William Wood

“ 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? ”

“ 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" ”

“ 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. ”

“ As I spent one month among the fishermen of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, who commit most of the depredations, and the other month among the people along the Canadian Labrador, on whom the depredations are committed, I enjoyed the advantage of hearing both sides of the story. It was very much what I had heard before and what I said it was. The argument is, that so long as there is no law, or no law put in force, every man will do what he likes—which is unanswerably true. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 excessive spring kill greatly depletes the females and young, as it takes place in the whelping season, when the herds are moving north along the off-shore ice; and this depletion naturally spoils not only the Newfoundlanders' permanent industry itself but the much smaller inshore autumn catch by our own Canadian Labradorians, when the herds are moving south. The Canadians along the North Shore and Labrador look upon the invading Newfoundlanders, in this and other pursuits, very much as a farmer looks upon a gipsy whose horse comes grazing in his hayfield. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Fur-bearing animals can hardly hold their own much longer in face of the ever increasing demand for their pelts and the more systematic invasion of their range. The opening up of the country in the north will mean the extinction of the great migrating herd of barren-ground caribou, unless protection is enforced. The coast birds are going fast. Some very old men can still remember the great auk, which is now as extinct as the dodo. Elderly men have eaten the Labrador duck, which has not been seen alive for thirty years. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When men under a different government, men who do not own a foot of land in Canada, men who do not pay specific taxes for Canadian rights, when these men slaughter seals on inshore ice, use land and inlets for cleaning fish and foul the water with their "gurry", and when they also "egg" on other peoples' islands in defiance of the law, then the analogy is perfect. It does not hold good, of course, in ordinary fishing, which is conducted under Dominion licence and vigilantly watched by Commander Wakeham. ”

“ Whatever the fate of the harbour seals should be, there can be no doubt that the harps or Greenland seals, the bearded or square-flippers, the grey or horseheads, and the gigantic and magnificently game hoods, should all be put under conservation. ”

“ An eagerly exploiting people in an easily exploited country, we are only too apt to live on the capital of all our natural resources. We are also in the habit of developing one thing at the expense of everything else connected with it. ”

“ What has been done in Africa could be done in Canada and elsewhere. You have so much land which is favourable to birds and beasts, though unfavourable to the settler, that it would seem to be no hardship to give up a suitable area or areas for the purpose of a reserve. ”

“ All classes of legitimate human interest were dealt with in turn; and it was shown that the present system—or want of system—was bad for each one: bad for such wild life as must still be used for necessary food, bad for every kind of business in the products of wild life, bad for the future of sport, bad for the pursuits of science, and bad for the prospects of wild "zoos". ”

“ The idea is the same in each disgraceful case. It is, simply, to snatch whatever is most coveted for the moment, with least trouble to one's self, and at no matter what expense to Nature and the future of man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But, speaking generally, the season was not really prosperous. The station of Seven Islands is worked by Norwegians, who are the most exterminatingly efficient whalers in the world. They worked their own whaleries to exhaustion and raised so much feeling against them among the fishermen that the Norwegian government forbad every factory along the shore. They then invented floating factories, which may still be used in Canadian waters with deadly effect unless we put whaling under conservation. ”

“ 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". ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Address ended with a plea for conservation, and pointed out that the only class of people who could possibly be benefitted under present conditions were those who were ready to destroy both the capital and interest of any natural resources for the sake of snatching a big and immediate, but really criminal, profit. ”

“ But it should be remembered that, with the recent great rise in prices, fewer skins may mean more money, and that even the establishment of fox farms, and the probable establishment of other fur farms, may not overtake the present increasing demand, which, in its turn, must tend to deplete the original source of supply still further, unless strict conservation is enforced. ”

“ Exploitation is destroying now what civilisation will long to restore hereafter. This is lamentably true about material things. It is truer still about the higher than material things. And it is truest of all about both the material and higher values of wild life, which we administer as if we were the final spendthrift heirs and not trustees. ”

“ For instance, reckless railways burn forests which ensure a constant flow of water for irrigation, navigation, power plant, and fish, besides providing wood for timber and shelter for bird and beast. The presence of a construction gang generally means the needless extermination of every animal in the neighbourhood. ”

“ This, with the infliction of heavy penalties for the ruthless destruction of animal life, should secure a fresh lease of existence for the various species whose extermination now appears to be imminent. ”

“ In these reserves the wild animals are left to breed and live in peace, undisturbed by any one but the game-warden. From them the overflow drifts out into the surrounding districts and provides a plentiful supply for the hunter and settler. ”

“ But failure of food further north may have had more to do with those irruptions than any outburst of unusual fecundity. Caribou apparently remain much as they have been lately. But the hunger of wolves and the greed of men are two enemies that nothing but conservation can keep in check. ”

“ I know from reports that many varieties of game, which were threatened with extinction in South Africa ten years ago, have, by the timely establishment of game reserves, been saved, and are now relatively numerous. ”

“ Many details were given of other forms of destruction, and some details of the revolting cruelties practised there, as in every other place where wild life is grossly abused instead of being sanely used. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And young men will certainly see the end of the Hudsonian and Eskimo curlews very soon, under present conditions. The days of commercial "egging" on a large scale are over, because eggs of the final lay were taken like the rest, and the whole bird life was depleted below paying quantities. ”