Chapter III: Plan of Conservation for the Canadian Labrador

Whaling, sealing and deep-sea fishing are Dominion and international affairs; and whaling, at all events, is soon to engage the attention of statesmen, experts and the public--let us hope, to some good end. The inland birds and mammals from the St. Lawrence to Ungava now come under the Province of Quebec; though no effective protection has ever reached the Canadian Labrador. Beyond this, again, lies the Atlantic Labrador, which is entirely under Newfoundland. So I would suggest that the Commission should try a five-year experiment in the conservation of seabird life along the Canadian Labrador, because this would not come into overlapping contact with any other exercised authority, because it is bound to be successful, because it will only cost a sum that should be had for the asking, because it is most urgently pressing, and because it can be begun at once, to the lasting advantage of all concerned.

The "Canadian Labrador" is the last remaining vestige of the No-Man's-Land which, only a hundred years ago, began at the Saguenay, within 120 miles of Quebec. Then, as the organised "North Shore" advanced down stream, the unorganised "Canadian Labrador" receded before it. Fifty years ago the dividing line was at Seven Islands, 300 miles below Quebec. To-day it runs just east of Natashquan and is a full 500 miles below.

There is no stranger country anywhere than this Canadian Labrador. Dr Grenfell's Labrador, which has nothing to do with Canada, is known to everyone. But the very existence of our own Labrador, with its 200 miles of coastline and its more than 20,000 islands, is quite unknown, as a separate entity, to all but a very few outside of its little, but increasing, population of 1200 souls. It lies on the north shore of the Gulf, just inside the Straits of Belle Isle, and runs from Bradore in the east to Kegashka in the west. Here, close beside the crowded track of ocean liners, and well below the latitude of London, is by far the most southerly arctic region in the world. It is a land of rock and moss; for, except along the river valleys, there are neither grass nor trees. No crops are grown or ever can be grown. There are no horses, cattle, poultry, pigs or sheep. Reindeer are said to be coming. But there are none at present. The only domestic animals are dogs, that howl like wolves, but never bark. And yet it is a country which is rich, and might he richer still, in fish and fur, and which seems formed by Nature to be a perfect paradise of all that is most desirable in the wild life of the north, especially in the seabirds that are now being done to death among its countless archipelagoes.

Its natural features are not the only strange things in it. It is a curiosity of government, or, rather, of the want of government. It is _in_ the Province of Quebec and _in_ the Dominion; yet, in one sense, not _of_ either. For it in the only place of its kind inhabited by educated whites, in any part of the self-governing Empire, where no man has ever cast a single vote or ever had the right to cast one. The electoral line stops short at Natashquan, 36 miles west of Kegashka. So 1200 good Canadians have no vote. They are dumb and their two governments are deaf. They have bought their little holdings from the Province; and they pay Canadian custom dues to the Dominion, on everything they get from the Quebec truck traders or the Hudson Bay posts, in exchange for their fish and fur. But they do not enjoy even the elementary right of protection from depredation committed by men who have no claim on Canada at all. Let me add that by this I do not mean for one moment to abuse my friends the Newfoundlanders. A kindlier people I have never met. Nor do I mean to abuse the Americans and Nova Scotians who sometimes slink inside the three-mile limit. But I do mean to draw attention to the regrettable fact that the absence of all wild-life conservation is becoming ruinous to everyone concerned--even to the exterminating Newfoundlanders, who are now making our shores as bleak a desert as they have made their own.

Of course the Canadian Labrador should help itself. Let it form a "Neighbourhood Improvement Association" under the Commission. There are good leaders in Dr Hare, the head of the medical mission; in the three religious missions--Anglican, Presbyterian and Roman Catholic; and among the principal fishermen, who are mostly Anglo- but partly French-Canadian. What the coast needs is not coddling and charity but conservation and protection against depredators from outside. The best way to begin is to protect the seabirds. And the best body to do this is the Commission of Conservation. The Province of Quebec has just put the finishing touch to a great work by establishing an animal sanctuary in the heart of the Laurentides National Park. It is also doing good work by making the game laws more effective elsewhere. But, being dependently human, it can hardly pass over the whole North Shore of voters in order to give special protection to the little, voteless No-Man's-Land of the Canadian Labrador; though immediate special protection is a very vital concern to that most neglected part of Canada. The Dominion stops short by water as decidedly as the Province does by land. So an ideal place is left defenceless between the two, as if expressly made for the Commission to conserve.

