loons, two murres, the puffin, guillemot, razor-billed auk, dovekie
and pomarine jæger; six gulls--ivory, kittiwake, glaucous, great
black-back, herring and Bonaparte; two terns--arctic and common; the
fulmar, two shearwaters, two cormorants, the red-breasted merganser
and the gannet; seven ducks--the black, golden-eye, old squaw and
harlequin, with the American, king and Greenland eiders; three
scoters; four geese--snow, blue, brant and Canada; two phalaropes,
several sandpipers, with the Hudsonian godwit and both yellowlegs; two
snipes; five plovers; and the Eskimo and Hudsonian curlews. These two
curlews should be absolutely closed to all shooting everywhere for
several seasons. They are on the verge of extinction; and it may even
now be too late to save them. The great blue heron and American
bittern are not common, but less rare than they are supposed to be.
Except for the willow and rock ptarmigans the land game-birds are not
many in kind or numbers. There are a fair number of ruffed grouse in
the south, and more spruce grouse in the north. The birds of prey are
well represented by a few golden and more bald-headed eagles, the
American rough-legged and other hawks, the black and the white
gyrfalcons, the osprey, and eight owls, including the great horned
owl, the boldest bird of all. The raven is widely distributed all the
year round. Several woodpeckers, kingfishers, jays, bluebird,
kingbird, chickadee, snow bunting; several sparrows, including,
fortunately, the white-crowned, white-throat and song, but now,
unfortunately, the English as well. There are blackbirds, red-polls, a
dozen warblers, the American robin, hermit thrush and ruby-throated
humming-bird.
Both the land and sea mammals are of great importance. Several whales
are well known. The Right is almost exterminated; but the Greenland,
or Bow-head, is found along the edge of the ice in all Hudsonian
waters. The Pollock is rare, and the Sperm, or Cachalot, as nearly
exterminated as the Right. But the Little-piked, or _rostrata_, is
found inshore along the north and east, the Bottle-nose on the north,
the Humpback on the east and south; and the Finback and Sulphur-bottom
are common and widely distributed, especially on the east. The Little
White whale, or "White porpoise," is fairly common all round; the
Killer is widely distributed, but most numerous on the east, where the
Narwhal is also found. The Harbour and Striped porpoises, and the
Common and Bottle-nosed dolphins, are chiefly on the east and south.
There are six Seals--the Harbour, Ringed, Harp, Bearded, Grey and
Hooded. The Harbour seal is also called the "Common" and the "Wise"
seal, and is the _vitulina_ of zoology. It is common all round the
coasts, and the Indians of the interior assert that many live
permanently in the lakes. Big and Little Seal lakes are more than 100
miles from the nearest salt water. The Ringed seal is locally called
"floe rat" and "gum seal." It is the smallest and least valuable of
all, and fairly common all round. The Harp seal is "seal," in the same
way as cod is "fish." It has various local names, five among the
French-Canadians alone, but is specifically known as the Greenland
seal. The young, immediately after birth, have a fine white coat,
which makes them valuable. The herds are followed on a large scale at
the end of the winter season, which is also the whelping season, and
hundreds of thousands are killed, females and young preponderating.
They are still common along the east and south, but diminishing
steadily, especially in the St. Lawrence. The Bearded, or
"Square-flipper," seal is rare in the St. Lawrence and on the
Atlantic, but commoner in Hudsonian waters. It is a large seal, eight
feet long, and bulky in proportion. The Grey, or Horse-head, seal
runs up to about the same size occasionally and is one of the gamest
animals that swims. It is rare on the Atlantic and not common anywhere
on the St. Lawrence. The "Hoods" are the largest of all and the lions
of the lot. They run up to 1,000 pounds and over, and sometimes
fourteen feet long. They are rare on the Atlantic and decreasing along
the St. Lawrence, owing to the Newfoundland hunters. The Walrus,
formerly abundant all round, is now rarely seen except in the far
north, where he is fast decreasing.
Moose may feel their way in by the southwest to an increasing extent,
and might possibly be reinforced by the Alaskan variety. Red deer
might possibly be induced to enter by the same way in fair numbers
over a limited area. The woodland caribou is almost exterminated, but
might be resuscitated. The barren-ground caribou is still plentiful in
the north, where most of the herds appear to migrate in an immense
ellipse, crossing from west to east, over the barrens, in the fall, to
the Atlantic, and then turning south and west through the woods in
winter, till they reach their original starting-point near Hudson bay
in the spring. But this is not to be counted on. The herds divide,
change direction, and linger in different places. Their tame brother,
the reindeer, is being introduced as the chief domestic animal of
Eastern Labrador, with apparently every prospect of success. Beaver
are fairly common and widely distributed in forested areas. Other
rodents are frequent--squirrels, musk-rats, mice, voles, lemmings,
hares and porcupines. There are two bats. Black bears are general;
polars, in the north. Grizzlies have been traded at Fort Chimo in
Ungava, but they are probably all killed out. The lynx is common
wherever there are woods. There are two wolves, arctic and timber, the
latter now rare in the south. The Labrador red fox is very common in
the woods, and the "white," or arctic fox, in the barrens and further
south on both coasts. The "cross," "silver" and "black" variations of
course occur, as they naturally increase towards the northern limits
of range. The "blue" is a seasonal change of the "white." The
wolverine and otter are common. The skunk is only known in the
southwest. The mink ranges through the southern third of the
peninsula. The Labrador marten, or "sable," is a sub-species,
generally distributed in the forested parts, like the weasel. The
"fisher," or Pennant's marten, is much more local, ranging only
between the "North Shore" and Mistassini.
