Through immense stretches of country there would be no sustenance for
them, and, in addition to this, the character of the country itself
forbids their use.

The personnel of the expedition required much thought. I might with
one canoe and one or two professional Indian packers travel more
rapidly than with men unused to exploration work, but in that case
scientific research would have to be slighted. I therefore decided to
sacrifice speed to thoroughness and to take with me men who, even
though they might not be physically able to carry the large packs of
the professional voyageur, would in other respects lend valuable
assistance to the work in hand.

My projected return to Labrador was no sooner announced than numerous
applications came to me from young men anxious to join the expedition.
After careful investigation, I finally selected as my companions
George M. Richards, of Columbia University, as geologist and to aid me
in the topographical work, Clifford H. Easton, who had been a student
in the School of Forestry at Biltmore, North Carolina (both residents
of New York), and Leigh Stanton, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, a veteran of
the Boer War, whom I had met at the lumber camps in Groswater Bay,
Labrador, in the winter of 1903-1904, when he was installing the
electric light plant in the large lumber mill there.

It was desirable to have at least one Indian in the party as woodsman,
hunter and general camp servant. For this position my friend, Frank
H. Keefer, of Port Arthur, Ontario, recommended to me, and at my
request engaged, Peter Stevens, a full-blood Ojibway Indian, of Grand
Marais, Minnesota. "Pete" arrived in New York under the wing of the