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The following table shows the amount of the different kinds of lumber shipped by five of the leading firms of Halifax, from January 1 to December 1, 1904:

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CHAPTER XXIII.

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

Nine miles off the coast of New Brunswick at its nearest point, lies Prince Edward Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. At one time it was covered with a considerable forest growth. It was visited in 1534 by Jacques Cartier on his first voyage to the new world. In the "Relation Originale," a description of Cartier's voyage, is found the following concerning Prince Edward Island:

"That day we coasted along the said land nine or ten leagues, trying to find some harbor, which we could not; for, as I have said before, it is a land low and shallow. We went ashore in four places to see the trees, largely of the very finest and sweet smelling, and found that there were cedars, pines, white elms, ashes, willows and many other to us unknown. The lands where there are no woods are very beautiful."

Despite Cartier's failure to find a good harbor, the present capital city of Charlottetown is located on one of the most excellent harbors of the Dominion. Georgetown, in King's County, situated at the juncture of the Cardigan, Montague and Brudenell rivers, was formerly called the "Port of Three Rivers," and was the center of the timber trade.

While the island once possessed forests of considerable area, these have been largely removed by forest fires, lumbermen and shipbuilders. At one time the island was quite generally covered with timber, but now all that remain are small growths of balsam, fir and spruce and even smaller quantities of pine, larch, maple, poplar, beech, birch and cedar. The total area of the island is about 2,184 square miles, of which 797 square miles remain in forest woodlands. Of this latter area at least forty percent is timber of merchantable size.

In 1903 a forestry commission was created by an act of the legisla ture. The Province receives no revenue from forest lands, but hopes to do valuable service in reafforesting denuded areas and conserving the remaining timber.

According to the census of 1901, relating to lumber products, there were in the census year eight establishments of that character in Prince Edward Island with an invested capital of $223,500. These gave em

ployment to ninety-five wage-earners and paid out $30,772 annually in wages. The cost of materials employed was $49,406 and the value of the annual product, $118,150. The following affords a comparison concerning the lumber industry for a period of ten years:

MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES EMPLOYING FIVE HANDS AND OVER, COMPARED FOR 1891 AND 1901.

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CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DISTRICT OF UNGAVA.

Historic association still gives the title of Labrador to the entirety of the great peninsula which forms the northeastern extremity of the North American continent; but, in its political significance, the name has applied since 1809 only to the narrow strip of coast along its eastern edge which drains into the Atlantic.

The Labrador Peninsula has been described as two and one-third times as large as the Province of Ontario, 65 percent of the size of all that part of the United States lying east of the Mississippi River, or nearly five times the area of Great Britain. It extends from the fiftyfifth meridian to the seventy-ninth meridian and from the forty-ninth parallel to the sixty-third parallel. It is contained within a nearly continuous water boundary-the Saguenay, Chamouchouan, Waswanipi and Nottaway rivers at the south, James and Hudson bays on the west, Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay on the north, the Atlantic Ocean on the northeast and the St. Lawrence River on the southeast. From Cape Wolstenholme, at the entrance to Hudson Bay, to the mouth of the Seguenay River the distance is 1,040 miles "as the crow flies;" from Belle Isle on the east to the mouth of the Nottaway River on the west the distance is more than one thousand miles. Roughly described, the peninsula froms a triangle one thousand miles long on each side.

Of the 560,000 square miles embraced in the Labrador Peninsula, the greater part lies within the district of Ungava, a Canadian territory created October 2, 1895. At the time of its organization on the date mentioned Ungava included a much larger area than that with which it is now credited. It embraced all of the Labrador Peninsula north of the Height of Land, exclusive of that part of the Labrador Coast which is a part of the jurisdiction of Newfoundland. Quebec, the province to the southward, which is itself largely a part of the Labrador Peninsula, later had its boundaries extended so that it acquired all that part of Ungava lying south of the East Main River on the west and the Hamilton River on the east. By this order in council Quebec secured a strip of territory which is 250 miles in width at its western end and includes the regions of the Rupert and Nottaway rivers and Lake Mistassini,

embracing important timbered areas. The following is the present area of Ungava: Land, 349,109 square miles; water, 5,852 square miles; total, 354,961 square miles.

This great Labrador Peninsula, the largest peninsula in the world, is of historical importance, for it was the scene of the discovery of America by white men. There is little doubt that its coast was touched by Norsemen as early as 1000. June 24, 1497, a year previous to the first continental discovery by Christopher Columbus (an Italian sailing under the Spanish flag) Giovanni Cabot, or Cabotto, a Genoese in the employ of the English, visited the eastern coast of North America; and in the following year Sebastian Cabot, his son, discovered Hudson strait. In 1500 Gaspar Cortereal, a little known Portuguese, landed and gave the name of Labrador, or "laborers' land," to the peninsula. In 1576 Martin Frobisher visited the region and in 1585-6-7 John Davis explored arctic Canada, including the vicinity of Labrador. To the westward, in Hudson Bay, occurred in 1611 one of the most tragic of the many tragic events linked with the story of the New World. Henry Hudson, the explorer, upon determining to winter in the region in order that he might continue his search for a northwest passage the following spring, was cast adrift in Hudson Bay with his seven-year-old son and seven seamen and died a miserable but unknown death.

The exploitation of the timber of Ungava has never been seriously attempted, beneficent natural conditions of climate serving to keep in reserve these timbered areas until the demolition of the forests farther south shall render the utilization of more northern forests necessary. The southwestern portion of that part of the peninsula contained within Ungava was early, however, the scene of extensive trading by the Hudson Bay Company, which had posts at the mouth of the Rupert River, at Great Whale River and Little Whale River and on Lake Mistassini and at other points in the interior. This company was incorporated in 1670 and was headed by Prince Rupert, a cousin of Charles II., of England. It had the exclusive trading rights on Hudson Bay. Two employees of the Quebec fur-trading monopoly, Groseillers and Radisson, conceived the idea of exploiting the Hudson Bay region. They failed successively to interest their own employers, a coterie of Boston merchants and the French court and finally had recourse to London, where the Hudson Bay Company was organized. It was capitalized at £10,500 and Prince Rupert and his seventeen associates received a charter May 2, 1670. This was granted to "The Governor and Company

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