struggle against heartbreaking hardships and of narrow escapes from
starvation.

It is asserted that a priest once crossed with the Indians from
Northwest River Post to Ungava Bay by the Nascaupee route; but the
result of my inquiries in Labrador convinced me that the priest in
question travelled by way of the Grand River, making it certain
that previous to Hubbard's expedition no white man other than
McLean had ever crossed the wilderness between Hamilton Inlet and
Lake Michikamau by any route other than the aforesaid Grand River.
As has been pointed out, McLean made but a verv incomplete record
of his journey that took him through the country north of the Grand
River, so that Hubbard's project called for his plunge into a
region where no footsteps would be found to guide him. Not only
this, but the George River country, which it was his ultimate
purpose to reach, was, and still remains, terra incognita; for
although McLean made several trips up and down this river, he
neither mapped it nor left any definite descriptions concerning it.

Here, then, was an enterprise fully worthy of an ambitious and
venturesome spirit like Hubbard. Here was a great, unknown
wilderness into which even the half-breed native trappers who lived
on its outskirts were afraid to penetrate, knowing that the
wandering bands of Indians who occasionally traversed its
fastnesses themselves frequently starved to death in that
inhospitable, barren country. There was danger to be faced and
good "copy" to be obtained.

And so it was ho for the land of "bared boughs and grieving winds"!