From the St. Lawrence to the Barren Grounds three-fourths of the land
has been burnt over since the white man came. The resultant loss of
all forms of life may be imagined, especially when we remember that
the fire often burns up the very soil itself, leaving nothing but
rocks and black desolation. Still, there is plenty of fur and feather
worth preserving. But nothing can save it unless conservation replaces
the present reckless destruction.
DESTRUCTION
When rich virgin soil is first farmed it yields a maximum harvest for
a minimum of human care. But presently it begins to fail, and will
fail altogether unless man returns to it in one form some of the
richness he expects to get from it in another. Now, exploited wild
life fails even faster under wasteful treatment; but, on the other
hand, with hardly any of the trouble required for continuous farming,
quickly recovers itself by being simply let alone. So when we consider
how easily it can be preserved in Labrador, and how beneficial its
preservation is to all concerned, we can understand how the wanton
destruction going on there is quite as idiotic as it is wrong.
Take "egging" as an example. The Indians, Eskimos and other beasts of
prey merely preserved the balance of nature by the toll they used to
take. No beast of prey, not even the white man, will destroy his own
stock supply of food. But with the nineteenth century came the
white-man market "eggers", systematically taking or destroying every
egg in every place they visited. Halifax, Quebec and other towns were
centres of the trade. The "eggers" increased in numbers and
thoroughness till the eggs decreased in the more accessible spots
below paying quantities. But other egging still goes on unchecked. The
game laws of the province of Quebec distinctly state: "It is forbidden
to take nests or eggs of wild birds at any time". But the swarms of
fishermen who come up the north shore of the St. Lawrence egg wherever
they go. If they are only to stay in the same spot for a day or two,
they gather all the eggs they can, put them into water, and throw away
every one that floats. Sometimes three, four, five or even ten times
as many are thrown away as are kept, and all those bird lives lost for
nothing. Worse still, if the men are going to stay long enough they
will often go round the nests and make sure of smashing every single
egg. Then they come back in a few days and gather every single egg,
because they know it has been laid in the mean time and must be
fresh. When we remember how many thousands of men visit the shore, and
that the resident population eggs on its own account, at least as high
up as the Pilgrims, only 100 miles from Quebec, we need not be
prophets to foresee the inevitable end of all bird life when subjected
to such a drain. And this is on the St. Lawrence, where there are laws
and wardens and fewer fishermen. What about the Atlantic Labrador,
where there are no laws, no wardens, many more fishermen, and ruthless
competitive egging between the residents and visitors? Of course,
where people must egg or starve there is nothing more to be said. But
this sort of egging is very limited, not enough to destroy the birds,
and the necessity for it will become less frequent as other sources of
supply become available. It is the utterly wanton destruction that is
the real trouble.
And it is just as bad with the birds as with the eggs. A schooner
captain says, "Now, boys, here's your butcher shop: help yourselves!"
and this, remember, is in the brooding season. Not long ago the men
from a vessel in Cross harbour landed on an islet full of eiders and
killed every single brooding mother. Such men have grown up to this,
and there is that amount of excuse for them. Besides, they ate the
birds, though they destroyed the broods. Yet, as they always say, "We
don't know no law here," it may be suspected that they do know there
really is one. These men do a partly excusable wrong. But what about
those who ought to know better? In the summer of 1907 an American
millionaire's yacht landed a party who shot as many brooding birds on
St. Mary island as they chose, and then left the bodies to rot and
the broods to perish. That was, presumably, for sport. For the same
kind of sport, motor boats cut circles round diving birds, drown them,
and let the bodies float away. The North Shore people have drowned
myriads of moulting scoters in August; but they use the meat. Bestial
forms of sport are many and vile. "C'est un plaisir superbe" was the
description given by some voyageurs on exploring work, who had spent
the afternoon chasing young birds about the rocks and stamping them to
death. Deer were literally hacked to pieces by construction gangs on
new lines last summer. Dynamiting a stream is quite a common trick
wherever it is safe to play it. Harbour seals are wantonly shot in
deep fresh water where they cannot be recovered, much as seagulls are
shot by blackguards from an ocean liner.
