While you revel in this wonderful light that has stopped to enfold
you, suddenly it is not falling round you any more, and you see it
moving steadily on again, out over the marsh with its bordering
evergreens, touching with beauty every place it falls upon, forward
up the valley, unwavering, without pause, till you are holding your
breath as it begins to climb the hills away yonder.
It is gone.
The smoke blue clouds hang lower and heavier, the hills stand more
grimly solemn and sombre, the wind is cold, the lake darker and
more sullen, and the beauty has gone out of the marsh.
Then - then it is night.
But you do not forget the _Light_.
You know it still shines - somewhere.
CHAPTER II
SLIPPING AWAY INTO THE WILDERNESS
It was on the 15th of July, 1903, that Leonidas Hubbard, Jr., my
husband, with two companions, set out from Northwest River Post,
near the head of Lake Melville, for a canoe trip into the interior
of Labrador, which be hoped would not only afford him an
interesting wilderness experience but also an opportunity to
explore and map one, and perhaps both, of these rivers, the
Northwest River draining Lake Michikamau to Lake Melville, and the
George River draining the northern slope of the plateau to Ungava
Bay.
Misled by information obtained at the post, which corresponded with
the indications of the map he carried, that of the Geological
Survey of Canada, Mr. Hubbard took the Susan River, which enters
Grand Lake at the head of a bay five miles from its western end.
The Susan River led them, not by an open waterway to Lake
Michikamau, but up to the edge of the plateau, where they became
lost in the maze of its lakes. When within sight of the great lake
the party was forced to begin a retreat, which Mr. Hubbard did not
survive to complete. He died in the far interior, and the object
of his expedition was not achieved.
It seemed to me fit that my husband's name should reap the fruits
of service which had cost him so much, and in the summer of 1905 I
myself undertook the conduct of the second Hubbard Expedition, and,
with the advantage of the information and experience obtained by
the first, a larger crew and a three weeks' earlier start,
successfully completed the work undertaken two years before.
My decision to undertake the completion of my husband's work was
taken one day in January of 1905. That evening I began making my
plans and preparations for the journey. Towards the end of May
they were completed, and on the evening of the 16th of June I
sailed from Halifax for Labrador, arriving at Northwest River Post,
the real starting-point of my journey, on Sunday morning, June
25th.
