The Lure of the Labrador Wild Map

Map of the Hubbard-Wallace-Elson expedition of 1903.

The Lure of the Labrador Wild was published in 1905.   Written by Dillon Wallace, it documents a canoe trip described as a ‘descent into hell’ in search of a new route into Labrador to find a lake called Michikamau,  Leonidas Hubbard masterminded the trip in order to write a piece for Outing Magazine. Canadian geologist A.P. Low described Lake Michikamau as part of a geology publication that inspired Hubbard. Low’s report had a large-scale map of the territory that is now Quebec and Labrador.   The region of the map surrounding Michikamau was spare set of sketchy dotted lines, based on Low’s speculation and hearsay.   Hubbard recruited Wallace and a Cree guide, George Elson, to make a three-person expedition from a Hudson’s Bay Company post, the Northwest Post, at the western end of Goose Bay into the interior to find Michikamau via a new route.

Low went up the Grand River, which was the most direct route to Michikamau. Hubbard intended to take the river marked on my map as the Naskapi, but was labeled on Low’s map as the Northwest River. From the Naskapi, they wanted to gain Lake Michikamau, then paddle north to the headwaters of the George River, and finally follow the George downstream (north) to Ungava Bay. 

While The Lure of the Labrador Wild is a fascinating read, it has the annoying lack of any map that might give the reader a sense of the expedition.   To say that Hubbard “spit-balled” his route into the interior is probably generous. Despite early foreboding signs, Hubbard pressed on with this enterprise, ending up with their food reserves nearly depleted.  Racing against starvation, Hubbard, Wallace, and Elson beat a hasty retreat.   Alas, Hubbard died of starvation, while Wallace and Elson made it out alive.   

Wallace’s narrative is riveting, but without a map, it’s difficult to make out what they were doing.   In point of fact, they probably did not have anything other than a vague idea of their position.   Here is a map of the area they traveled with the track indicated in the magenta dotted line.  

They set out from the Northwest Post, paddling up Grand Lake.   As they neared the end of the lake, they failed to explore the bay where the Naskapi entered and pushed on to the entrance of Susan Brook.   Although the characteristics of the Susan didn’t match the descriptions of the Naskapi, they continued upstream.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that dragging and portaging a canoe up a stream like the Susan is absolute hell.  The black flies make mincemeat out of your exposed parts while you develop hypothermia buried up to the waist in ice-cold water, but at the same time getting overheated when portaging over a hot trail.    Wallace’s descriptions were eerily familiar to me.  Sometimes they would make as little progress as two miles a day upstream. 

When they hit the upper reaches of the Susan, they found two small ponds and then portaged over to the Beaver River, which also emptied into the end of Grand Lake.   Following the Beaver upstream, they found the remains of Indian encampments, which reinforced the notion that they were on an old route to Michikamau.  

The Beaver began to peter out as they ascended farther.  Eventually, it ended at Hope Lake.   They explored the nearby mountains that Hubbard called the Kipling Mountains after Kipling’s poem The Explorer.  

A short portage took them into a large lake, dubbed Lake Disappointment.  Alas, there was no outlet of Lake Disappointment.   At this point they had the choice of turning back.  Considering they were running low on supplies, this probably would have been wise.   Hubbard, on the other hand, decided to press on with a forty mile portage toward the northwest, where he figured he’d bump into Lake Michikamau.   The portage was aided by a few ponds, but not much more.   Eventually the party reached a large lake where the paddled for some distance.   Ascending a large hill, Elson spied Michikamau far off in the distance.    This was in September, and the short Labrador summer was giving way to winter weather.    A storm hit, keeping them wind bound in camp for two weeks while their food supply dwindled to a small bag of pea meal.  

Only at this point did Hubbard decide to throw in the towel.  They retraced their original path and regained the Beaver.   When they got to their old portage from the Susan, both Wallace and Elson advised Hubbard, who was alarmingly weak, to stick to the Beaver and follow it downstream, as it would surely lead to civilization.   Hubbard would have none of this, although he was too weak to even paddle and had difficulties walking.   

The canoe was too heavy for the men to carry in their weakened state, so they abandoned it on the Beaver and proceeded on foot.  On the crossing over to the Susan, Hubbard collapsed a number of times.   Eventually he had to be left at a camp, while Wallace and Elson tried to walk to safety.   Wallace himself was too weak to go on and left Elson to proceed to find help.   Eventually Elson found some trappers who lived on Grand Lake.   The trappers put together a rescue party.   Ascending the Susan, they found Wallace just barely alive.   Farther up the Susan, they came across Hubbard’s body, dead from starvation.

For modern readers, the absence of a map seems puzzling, but we have to remember the original situation.   Wallace himself was jumping into the unknown at Hubbard’s cue.  At best they only explored a small stove-pipe of territory and didn’t gain any global picture of the region they were traversing.   Certainly Wallace couldn’t possibly make a map of the journey – it became simply a litany of landmarks and the misery accompanying them.