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Historic
association still gives the title of Labrador to the entirety of the
great peninsula which forms the northeastern extremity of the North
American continent; but, in its political significance, the name has
applied since 1809 only to the narrow strip of coast along its
eastern edge which drains into the Atlantic.
The Labrador
Peninsula has been described as two and one-third times as large as
the Province of Ontario, 65 percent of the size of all that part of
the United States lying east of the Mississippi River, or nearly
five times the area of Great Britain. It extends from the
fifty-fifth meridian to the seventy-ninth meridian and from the
forty-ninth parallel to the sixty-third parallel. It is contained
within a nearly continuous water boundary—the Saguenay, Chamouchouan,
Waswanipi and Nottaway rivers at the south, James and Hudson bays on
the west, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay on the north, the Atlantic
Ocean on the northeast and the St. Lawrence River on the southeast.
From Cape Wolstenholme, at the entrance to Hudson Bay, to the mouth
of the Seguenay River the distance is 1,040 miles “as the crow
flies;” from Belle Isle on the east to the mouth of the Nottaway
River on the west the distance is more than one thousand miles.
Roughly described, the peninsula froms a triangle one thousand miles
long on each side.
Of the 560,000
square miles embraced in the Labrador Peninsula, the greater part
lies within the district of Ungava, a Canadian territory created
October 2, 1895. At the time of its organization on the date
mentioned Ungava included a much larger area than that with which it
is now credited. It embraced all of the Labrador Peninsula north of
the Height of Land, exclusive of that part of the Labrador Coast
which is a part of the jurisdiction of Newfoundland. Quebec, the
province to the southward, which is itself largely a part of the
Labrador Peninsula, later had its boundaries extended so that it
acquired all that part of Ungava lying south of the East Main River
on the west and the Hamilton River on the east. By this order in
council Quebec secured a strip of territory which is 250 miles in
width at its western end and includes the regions of the Rupert and
Nottaway rivers and Lake Mistassini, embracing important timbered
areas. The following is the present area of Ungava: Land, 349,109
square miles; water, 5,852 square miles; total, 354,961 square
miles.
This great Labrador
Peninsula, the largest peninsula in the world, is of historical
importance, for it was the scene of the discovery of America by
white men. There is little doubt that its coast was touched by
Norsemen as early as 1000. June 24, 1497, a year previous to the
first continental discovery by Christopher Columbus (an Italian
sailing under the Spanish flag) Giovanni Cabot, or Cabotto, a
Genoese in the employ of the English, visited the eastern coast of
North America; and in the following year Sebastian Cabot, his son,
discovered Hudson strait. In 1500 Gaspar Cortereal, a little known
Portuguese, landed and gave the name of Labrador, or “laborers’
land,” to the peninsula. In 1576 Martin Frobisher visited the region
and in 1585-6-7 John Davis explored arctic Canada, including the
vicinity of Labrador. To the westward, in Hudson Bay, occurred in
1611 one of the most tragic of the many tragic events linked with
the story of the New World. Henry Hudson, the explorer, upon
determining to winter in the region in order that he might continue
his search for a northwest passage the following spring, was cast
adrift in Hudson Bay with his seven-year-old son and seven seamen
and died a miserable but unknown death.
The exploitation of
the timber of Ungava has never been seriously attempted, beneficent
natural conditions of climate serving to keep in reserve these
timbered areas until the demolition of the forests farther south
shall render the utilization of more northern forests necessary. The
southwestern portion of that part of the peninsula contained within
Ungava was early, however, the scene of extensive trading by the
Hudson Bay Company, which had posts at the mouth of the Rupert
River, at Great Whale River and Little Whale River and on Lake
Mistassini and at other points in the interior. This company was
incorporated in 1670 and was headed by Prince Rupert, a cousin of
Charles II., of England. It had the exclusive trading rights on
Hudson Bay. Two employees of the Quebec fur-trading monopoly,
Groseillers and Radisson, conceived the idea of exploiting the
Hudson Bay region. They failed successively to interest their own
employers, a coterie of Boston merchants and the French court and
finally had recourse to London, where the Hudson Bay Company was
organized. It was capitalized at £10,500 and Prince Rupert and his
seventeen associates received a charter May 2, 1670. This was
granted to “The Governor and Company of Merchants-Adventurers
trading into Hudson’s Bay” and gave the company the exclusive right
to trade in the bay and on the coasts, power to expel trespassers on
these rights and the privilege of building forts and fitting out
privateers and armed ships for the purpose of making war on any
non-Christian people..
