Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1885 — The People of Labrador. [ARTICLE]

The People of Labrador.

If environment moulds apeople, then the Labradoreans should have strong traits. The climate, the unique features of the country, tho undisputed supremacy of the sea, the isolation from the world—all their circumstances, indeed—are so strongly marked as to be irresistible. The population of the Canadian part <?f the coast—down to the boundary line at Blanc Sablon—is of French origin, Canadian and Acadian ; the Newfoundland part of Labrador—the Strait of Belle Isle and the Atlantic coast—is inhabited by English speaking people. Moravians and Esquimaux are found in the far North. The French Canadians consist of two classes; apart of them come here every spring to fish for the merchants, and Return every fall to their families and famuli homesteads between Quebec and | Gaspe; others live here permanently, own little isolated establishments, and ifish on their own account The Acadians have collected in two principal settlements, Esquimaux Point and Natashquan,where they have their schools, priests, churches, and some other features of village life. ; I * was fortunate in being stormJstayed at a few of these French Can,adian homes, where I found, now and then, a person able to give me some account of the summer and winter life of the people. To begin with external land —material things, the average (home of Labrador generally consists of a rough board dwelling, with two rooms and a garret, a small dock and store-house for receiving, cleaning, curing, and storing fish, and two or three open fishing-boats. All these buildings perch like anxious waterfowls on the bare rocks ; they never impress me as homes, for they make for themselves no niche or place in the surface of the earth; you expect them to be washed or blown away at the next gale—as they sometimes are. For the sake of being near the fishing grounds these shelters are generally established on some outlying island, offering a mooring, or else a beach for the boats; they seem to be banished from the earth as far as possible, seaward. They stand up gaunt, stark naked in the gales, in the midst of a desert of sea and rocks.

In the best places there may be in a hollow a little sand, enriched with decaying fish, where a few turnips and cabbages manage to show themselves during a brief season. You get a gleam of hope and of horror on beholding a gaunt scaffold about eighteen feethigh; but it is not a gallows for the ending of life, only a platform for keeping the frozen fish for dog-meat. The interior of these homes is not so distressing as their hard surroundings, for the human hand in-doors can make its mark, which is not always a clean one. The furniture, diet, and costumes, are rough and common-place; but the people are courteous and kind, and they observe well their religious rites. Their -isolation is such that they keep the run of time by marking the days of the week on the door-post. Here is a region without a mile of road in three thousand miles of coast; I never elsewhere appreciated a wheel and a horseshoe. Some of these people have no idea of the shape and size of a cow or hore, and they flee like harses at the coming of a stranger. I have stated elsewhere that lawlessness often prevails, and that those who are in need do not hesitate to break open stores and help themselves. But their most astonishing traits are laziness and improvidence here in sight of heart-rend-ing hardship and want. Labrador, however, was formerly a sea of plenty; fishing, sealing, trapping, gave even the (indolent a sure though a miserable living. In a few weeks the average man could catch fish enough to exchange with traders for the necessaries of life. This enabled him to idle away threefourths of the year, and relieved him of any sense of responsibility. But now fish, oil, and fur are no longer so abundant. The average family spend about SIOO per year to get the absolute necessities of life; and yet the Government is obliged to distribute flour and pork to prevent actual starvation ; and it offers free passage and work to those who will leave the coast. The lazy depend upon the industrious, the provisions are shared, and if navigation is tardy, the first sail is watched for in the spring with eagerness.— C. H. Farnham, in Harper's Magazine.