I know that the Commission cannot undertake any executive work of a permanent character. But it can undertake an experimental investigation for a term of years. And, here again, the Canadian Labrador offers a perfect field. For if only five years' effective conservation is extended to the bird life of that coast the whole situation will be saved. I do not presume to lay down the law on the subject. But I would venture to suggest that some such plan as the following would probably be found quite effective at the very moderate cost of five thousand dollars a year.

1. The residents to form their own "Neighbourhood Improvement Association" under the Commission of Conservation.

2. The Commission to protect the bird life of the coast experimentally for five years, from the 1st of May, 1913.

3. The 200 miles of coast, from Kegashka to Bradore, to be divided into 5 beats. One local boat and two local men to each beat, from the 1st of May to the 1st of September, by contract, at $600 a boat = $3,000. Each boat to have a motor capable of doing at least 6 knots an hour. Local men are essential. Strangers, however good otherwise, would be lost in that labyrinth of uncharted and unlighted islands. $2 a day a man is not too much for these men, who would have to give up their whole time in the busy season, the only season, in fact, when they make money, except for the chance of "furring". $1 a day a boat is equally reasonable. The five beats might be called the Romaine, Harrington, Tabatière, Shekattika and Bradore.

4. A sixth boat should move about inspecting the whole coast during the season. It should have a trained naturalist as Inspector, the local game warden of the Province of Quebec, and a crew of two men. The Quebec warden would be paid by the Province. The men and boat, in view of the larger size of the boat and the greater expenditure of fuel, would be, say, $6 a day, instead of $5, which, for 4 months, would mean $720. The Inspector's salary and the incidental expenses of the service would make up the $5,000. The Province would pay the cost of punishing offenders. Fines should be divided between the Province and the men who effect the arrests.

5. One necessary expense would be officially warning the Newfoundlanders and other depredators through their own press.

6. Arrange co-operation with the Dominion Fisheries Protection Service and Dominion Government telegraph line; also with the Provincial Government, which would naturally be glad to have red-handed offenders consigned to it for punishment. The Commission's boats might be very useful in giving information to the Fisheries Protection Service, and _vice versa_. All conservation telegrams should be free.

7. Forbid all outsiders to take eggs or young birds, or to shoot anything before the 1st of September, or to shoot after that without a license.

8. Allow genuine residents of the Canadian Labrador to take ducks' and gulls' eggs up to the 1st of June, and murres', auks' and puffins' eggs up to the 15th of June. Allow them to take young birds only in case of sickness: (gull broth is the local equivalent of chicken broth). Allow them to shoot after the 1st of September without a license. The conditions of the coast require these exceptions, which will not endanger the bird life there.

9. Establish one bird sanctuary on the inshore islands between Fond au Fecteau and Whale Head East, and another on the inshore islands round Yankee Harbour (Wapitagun).

10. These islands are favourite haunts of the American eider ("sea-duck", "metik", _Somateria dresseri_.)

Perhaps the Northern or Greenland eider (_Somateria mollissima borealis_) might also be induced to concentrate there. There seems to be no reason why an eider-down industry should not be built up by the end of the five years. The eider ought to be specially protected all the way up to the Pilgrims, which are only 100 miles below Quebec. The Province might do this from Natashquan west.

11. Begin by protecting all birds except the Great Blackback Gull ("Saddleback", _Larus marinus_) which is very destructive to other bird life. Let its eggs and young be taken at all times; but prevent adult birds from being shot before the 1st of September, so as not to starve the helpless young to death. When other species become really noxious it will be time enough to treat them in the same way. As a rule, the harm done by birds popularly but falsely supposed to live on food fishes, and by birds of prey, is grossly exaggerated. Birds and beasts of prey often do good service in keeping up a breed by killing off the weaklings.

12. It would be well worth while to keep the Inspector on for the eight months between the 1st of September, 1913, and the 1st of May, 1914, so that he and the Provincial warden might make a thorough investigation of conditions all the year round, inland as well as on the coast, and of the mammals as well as of the birds. One man from each of the five local boats and two men from the Inspector's boat would make seven assistants already trained in conservation. They would have to be paid enough to counterbalance their strong desire for the rare but sometimes relatively enormous profits of "furring". Perhaps $50 a man a month would do, the men to find themselves in everything, as during the summer. This, for seven men for eight months, would be $2,800. The incidental expenses and Inspector's salary would bring the total up to $5,000. The Inspector cannot be too good a man. He should be a good leader as well as a trained naturalist. The Province should send him the best warden it can find, to act as his chief assistant. After a year's work, afloat and ashore, in summer and winter, with birds and mammals, he ought to be able to make a comprehensive and unbiassed report, which, by itself, would repay the Commission for introducing conservation into such a suitable area. Zoogeographic maps and charts would be an indispensable part of this report.

