easanter.

A pilot was necessary to guide the _Albert_ along the uncharted coast
of Labrador. Captain Nicholas Fitzgerald was provided by the
Newfoundland government to serve in this capacity. Doctor Grenfell
invited Mr. Adolph Neilson, Superintendent of Fisheries for
Newfoundland, to accompany them, and he accepted the invitation, that
he might lend his aid to getting the work of the mission started. He
proved a valuable addition to the party. Then the _Albert_ sailed away
to cruise her new field of service.

It will be interesting to turn to a map and see for ourselves the
country to which Doctor Grenfell was going. We will find Labrador in
the northeastern corner of the North American continent, just as
Alaska is in the northwestern corner.

Like Alaska, Labrador is a great peninsula and is nearly, though not
quite, so large as Alaska. Some maps will show only a narrow strip
along the Atlantic east of the peninsula marked "Labrador." This is
incorrect. The whole peninsula, bounded on the south by the Gulf of
St. Lawrence and Straits of Belle Isle, the east by the Atlantic
Ocean, the north by Hudson Straits, the west by Hudson Bay and James
Bay and the Province of Quebec, is included in Labrador. The narrow
strip on the east is under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland, while the
remainder is owned by Quebec. Newfoundland is the oldest colony of
Great Britain. It is not a part of Canada, but has a separate
government.

The only people living in the interior of Labrador are a few wandering
Indians who live by hunting. There are still large parts of the
interior that have never been explored by white men, and of which we
know little or no more than was known of America when Columbus
discovered the then new world.

The people who live on the coast are white men, half-breeds and
Eskimos. None of these ever go far inland, and they live by fishing,
hunting, and trapping animals for the fur. Those on the south, as far
east as Blanc Sablon, on the straits of Belle Isle, speak French.
Eastward from Blanc Sablon and northward to a point a little north of
Indian Harbor at the northern side of the entrance of Hamilton Inlet,
English is spoken. The language on the remainder of the coast is
Eskimo, and nearly all of the people are Eskimos. Once upon a time the
Eskimos lived and hunted on the southern coast along the Straits of
Belle Isle, but only white people and half-breeds are now found south
of Hamilton Inlet.

The Labrad