LABRADOR. History.—The peninsula of Labrador is distinguished as the first part of North America to be discovered by Europeans,. and by being the last portion of the continent in which large areas remain unex plored by white men.
Lief, the Norseman, voyaging westward from Greenland in the year 1000 reached its northeastern part and sailed south along its Atlantic coast to more temperate regions. Cor tereal rediscovered this coast and traced it northward from the Strait of Belle Isle to the entrance to Hudson Strait, in 1500. A cargo of Eskimo slaves carried by him to Portugal ac counts for the name Labrador given to the country. Jacques Cartier, on his voyage up the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, in 1535, outlined the southern coast of the peninsula; while the northern and western coasts were discovered by Henry Hudson in 1610. The valuable {fish eries of the western Atlantic early attracted the fishermen of Europe and the town of Brest was founded, near the Strait of Belle Isle, in 1504. At the height of its prosperity about the year 1600 it contained upwards of 200 houses and was visited by fishing vessels from France, England, Spain and Portugal.
Exploration.,—Although the coasts of the peninsula were early known, their barren char acter and the mountainous-lonking interior, which could only be penetrated by the ascent of difficult and dangerous rivers, long delayed the exploration of the interior and led to much misinformation concerning it. During thediast 40 years surveyors of the province of ue bec have accurately mapped the principal rivers of the southern watershed to their heads, thus giving a good idea of the geography of the southern third of the peninsula. The explora tion of the more inaccessible northern two thirds has been undertaken by the Canadian Geological Survey; work began in 1880 and it has been the fortune of the writer to have been in charge of these explorations. In this work the northern and western coasts have been closely examined and exploratory lines have been carried along a number of the largest streams of the eastern, northern and western watersheds. Much still remains unknown, but
sufficient has been learned to give a good gen eral idea of the geography and resources of these northern parts.
The peninsula of Labrador forms the northeastern part of Canada and has an area of 511,000 square miles. Its southern boundary is an arbitrary line drawn eastward 600 miles from the south end of Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, thence 500 miles along the north shore of the gulf to the Strait of Belle Isle. The Atlantic coast runs north northwest 700 miles to the eastern entrance of Hudson Strait; the south shore of the strait has a general trend of west-northwest for about 500 miles, while the western boundary is a north-and-south line along the east side of Hudson Bay, and is 800 miles in length. The Atlantic coast is indented by many long, narrow bays, or fiords, of which Hamilton Inlet is the largest, extending inland 150 miles, while sev eral of the others exceed 50 miles in length. Abrupt, partly-wooded hills surround the fiords and rise from 1,000 to 5,000 feet above their deep waters. Numerous rocky islands fringe the coast outside, and afford protected naviga tion for long distances in the channels between them, thus rendering the coast an ideal one for a safe summer cruise amid scenery rivalling in beauty and grandeur that of the coast of Nor way.
The southern and northern coasts are similar in character to that on the Atlantic, but are on a scale less grand, while the eastern shores of Hudson Bay are generally low and fringed with shallow, dangerous waters.
The peninsula as a whole may be considered a plateau that rises somewhat abruptly from the sea on the north, east and south sides and more gently from the west to heights varying from 1,500 to 2,500 feet. The only mountain range lies close to the sea along the northern ' half of the Atlantic coast with summits rising from 3,000 to 6,000 feet above the ocean.