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To sum up:--

I beg to propose that the Commission should bring the Canadian Labrador under conservation by protecting bird life on the coast for a term of five years, as an experimental investigation, and by examining, for one year, the whole question of the birds and mammals, inland as well as on the seabord, and in winter as well as summer. The cost of the first would be $5,000 a year for five years = $25,000. The cost of the second would be $5,000 for one year only. The total cost would be $30,000.

I would never have ventured to suggest this plan to the Commission if I had not been encouraged by one of your own most valued members, Dr Robertson. But as soon as he told me what your powers were I saw clearly that, in this particular case, the Commission and the Canadian Labrador were each exactly suited to the other.

Under all these circumstances I have no hesitation in making the strongest possible appeal for action before it is too late. The time has come when the seabird life must be either made or marred for ever. And I would ask you to remember what seabird conservation means down there. It means fresh food, the only kind the people ever get, apart from fish. It means new business, if the eiders are once made safe in sanctuaries; for we now import our eider down from points outside of Canada. And it means the quickening of every human interest, once you encourage the people to join you in this excellently practical form of "Neighbourhood Improvement".

There is another and very important point, which I discussed at considerable length in my _Address_, but to which I return here, because it can only be settled by a body of men, who, like this Commission, are national trustees. This point is that certain parts of Labrador are bound to become ideal public playgrounds, if their wild life is only saved in time. The common conception of Labrador as being inaccessibly remote is entirely wrong. It is accessible all round a coast line of 3000 miles at the proper season and with proper care; and its vast peninsula lies straight between the British Islands and our own North West. So there is nothing absurd in expecting people to come to Labrador to-morrow when they are going to Spitzbergen, far north of the Arctic Circle to-day. Of course, Spitzbergen enjoys an invincible advantage at present, as its wild life is being carefully preserved. But once Labrador is put under conservation the odds will be reversed. And I what is true of Labrador in general is much truer still of the Canadian Labrador. Here is a country which is actually south of London, which is only 2000 miles from England, 1000 from New York, and 500 from Quebec; which stands beside one of the most frequented of ocean highways; and which has a labyrinth of islands, a maze of rivers, and an untamed hinterland, all formed by Nature for wild "zoos", preserves and open hunting grounds. And here, too, all over the civilized world, are city-bound men, turning more and more to Nature for health and recreation, and willing to spend increasingly large sums for what they seek and find. Surely, it is only the common sense of statesmanship to bring this country and those men together, in the near future, under conditions which are best for both, by making the Canadian Labrador an attractive land of life and not a hopelessly repellant land of death.

One good, long look ahead to-day, and immediate action following, will bring the No-Man's-Land of the Canadian Labrador into its rightful place within the fellowship of the Province and Dominion. You will never find cause for vain regret. There is a sound basis of material value in the products of the coast already; and material value is always increased by conservation. But there is more than material value involved. We still have far too much wanton destruction of wild life in Canada, not only among those who have ignorantly grown up to it, but among the well-to-do and presumably well-educated sham sportsmen who go into any unprotected wilds simply to indulge their lust of slaughter to the full. Both these classes will be stopped in their abominations and shown a better way; for whenever man is taught a lesson in conservation he rises to a higher plane in his attitude towards all his humbler fellow-beings, and eventually becomes a sportsman-naturalist and true lover of the wilds.

Then, but not till then, he will see such a drama of Creation along the Canadian Labrador as the whole world can never show elsewhere. On the one hand lies the illimitable past, a past which actually existed before the earliest of living creatures: on the other, the promise of a great human future. The past is in the hills, the true, the only "everlasting hills of time"; for they are of the old, the immeasurably old, azoic rock of the Laurentians, which forms the roots of other mountains, and which here alone appears to-day, on the face of a young Earth, the same as at the birth of Life itself. The future lies within the ships that sail the offing of these hills, crowded with those hosts of immigration who are so eager to become a part of what may be a mighty nation. And there, between and round the ships and hills, in sea and sky and on the land, our kindred of the wild are linking these vastly different ages close together in what should be a present paradise. Shall one, short, heedless generation break that whole chain of glorious life and make that paradise a desert?