And the worst of it is that all this wanton destruction is not by any
means confined to the ignorant or those who have been brought up to
it. The men from the American yacht must have known better. So do
those educated men from our own cities, who shoot out of season down
the St. Lawrence and plead, quite falsely, that there is no game law
below the Brandy Pots. It is, of course, well understood that a man
can always shoot for necessary food. But this provision is shamelessly
misused. Last summer, when a great employer of labour down the Gulf
was telling where birds could be shot to the greatest advantage out of
season, and I was objecting that it was not clean sport, he said, "Oh,
but Indians can shoot for food at any time--_and we're all Indians
here!"_ And what are we to think of a rich man who used caribou simply
as targets for his new rifle, and a scientific man who killed 72 in
one morning, only to make a record? We need the true ideal of sport
and an altogether new ideal of conservation, and we need them very
badly and very soon.
We have had our warnings. The great auk and the Labrador duck have
both become utterly extinct within living memory. The Eskimo curlew is
decreasing to the danger point, and the Yellowlegs is following. The
lobster fishing is being wastefully conducted along the St. Lawrence;
so, indeed, are the other fisheries. Whales are diminishing: the Cape
Charles and Hawke Harbour establishments are running, but those at
L'Anse au Loup and Seven islands are not. The whole whaling industry
is disappearing all over the world before the uncontrolled persecution
of the new steam whalers. The walrus is exterminated everywhere in
Labrador except in the north. The seals are diminishing. Every year
the hunters are better supplied with better implements of butchery.
The catch is numbered by the hundreds of thousands, and this only for
one fleet in one place at one season, when the Newfoundlanders come up
the St. Lawrence at the end of the winter. The woodland caribou has
been killed off to such an extent as to cause both Indians and wolves
to die off with him. The barren-ground caribou is still plentiful,
though decreasing. The dying out of so many Indians before the time of
the Low and Eaton expedition of 1893-4 led to an increase of
fur-bearing animals. But renewed, improved, increased and uncontrolled
trapping has now reduced them below their former level. Hunting for
the market seems to be going round in a vicious circle, always
narrowing in on the quarry, which must ultimately be strangled to
death. The white man comes in with better equipment, more systematic
methods and often a "get-rich-and-get-out" idea that never entered a
native head. The Indian has to go further afield. The white follows.
Their prey shrinks back in diminishing numbers before them both.
Prices go up. The hunt becomes keener, the animals fewer and farther
off. Presently hunters and hunted will reach the far side of the
utmost limits. And then traded, traders and trade will all disappear
together. And it might so well be otherwise.
There is another point that should never be passed over. In these days
the public conscience is beginning to realize that the objection to
man's cruelty towards his other fellow-beings is something more than a
fad or a fancy. And wanton slaughter is very apt to be accompanied by
shameless cruelty. To kill off parents when the young are helpless....
But I have already given enough sickening details of this. The
treatment of the adults is almost worse in many typical cases. An
Indian will skin a hare alive and gloat over his quivering
death-agonies. The excuse is, "white man have fun, Indian have fun,
too." And it is a valid excuse, from one point of view. When "there's
nothing in caribou" except the value of the tongue, the tongue has
been cut out of the living deer, whose only other value is considered
to be the amusement afforded by his horrible fate. And, fiendish
cruelty like this is not confined to the outer wilds. When some
civilized English-speaking bird-catchers get a bird they do not want,
they will deliberately wrench its bill apart, so that it must die of
lingering starvation. Sometimes the cruelty is done to man himself.
Not so many years ago some whalers secured a lot of walrus hides and
tusks by having a whole herd of walrus wiped out, in spite of the fact
that these animals were, at that very time, known to be the only food
available for a neighbouring tribe of Eskimos. The Eskimos were
starved to death, every soul among them, as the Government explorers
found out. But Eskimos have no votes and never write to the papers;
while walrus hides were booming in the markets of civilization.
Things like these are not much spoken of. They very rarely appear in
print. And when they are mentioned at all it is generally with an
apology for introducing unpleasant details. But I am sure I need not
apologize to gentlemen who are anxious to know the full truth of this
great question, who cannot fail to see the connection between wanton
destruction and revolting cruelty, and who must be as ready to rouse
the moral conscience of our people against the cruelty as they are to
rouse its awakening sense of conservation against the destruction.
CONSERVATION
All the sound reasons ever given for conserving other natural
resources apply to the conservation of wild life--and with three-fold
power. When a spend-thrift squanders his capital it is lost to him and
his heirs; yet it goes somewhere else. When a nation allows any one
kind of natural resource to be squandered it must suffer a real,
positive loss; yet substitutes of another kind can generally be found.
But when wild life is squandered it does not go elsewhere, like
squandered money; it cannot possibly be replaced by any substitute, as
some inorganic resources are: it is simply an absolute, dead loss,
gone beyond even the hope of recall.
