A Canoe Journey in Canadian Labrador

N the summer of 1937 a small expedition, consisting of Messrs. C. C. Cholmondeley, F. J. Connell, G. F. Hanson, and myself, went up the Little Mecatina river in eastern Quebec. We left England in June and returned in October. Our objects were twofold: to canoe as far up the Little Mecatina river as possible, and to attempt to find some lake which might be used as a base for an aerial survey, an object in which we were encouraged by an Indian report of two great lakes at the sources of the river1; and to make a collection of birds and insects for the British Museum, of flowers for Kew, and of soil specimens for the Soil Science Laboratory at Oxford. Hanson and I left England on June 12 by liner for Quebec; and thence travelled by coastal steamer to Harrington Harbour on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Harrington is a fishing village of some three hundred inhabitants on a group of islands surrounding a perfect land-locked harbour. It is the home of one of the hospitals of the International Grenfell Mission, and we are particularly grateful to Dr. Hodd, Mrs. Thompson, and the staff for their kind help and hospitality. We arrived at Harrington on June 27 and left immediately for the mouth of the river 16 miles away. The journey was made by motor boat, winding in and out of the bleak islets which stud the coast, and finally turning up the estuary into the forest. Three miles up we came to the first pair of parallel falls, between 40 and 50 feet in height; an enormous quantity of water was coming down, still a result of the snow floods, and between June 27 and September 15 the river at the mouth fell approximately 25 feet. Salmon are unable to ascend the river-mouth falls, but they come right up to them, and several fishermen lay their nets in the estuary. From one of these we were able to obtain valuable information as to the position of the important portages on the river. He told us that at the Grand Rapid, he and his three brothers used to leave the river by a portage on the east bank which took them 5 miles across to a chain of thirteen lakes, and so back to the river above the rapids. A few miles farther on they had their hut below another set of rapids, where the river entered impassable mountains, but about a mile below the hut there was a chain of seven lakes on the east bank, which circumvented these second rapids. He had never heard of any one travelling more than a few miles farther than this. On our return to Harrington in September we were also told that 1 *2 miles above the Rapid of the Quiet Waters there was a fifteen-minute portage on the west bank (marked by a hut at the entrance of a stream), which led to a chain of seven lakes coming out at Ocean Pond, a narrow lake about 18 miles long, running in a NE.-SW. direction. Ocean Pond, which is a trapping centre well known locally, could also be reached by a 7-mile portage from a lake at the top of the Darby river. There was another large lake north-west of Ocean Pond, reached by a portage from it. On July 13 we were joined by Cholmondeley and Connell, and set out

Archaeology · Geography · Physical geography · Indigenous Studies and Ecology