From the time of
its occupation until the present the company has been a potent
factor in the history of Canada, no less in Ungava than elsewhere.
In the district it gave the name to Rupert’s River and established
Rupert’s House at the river’s mouth early in its corporate
existence. It established in the interior of Ungava in later years
Mechiskun House, Waswanapi House and Mistassini House and, on the
west coast of Ungava, posts at Great Whale River, Little Whale River
and elsewhere.
While the early
operations of the company were carried on with profit, they were
never so large, in the earlier years, as to render these profits
exceptionally heavy. In 1676 it handled £19,000 worth of furs,
giving in exchange to the Indians £650 worth of goods. In 1748 the
amount of business had increased to only £30,000 from which had to
be deducted £17,000 for operating expenses and £5,000 for goods for
the Indians. At that time the business required the employment of
four ships and numerous'garrisons. A French claim to the territory
embroiled the Hudson Bay Company in difficulties from 1682 until
1713. In 1682 and 1686 the French captured several of the company’s
forts. These troubles were ended by the treaty of Utrecht in 1713
and thenceforward the company enjoyed prosperity. It was not until
1763 that the operations attained any great magnitude, however, and
then they were .vastly increased by the opening of all the Hudson
Bay country by the session of French Canada.
The Declaration of
Rights, which guaranteed free and open trade to all British
subjects, produced the first serious competition which the company
was forced to encounter. In 1782 the Northwest Fur & Trading Company
was organized in Montreal. It invaded the old company’s territory
and the competition eventually became actual warfare. In 1821 these
evils were cured by a union of the companies. The later history of
the great enterprise concerns more particularly its westward
progress.
It will be observed
by this history of the operations of the Hudson Bay Company that a
great fur trade was early developed in Ungava. The forests remained
untouched, and in a consideration of the forestal wealth of Canada
the southern part of Ungava should be considered among its
resources. Along the southern border exist important areas of
hardwoods and from these forests the growth gradually lessens until
the barren shores of Hudson Strait are reached.
The interior of
Ungava is a plateau of less than 2,500 feet elevation and broken by
a network of lakes and rivers which make water transportation in any
direction possible. A portage of two or three miles will generally
serve to move a canoe from one river to the waters of another. The
plateau rises precipitously from the Atlantic Ocean at the east but
slopes gradually to James Bay at the west. The longer rivers are,
therefore, in the western part of the peninsula. The chief rivers of
Ungava are the Koksoak and Leaf rivers, emptying into Ungava Bay,
the Hamilton and Northwest rivers, flowing into Lake Melville, and
the Great Whale and Mistassibi rivers, flowing into Hudson and James
bays. Grand Falls on the Hamilton River has a drop of 302 feet and a
volume of 50,000 cubic feet a second. The important lakes of Ungava
are Mishikamau, Kaniapiskau, North Seal, Clearwater, Apiskigamish,
Nichikun, Manuan and Payne.
The district of
Ungava possesses a considerable forest area which will be of
commercial importance when the provinces shall have been denuded. In
the consideration of this forest ground, however, the northwestern
projection of the peninsula may well be eliminated, as the forest is
of no value. Even as far south as Richmond Gulf the region takes on
the characteristics of the Labrador Coast, the hills rising abruptly
500 to 1,000 feet. These hills are barren on top, small trees
growing only in the lower gullies and about the edge of the water.
Clearwater Lake, to which reference has already been made, is in the
same locality. It is thirty-five miles long from northwest to
southeast and eighteen miles across at the widest point. The bare
and rocky hills are clothed only with lichens and arctic shrubs. The
trees about the lake are very small black spruce or larch. At North
Seal Lake the trees are even smaller and the barren areas more
extensive.