Now, we have seen verifiable facts enough to prove that Labrador, out
of its total area of eleven Englands, is not likely to be
advantageously exploitable over much more than the area of one England
for other purposes than the growth and harvesting of wild life by land
and water. How are these ten Englands to be brought under
conservation, before it is too late, in the best interests of the five
chief classes of people who are concerned already or will be soon? Of
course, the same individual may belong to more than one class. I
merely use these divisions to make sure of considering all sides of
the question. The five great interests are those of--1. Food. 2.
Business. 3. The Indians and Eskimos. 4. Sport, and 5. The
Zoophilists, by which I mean all people interested in wild-animal
life, from zoologists to tourists.
1. FOOD.--The resident population is so sparse that there is not one
person for every 20,000 acres; and most of these people live on the
coast. Consequently, the vast interior could not be used for food
supplies in any case. Besides, ever since the white man occupied the
coast, the immediate hinterland, which used to be full of life, has
become more and more barren. Fish is plentiful enough. A few small
crops of common vegetables could be grown in many places, and outside
supplies are becoming more available. So the toll of birds and mammals
taken by the present genuine residents for necessary food is not a
menace, if taken in reason. In isolated places in the Gulf, like
Harrington, the Provincial law might safely be relaxed, so as to allow
the eggs of ducks and gulls to be taken up to the 5th of June and
those of murres, auks and puffins up to the 15th. Flight birds might
also be shot at any time on the outside capes and islands. There is a
local unwritten law down there--"No guns inside, after the 1st of
June"--and it has been kept for twenty years. Similar relaxations
might be allowed in other places, in genuine cases of necessity. But
the egging and out-of-season slaughter done by people, resident or
not, who are in touch with the outside world, should be stopped
absolutely. And the few walrus now required as food by the few
out-living Eskimos should be strictly protected. Of course, killing
for food under real stress of need at any time or place goes without
saying. The real and spurious cases will soon be discriminated by any
proper system.
2. BUSINESS.--Business is done in fish, whales, seals, fur, game,
plumage and eggs. The fish are a problem apart. But it is worth noting
that uncontrolled exploitation is beginning to affect even their
countless numbers in certain places. Whales have always been exploited
indiscriminately, and their wide range outside of territorial waters
adds to the difficulties of any regulation. But some seasonal and
sanctuary protection is necessary to prevent their becoming extinct.
The "white porpoise" could have its young protected; and whaling
stations afford means of inspection and consequent control. The only
chance at present is that when whales become too scarce to pay they
are let alone, and may revive a little. The seals can be protected
locally and ought to be. The preponderance of females and young killed
in the whelping season is a drain impossible for them to withstand
under modern conditions of slaughter. The difficulty of policing large
areas simultaneously might be compensated for by special sanctuaries.
The Americans are protecting their seals by restrictions on the
numbers, ages and sex of those killed; and doing so successfully. The
fur trade is open to the same sort of wise restriction, when
necessary, to the protection of wild fur by the breeding of tame, as
in the fox farms, and to the benefits of sanctuaries. Marketable game,
plumage and eggs can be regulated at out ports and markets. And the
extension of suitable laws to non-game animals, coupled with the
establishment of sanctuaries, would soon improve conditions all round,
especially in the interest of business itself. No one wants his
business to be destroyed. But if Labrador is left without control
indefinitely every business dealing with the products of wild life
will be obliged to play the suicidal game of competitive grab till the
last source of supply is exhausted, and capital, income and employment
all go together.
3. INDIANS AND ESKIMOS.--The Eskimos are few and mostly localized. The
Indians stand to gain by anything that will keep the fur trade in full
vigour, as they are mostly hunters and trappers. Restriction on the
number of skins, if that should prove necessary, and certainly on the
sale of all poisons, could be made operative. Strychnine is said to
kill animals eating the carcases even so far as to the seventh remove.
Close seasons and sanctuaries are difficult to enforce with all
Indians. But the registration of trappers, the enforcement of laws,
the employment of Indians as guides for sportsmen, and other means,
would have a salutary effect. The full-bloods, unfortunately, do not
take kindly to guiding. Indians wishing to change their way of life or
proving persistent lawbreakers might be hived in reserves with their
wives and families. The reserves themselves would cost nothing, the
Indians could find employment as other Indians have, and the expense
of establishing would be a bagatelle. As a matter of fact, in spite of
all the bad bargains having always been on the Indian side when sales
and treaties were made with the whites, there is enough money to the
credit of the Indians in the hands of the Government to establish a
dozen hives and keep the people in them as idle as drones on the mere
interest of it. But good hunting grounds are better than good hives.
4. SPORT.--Sport should have a great future in Labrador. Inland game
birds, except ptarmigan, are the only kind of which there is never
likely to be a great abundance, owing to the natural scarcity of their
food. But, besides the big game on land and game birds on the coast,
there are some unusual forms of sport appealing to adventurous
natures. Harpooning the little white whale by hand in a North Shore
canoe, or shooting the largest and gamest of all the seals--the great
"hood"--also out of a canoe, requires enough skill and courage to make
success its own reward. The extension and enforcement of proper game
laws would benefit sport directly, while indirectly benefitting all
the other interests.
