



Produced by Martin Schub










THE LONG LABRADOR TRAIL

by

DILLON WALLACE

Author of "The Lure of the Labrador Wild," etc.

Illustrated

MCMXVII






             TO THE
       MEMORY OF MY WIFE



  "A drear and desolate shore!
  Where no tree unfolds its leaves,
  And never the spring wind weaves
  Green grass for the hunter's tread;
  A land forsaken and dead,
  Where the ghostly icebergs go
  And come with the ebb and flow..."

  Whittier's "The Rock-tomb of Bradore."



PREFACE

In the summer of 1903 when Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., went to Labrador to
explore a section of the unknown interior it was my privilege to
accompany him as his companion and friend.  The world has heard of the
disastrous ending of our little expedition, and how Hubbard, fighting
bravely and heroically to the last, finally succumbed to starvation.

Before his death I gave him my promise that should I survive I would
write and publish the story of the journey.  In "The Lure of The
Labrador Wild" that pledge was kept to the best of my ability.

While Hubbard and I were struggling inland over those desolate wastes,
where life was always uncertain, we entered into a compact that in case
one of us fall the other would carry to completion the exploratory work
that he had planned and begun.  Providence willed that it should become
my duty to fulfil this compact, and the following pages are a record of
how it was done.

Not I, but Hubbard, planned the journey of which this book tells, and
from him I received the inspiration and with him the training and
experience that enabled me to succeed.  It was his spirit that led me
on over the wearisome trails, and through the rushing rapids, and to
him and to his memory belong the credit and the honor of success.

D. W. February, 1907.



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

     I  THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS
    II  ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE UNKNOWN
   III  THE LAST OF CIVILIZATION
    IV  ON THE OLD INDIAN TRAIL
     V  WE GO ASTRAY
    VI  LAKE NIPISHISH IS REACHED
   VII  SCOUTING FOR THE TRAIL
  VIII  SEAL LAKE AT LAST
    IX  WE LOSE THE TRAIL
     X  "WE SEE MICHIKAMAU"
    XI  THE PARTING AT MICHIKAMAU
   XII  OVER THE NORTHERN DIVIDE
  XIII  DISASTER IN THE RAPIDS
   XIV  TIDE WATER AND THE POST
    XV  OFF WITH THE ESKIMOS
   XVI  CAUGHT BY THE ARCTIC ICE
  XVII  TO WHALE RIVER AND FORT CHIMO
 XVIII  THE INDIANS OF THE NORTH
   XIX  THE ESKIMOS OF LABRADOR
    XX  THE SLEDGE JOURNEY BEGUN
   XXI  CROSSING THE BARRENS
  XXII  ON THE ATLANTIC ICE
 XXIII  BACK TO NORTHWEST RIVER
  XXIV  THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL
        APPENDIX



ILLUSTRATIONS

The Perils of the Rapids (in color, from a painting by Oliver Kemp)

Ice Encountered Off the Labrador Coast

"The Time For Action Had Come"

"Camp Was Moved to the First Small Lake"

"We Found a Long-disused Log Cache of the Indians"

Below Lake Nipishish

Through Ponds and Marshes Northward Toward Otter Lake

"We Shall Call the River Babewendigash"

"Pete, Standing by the Prostrate Caribou, Was Grinning From Ear to Ear"

"A Network of Lakes and the Country as Level as a Table"

Michikamau

"Writing Letters to the Home Folks"

"Our Lonely Perilous Journey Toward the Dismal Wastes...Was Begun"

Abandoned Indian Camp On the Shore of Lake Michikamats

"One of the Wigwams Was a Large One and Oblong in Shape"

"At Last...We Saw the Post"

"A Miserable Little Log Shack"

A Group of Eskimo Women

A Labrador Type

Eskimo Children

A Snow Igloo

The Silence of the North (in color, from a painting by Frederic C.
Stokes)

"Nachvak Post of the Hudson's Bay Company".

"The Hills Grew Higher and Higher"

"We Turned Into a Pass Leading to the Northward"

The Moravian Mission at Ramah

"Plodding Southward Over the Endless Snow"

"Nain, the Moravian Headquarters in Labrador"

"The Indians Were Here"

Geological Specimens

Maps.





CHAPTER I

THE VOICE OF THE WILDERNESS

"It's always the way, Wallace!  When a fellow starts on the long trail,
he's never willing to quit.  It'll be the same with you if you go with
me to Labrador.  When you come home, you'll hear the voice of the
wilderness calling you to return, and it will lure you back again."

It seems but yesterday that Hubbard uttered those prophetic words as he
and I lay before our blazing camp fire in the snow-covered Shawangunk
Mountains on that November night in the year 1901, and planned that
fateful trip into the unexplored Labrador wilderness which was to cost
my dear friend his life, and both of us indescribable sufferings and
hardships.  And how true a prophecy it was!  You who have smelled the
camp fire smoke; who have drunk in the pure forest air, laden with the
smell of the fir tree; who have dipped your paddle into untamed waters,
or climbed mountains, with the knowledge that none but the red man has
been there before you; or have, perchance, had to fight the wilds and
nature for your very existence; you of the wilderness brotherhood can
understand how the fever of exploration gets into one's blood and draws
one back again to the forests and the barrens in spite of resolutions
to "go no more."

It was more than this, however, that lured me back to Labrador.  There
was the vision of dear old Hubbard as I so often saw him during our
struggle through that rugged northland wilderness, wasted in form and
ragged in dress, but always hopeful and eager, his undying spirit and
indomitable will focused in his words to me, and I can still see him as
he looked when he said them:

"The work must be done, Wallace, and if one of us falls before it is
completed the other must finish it."

I went back to Labrador to do the work he had undertaken, but which he
was not permitted to accomplish.  His exhortation appealed to me as a
command from my leader--a call to duty.

Hubbard had planned to penetrate the Labrador peninsula from Groswater
Bay, following the old northern trail of the Mountaineer Indians from
Northwest River Post of the Hudson's Bay Company, situated on Groswater
Bay, one hundred and forty miles inland from the eastern coast, to Lake
Michikamau, thence through the lake and northward over the divide,
where he hoped to locate the headwaters of the George River.

It was his intention to pass down this river until he reached the
hunting camps of the Nenenot or Nascaupee Indians, there witness the
annual migration of the caribou to the eastern seacoast, which
tradition said took place about the middle or latter part of September,
and to be present at the "killing," when the Indians, it was reported,
secured their winter's supply of provisions by spearing the caribou
while the herds were swimming the river.  The caribou hunt over, he was
to have returned across country to the St. Lawrence or retrace his
steps to Northwest River Post, whichever might seem advisable.  Should
the season, however, be too far advanced to permit of a safe return, he
was to have proceeded down the river to its mouth, at Ungava Bay, and
return to civilization in winter with dogs.

The country through which we were to have traveled was to be mapped so
far as possible, and observations made of the geological formation and
of the flora, and as many specimens collected as possible.

This, then, Hubbard's plan, was the plan which I adopted and which I
set out to accomplish, when, in March, 1905, I finally decided to
return to Labrador.

It was advisable to reach Hamilton Inlet with the opening of navigation
and make an early start into the country, for every possible day of the
brief summer would be needed for our purpose.

It was, as I fully realized, no small undertaking.  Many hundreds of
miles of unknown country must be traversed, and over mountains and
through marshes for long distances our canoes and outfit would have to
be transported upon the backs of the men comprising my party, as pack
animals cannot be used in Labrador.

Through immense stretches of country there would be no sustenance for
them, and, in addition to this, the character of the country itself
for