The chief forest
areas occupy the valleys of the streams flowing into James Bay at
the westward and the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St. Lawrence at
the eastward. This wealth has, unfortunately, been much lessened by
forest fires which have, within the last quarter century, destroyed
one-half of the timber of the interior. In some places this
destruction has been so complete that two hundred years will be
required to restore the soil to its old fertility. These fires are
attributed generally to Indians. A. P. Low, of the Geological Survey
of Canada, whose explorations of unknown Ungava have been highly
valuable, says that the fires occur annually and often burn during
the entire summer. In 1894 he wrote: “These fires are due to various
causes but many of them can be traced to the Indians, who start them
either through their carelessness or intentionally.” However,
settlers, tourists and hunters are equally culpable. Many of the
fires may be traced to their lack of care in building camp fires in
places carpeted with gummy leaves and resinous twigs. On the upper
canoe routes notices printed in English, French and Indian have been
posted at every portage. These appear to have had some effect.
Despite the
destructiveness of forest fires and the barrenness of the northern
part of Ungava, the district contains a large amount of excellent
timber, particularly adaptable to pulp manufacture. Ungava forests
embrace spruce, larch, balsam fir, scrub pine, poplar and birch,
distributed according to the altitude, latitude, distance from the
sea and character of the soil.
Black spruce (Picea
nigra) constitutes 90 percent of the forest growth of Ungava and
extends northward to Ungava Bay and Hamilton Inlet and westward to
the sparse growth of Richmond Gulf, although in the northwest it
does not exist in merchantable quantities. In the southern part of
Ungava black spruce grows in thickets, which habit prevents it from
obtaining any considerable size. Farther north the trees are more
distributed and of larger girth.
White spruce (Picea
alba) is found in smaller quantities throughout the peninsula
wherever there is well drained soil.
Black larch (Larix
americana ), or tamarack, ranks second to black spruce in the extent
of its growth. It also extends the farthest north of any of the
Ungava trees, growing to a considerable height in regions so arctic
that the spruce is stunted to a mere shrub. It is the largest of the
trees found in the interior and makes the cold swamps its particular
habitat. The European larch saw fly has been working northward in
recent years and doing some damage to the tamarack growth.
The balsam fir (Abies
balsamea) seldom grows farther north than the fifty-sixth parallel
and is found in considerable quantities on the east shore of James
Bay and eastward to Hamilton Inlet. It is particularly abundant on
the lower Rupert River, where it grows in company with the white
spruce, aspen and canoe birch.
Banksian pine (Pinus
banksiana) variously known as the gray pine, scrub pine, jack pine,
Labrador pine and “cypress,” has attained considerable growth on the
burned-over area south of the Whale River and it is found in the
swampy regions southward in the vicinity of James Bay.
The aspen (Populus
tremuloides) grows south of the fifty-fourth parallel and is
assisting to restore the burned-over areas. It conserves the soil on
steep slopes and affords shelter to the seedlings of coniferae.
The balsam poplar (Populus
balsamifera) grows as far north as Clearwater Lake and is partial to
the clay soil of the river valleys. It reaches a diameter of ten
inches on the Kaniapiskau River.
The white, or
canoe, birch (Betula papyrikra) is common to the southern part of
the peninsula. It reaches ten inches in diameter at Hamilton Inlet,
but up the river seldom attains more than eight inches. As it
extends northward it is dwarfed in size.
As a source of
future pulpwood supply Ungava takes important rank among the more
northern districts of the Dominion of Canada. It is peculiarly well
endowed with water power and means of water transportation and will
eventually be the scene of extensive and profitable pulpwood
manufacture.
Ungava
A Tale of Esquimau Land by R. M. Ballantyne (pdf)
Ungava Bob
A Winter's Tale by Dillon Wallace (pdf)
The Lure of
the Labrador Wild
The Story of the Exploring Expedition conducted by Leonidas Hubbard,
Jr. by Dillon Wallace (eleventh edition) (pdf) |