5. ZOOPHILISTS.--The zoophilist class seems only in place as an
afterthought. But I am convinced that it will soon become of at least
equal importance with any other. All the people, from zoologists to
tourists, who are drawn to such places by the attraction of seeing
animal life in its own surroundings, already form an immense class in
every community. And it is a rapidly increasing class. Could we do
posterity any greater injury than by destroying the ten Englands of
glorious wild life in Labrador, just at the very time when our own and
other publics are beginning to appreciate the value of the appeal
which such haunts of Nature make to all the highest faculties of
civilized man?
The way can be made clear by scientific study. The laws can be drawn
up by any intelligent legislators, and enforced quite as efficiently
as other laws have been by the Mounted Police in the North West. The
expense will be small, the benefits great and widely felt. The only
real hitch is the uninformed and therefore apathetic state of public
opinion. If people only knew that Labrador contained a hundred
Saguenays, wild zoos, Thousand Islands, fiords, palisades, sea
mountains, cañons, great lakes and waterfalls, if they only knew that
they could get the enjoyment of it for a song, and make it an heirloom
for no more trouble than letting it live, they might do all that is
needed to-morrow. But they don't know. And the three Governments
cannot do much without the support of public opinion. At present they
do practically nothing. The Ungavan Labrador has neither organization
nor laws. The Newfoundland Labrador has organization but no laws. And
the Quebec Labrador has laws but no observance of them.
However, Quebec has laws, which are something, legislators who have
made the laws, and leaders who have introduced them. The trouble is
that the public generally has no sense of responsibility in the matter
of enforcement. It still has a hazy idea that Nature has an
overflowing sanctuary of her own, somewhere or other, which will fill
up the gaps automatically. The result is that poaching is commonly
regarded as a venial offence, poachers taken red-handed are rarely
punished, and willing ears are always lent to the cry that rich
sportsmen are trying to take the bread out of the poor settler's
mouth. The poor settler does not reflect that he himself, and all
other classes alike, really have a common interest in the conservation
of any wild life that does not conflict with legitimate human
development. There is some just cause of complaint that the big-game
reserves are hampering the peasants in parts of India and the settlers
and natives in parts of Uganda. But no such complaint can be raised
against the Laurentide National Park, so wisely established by the
Quebec Government. The worst of it is that many of the richer people
set the example in law-breaking. The numbers of big game allowed are
exceeded, out-of-season shooting goes on, and both out-of-season and
forbidden game is sold in the markets and served at the dinner tables
of the very class who should be first in protecting it.
Partly because Quebec has taken the lead in legislation, and partly
because an ideal site is ready to hand under its jurisdiction, I would
venture to suggest the immediate establishment of an absolute
sanctuary for all wild birds and mammals along as much of the coast as
possible on either side of cape Whittle. The best place of all to keep
is from cape Whittle eastward to cape Mekattina, 64 miles in a
straight line by sea. The 45 miles from cape Mekattina eastward to
Shekatika bay are probably the next best; and, next, the 35 from cape
Whittle westward to Cloudberry point. As there are 800 miles between
Quebec and the Strait, I am only proposing to make from one-tenth to
one-fifth of them into a sanctuary. And this part is the least fitted
for other purposes, except sea-fishing, which would not be restricted
at all, the least inhabited, and the most likely to succeed as a
sanctuary, especially for birds.
Cape Whittle is 550 miles below Quebec, 70 below Natashkwan, which is
the last port of call for the mail boats, and 50 below Kegashka, the
last green spot along the shore. It faces cape Gregory, near the bay
of Islands in Newfoundland, 130 miles across; and is almost as far
from the north-east point of Anticosti. It is a great landmark for
coasting vessels, and for the seal herds as well. A refuge for seals
is absolutely necessary to preserve their numbers and the business
connected with them. Of course, I know there is a feeling that, if
they are going to disappear, the best thing to do is to exploit them
to the utmost in the meanwhile, so as to snatch every present
advantage, regardless of consequences. But is this business, sense, or
conservation? Even if any restriction in the way of numbers, sex, age
or season should be imposed on seal hunting, a small sanctuary cannot
but be beneficial. While, if there is no other protection, a sanctuary
is a _sine qua non_. It is possible that some protection might also be
afforded to the whales that hug the shore.
The case of the birds is quite as strong, and the chance of protection
by this sanctuary much greater. With the exception of the limited
egging and shooting for the necessary food of the few residents--the
whole district of Mekattina contained only 213 people at the last
census--not an egg nor a bird should be touched at all. The birds soon
find out where they are well off, and their increase will recruit the
whole river and gulf. A few outlying bird sanctuaries should be
established in connection with this one, which might be called the
Harrington Sanctuary, as Harrington is a well-known telegraph station,
a central point between cape Whittle and Mekattina, and it enjoys a
name that can be easily pronounced. In the Gulf the Bird rocks and
Bonaventure island to the south; one of the Mingan islands, the
Perroquets and Egg island to the north; with the Pilgrims, up the
River, above the Saguenay and off the South Shore, are the best. The
Pilgrims, 700 miles from the Atlantic, are probably the furthest
inland point in the world where the eider breeds. They would make an
ideal seabird sanctuary. On the Atlantic Labrador there are plenty of
suitable islands from which to choose two or three sanctuaries,
between Hamilton inlet and Ramah. The east coast of Hudson bay is full
of islands from which two corresponding sanctuaries might be selected,
one in the neighbourhood of the Portland promontory and the other in
the southeast corner of James bay.
There is the further question--affecting all migratory animals, but
especially birds--of making international agreements for their
protection. There are precedents for this, both in the Old World and
in the New. And, so far as the United States are concerned, there
should be no great difficulty. True, they have set us some lamentable
examples of wanton destruction. But they have also set us some noble
examples of conservation. And we have good friends at court, in the
members of the New York Zoological, the Audubon and other societies,
in Mr. Roosevelt, himself an ardent conserver of wild life, and in Mr.
Bryce, who is an ex-president of the Alpine Club and a devoted lover
of nature. Immediate steps should be taken to link our own bird
sanctuaries with the splendid American chain of them which runs round
the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic coast to within easy reach of
the boundary line. Corresponding international chains up the
Mississippi and along the Pacific would be of immense benefit to all
species, and more particularly to those unfortunate ones which are
forced to migrate down along the shore and back by the middle of the
continent, thus running the deadly gauntlet both by land and sea.
Inland sanctuaries are more difficult to choose and manage. A deer
sanctuary might answer near James bay. Fur sanctuaries must also be in
some fairly accessible places, on the seaward sides of the various
heights-of-land, and not too far in. The evergreen stretches of the
Eastmain river have several favourable spots. What is needed most is
an immediate examination by a trained zoologist. The existing
information should be brought together and carefully digested for him
in advance. There are the Dominion, Provincial and Newfoundland
official reports; the Hudson Bay Company, the Moravian missionaries;
Dr. Robert Bell, Mr. A.P. Low, Mr. D.I.V. Eaton, Dr. Grenfell, Dr.
Hare, Mr. Napoléon Comeau, not to mention previous writers, like
Packard, McLean and Cartwright--a whole host of original authorities.
But their work has never been thoroughly co-ordinated from a
zoological point of view. A form of sanctuary suggested for the
fur-bearing Yukon is well worth considering. It consists in opening
and closing the country by alternate sections, like crops and fallow
land in farming. The Indians have followed this method for
generations, dividing the family hunting grounds into three parts,
hunting each in rotation, and always leaving enough to breed back the
numbers. But the pressure of the grab-all policy from outside may
become irresistible.
The one great point to remember is that there is no time to lose in
beginning conservation by protecting every species in at least two
separate localities.
A word as to the management and wardens. Two zoologists and twenty men
afloat, and the same number ashore, could probably do the whole work,
in connection with local wardens. This may seem utterly ridiculous as
a police force to patrol ten Englands and three thousand miles of sea.
But look at what the Royal North West Mounted Police have done over
vast areas with a handful of men, and what has been effected in Maine,
New Brunswick and Ontario. Once the public understands the question,
and the governments mean business, the way of the transgressor will be
so hard--between the wardens, zoologists and all the preventive
machinery of modern administration--that it will no longer pay him to
walk in it. Special precautions must be taken against that vilest of
all inventions of diabolical ingenuity--the Maxim "silencer." No
argument is needed to prove that silent firearms could not suit crime
better if they were made expressly for it. The mere possession of any
kind of "silencer" should constitute a most serious criminal offence.
The right kind of warden will be forthcoming when he is really wanted
and is properly backed up. I need not describe the wrong kind. We all
know him, only too well.
BENEFITS
I am afraid I have already exceeded my allotted time. But, with your
kind indulgence, Sir, I should like, in conclusion, simply to
enumerate a few of the benefits certain to follow the introduction and
enforcement of law and the establishment of sanctuaries.
First, it cannot be denied that the constant breaking of the present
law makes for bad citizenship, and that the observance of law will
make for good. Next, though it is often said that what Canada needs
most is development and not conservation, I think no one will deny
that conservation is the best and most certainly productive form of
development in the case before us. Then, I think we have here a really
unique opportunity of effecting a reform that will unite and not
divide all the legitimate interests concerned. What could appear to
have less in common than electricity and sanctuaries? Yet electricity
in Labrador requires water-power, which requires a steady flow, which
requires a head-water forest, which, in its turn, is admirably fit to
shelter wild life. Except for those who would selfishly and
shortsightedly take all this wealth of wild life out of the world
altogether, in one grasping generation, there is nobody who will not
be the better for the change. I have talked with interested parties of
every different kind, and always found them agree that conservation is
the only thing to do--provided, as they invariably add, that it is
done "straight" and "the same for all."
Fourthly, a word as to sport. I have invoked the public conscience
against wanton destruction and its inevitable accompaniment of
cruelty. I know, further, that man is generally cruel and a bully
towards other animals. And, as an extreme evolutionist, I believe all
animals are alike in kind, however much they may differ in degree. But
I don't think clean sport cruel. It does not add to the sum total of
cruelty under present conditions. Wild animals shun pain and death as
we do. But under Nature they never die what we call natural deaths.
They starve or get killed. Moreover, town-bred humanitarians feel pain
and death more than the simpler races of men, who, in their turn, feel
it more than lower animals. A wild animal that has just escaped death
will resume its occupation as if nothing had happened. The sportsman's
clean kill is only an incident in the day's work, not anxiously
apprehended like an operation or a battle. But pain and death are very
real, all the same. So death should be inflicted as quickly as
possible, even at the risk of losing the rest of one's bag. And, even
beyond the reach of any laws, no animal should ever be killed in sport
when its own death might entail the lingering death of its young. A
sportsman who observes these rules instinctively, and who never kills
what he cannot get and use, is not a cruel man. He certainly is a
beast of prey. But so is the most delicate invalid woman when drinking
a cup of beef tea. Sport has its use in the development of health and
skill and courage. Its practice is one of life's eternal compromises.
And the best thing we can do for it now is to make it clean. We have
far too much of the other kind. The essential difference has never
been more shrewdly put than in the caustic epigram, that there is the
same difference between a sportsman and a "sport" as there is between
a gentleman and a "gent." I believe that the enforcement of laws and
the establishment of sanctuaries will raise our sport to a higher
plane, reduce the suffering now inflicted when killing for business,
and help in every way towards the conversion of the human into the
humane. Besides, paradoxical as it may seem to some good people, the
true sportsman has always proved to be one of the very best conservers
of all wild life worth keeping. So there is a distinctly desirable
benefit to be expected in this direction, as in every other.
Finally, I return to my zoophilists, a vast but formless class of
people, both in and outside of the other classes mentioned, and one
which includes every man, woman and child with any fondness for wild
life, from zoologists to tourists. There are higher considerations,
never to be forgotten. But let me first press the point that there's
money in the zoophilists--plenty of it. A gentleman, in whom you, Sir,
and your whole Commission have the greatest confidence, and who was
not particularly inexpert at the subject, made an under-valuation to
the extent of no less than 75 per cent., when trying to estimate the
amount of money made by the transportation companies directly out of
travel to "Nature" places for sport, study, scenery and other kinds of
outing. There is money in it now, millions of it; and there is going
to be much more money in it later on. Civilized town-dwelling men,
women and children are turning more and more to wild Nature for a
holiday. And their interest in Nature is widening and deepening in
proportion. I do not say this as a rhetorical flourish. I have taken
particular pains to find out the actual growth of this interest, which
is shown in ways as comprehensive as educational curricula, picture
books for children, all sorts of "Animal" works, "zoos", museums,
lectures, periodicals and advertisements; and I find all facts
pointing the same way. The president of one of the greatest
publishers' associations in the world told me, and without being
asked, that the most marked and the steadiest development in the trade
was in "Nature" books of every kind. And this reminds me of the
countless readers who rarely hear the call of the wild themselves,
except through word and picture, but who would bitterly and
justifiably resent the silencing of that call in the very places where
it ought to be heard at its best.
Now, where can the call of wild Nature be heard to greater advantage
than in Labrador, which is a land made on purpose to be the home of
fur, fin and feather? And it is accessible, in the best of all
possible ways--by sea. It is about equidistant from central Canada,
England and the States--a wilderness park for all of them. Means of
communication are multiplying fast. Even now, it would be possible, in
a good steamer, to take a month's holiday from London to Labrador,
spending twenty days on the coast and only ten at sea. I think we may
be quite sure of such travel in the near future; that is, of course,
if the travellers have a land of life, not death, to come to. And an
excellent thing about it is that Labrador cannot be overrun and spoilt
like what our American friends so aptly call a "pocket wilderness".
Ten wild Englands, properly conserved, cannot be brought into the
catalogue of common things quite so easily as all that! Besides,
Labrador enjoys a double advantage in being essentially a seaboard
country. The visitor has the advantage of being able to see a great
deal of it--and the finest parts, too--without getting out of touch
with his moveable base afloat. And the country itself has the
corresponding advantage of being less liable to be turned into a
commonplace summer resort by the whole monotonizing apparatus of
hotels and boarding houses and conventional "sights".
And now, Sir, I venture once more to mention the higher interests, and
actually to specify one of them, although I have been repeatedly
warned by outsiders that no public men would ever listen to anything
which could not be expressed in "easy terms of dollars and cents!" And
I do so in full confidence that no appeal to the intellectual life
would fall on deaf ears among the members of a Commission which was
founded to lead rather than follow the best thought of our time. I
need not remind you that from the topmost heights of Evolution you can
see whole realms of Nature infinitely surpassing all those of
business, sport and tourist recreation, and that the theory of
Evolution itself is the crowned brain of the entire Animal Kingdom.
But I doubt whether, as yet, we fully realize that Labrador is
absolutely unique in being the only stage on which the prologue and
living pageant of Evolution can be seen together from a single
panoramic point of view. The sea and sky are everywhere the same
primeval elements. But no other country has so much primeval land to
match them. Labrador is a miracle of youth and age combined. It is
still growing out of the depths with the irresistible vigour of youth.
But its titanic tablelands consist of those azoic rocks which form the
very roots of all the other mountains in the world, and which are so
old, so immeasurably older than any others now standing on the surface
of the globe, that their Laurentians alone have the real right to bear
the title of "The Everlasting Hills". Being azoic these Laurentians
are older than the first age when our remotest ancestors appeared in
the earliest of animal forms, millions and millions of years ago.
They are, in fact, the only part of the visible Earth which was
present when Life itself was born. So here are the three great
elemental characters, all together--the primal sea and sky and
land--to act the azoic prologue. And here, too, for all mankind to
glory in, is the whole pageant of animal life: from the weakest
invertebrate forms, which link us with the illimitable past, to the
mightiest developments of birds and mammals at the present day, the
leviathan whales around us, the soaring eagles overhead, and man
himself--the culmination of them all--and especially migrating man,
whose incoming myriads are linking us already with the most pregnant
phases of the future. Where else are there so many intimate appeals
both to the child and the philosopher? Where else, in all this world,
are there any parts of the Creation more fit to exalt our visions and
make us "Look, through Nature, up to Nature's God"?
But, Sir, I must stop here; and not without renewed apologies for
having detained you so long over a question on which, as I have
already warned you, I do not profess to be a scientific expert. I fear
I have been no architect, not even a builder. But perhaps I have done
a hodman's work, by bringing a little mortar, with which some of the
nobler materials may presently be put together.
Bibliography
This short list is a mere indication of what can be found in any good
library.
General information is given in _Labrador; its Discovery, Exploration
and Development--By W.G. Gosling: Toronto, Musson._ The Atlantic
Labrador is dealt with by competent experts in _Labrador: the Country
and the People--By W.T. Grenfell and Others: New York, The Macmillan
Company, 1910._ This has several valuable chapters on the fauna. The
Peninsula generally, the interior especially, and the fauna
incidentally, are dealt with in the reports of _A.P. Low_ and _D.I.V.
Eaton_ to the _Geological Survey of Canada, 1893-4-5._ An excellent
general paper on the country is _The Labrador Peninsula, By Robert
Bell_, in _The Scottish Geographical Magazine_ for July, 1895. The N.
of the S.W. part is more particularly described in his _Recent
Explorations to the South of Hudson Bay_ in _The Geographical Journal_
for July, 1897. The Quebec Labrador is the subject of a recent
Provincial report, _La Côte Nord du Saint Laurent et le Labrador
Canadien--Par Eugène Rouillard: Quebec, 1908--Ministère de la
Colonisation, des Mines et des Pêcheries._ An excellent account of
animal life on the W. half of the Quebec Labrador is to be found in
_Life and Sport on the North Shore--By Napoléon A. Comeau: Quebec,
1909._ The zoology of the Mammals, though not particularly in their
Labrador habitat, is to be found in _Life-Histories of Northern
Mammals--By Ernest Thompson-Seton: London, Constable, 2 Vols., 1910._
The birds, similarly, in the _Catalogue of Canadian Birds--By John
Macoun and James M. Macoun: Ottawa, Government Printing Bureau, 1909._
Some books about adjacent areas may be profitably consulted, like
_Newfoundland and its Untrodden Ways--By John Guille Millais,_ and
American official publications, like the _Birds of New York--By Elon
Howard Eaton: Albany, University of the State of New York, 1910._ No.
34 of the _New York Zoological Society Bulletin_--for June, 1909--is a
"Wild-life Preservation Number." The best general history and
present-day summary of the world's fur trade is to be found in a
recent German work, a genuine _Urquellengeschichte._ French and
English translations will presumably appear in due course. The
statistical tables are wonderfully complete. The illustrations are the
least satisfactory feature. This book is--_Aus dem Reiche der Pelze.
Von Emil Brass: Berlin, Im Verlage der Neuen Pelzwaren-Zeitung, 1911._
End of Project Gutenberg's Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador, by William Wood
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