Here was a new field and another opportunity for testing
his fitness. He threw himself into the work with characteristic
energy and enthusiasm, and his influence on the magazine was marked
from the first. He soon succeeded in projecting into it something
of his own passionately human personality. In the fall of that
year a noted angler commented to him on the change in it and his
responsibility.
"When a big salmon comes to the top, there is a great swirl on the
water. You don't see the salmon, but you know he is there," he
said.
Office work left little time for writing; but in the early autumn
of that year a vacation trip to the north shore of Lake Superior
gave him two articles, "Where Romance Lingers," and "Off Days on
Superior's North Shore."
In January 1903 the trip to Labrador was decided on, and his
preparation for it begun. Before the winter was over his plans
were made. On May 13th it was arranged with the magazine that it
should go as an Outing expedition. The preparation held for him
the many difficulties and trials common to such undertakings, but
also, perhaps, more than the usual pleasures.
The big map of Labrador looked back from the wall of the little
study in Congers. We stood before it a long time discussing plans
and possibilities. Then an eager, happy face was turned to me as
he told how he would write the story and how he would have grown
when he came home again.
On June 20th he sailed from New York with his little party.
In January following came that short message, "Mr. Hubbard died
October 18th in the interior of Labrador."
In March were received the letters containing that final record of
his life, which took from the hearts of those who loved him best
the intolerable bitterness, because it told that he had not only
dreamed his dream - _he had attained his Vision._
It was a short, full life journey, and a joyous, undaunted heart
that traversed it. Almost the most beautiful of its attributes was
the joyousness.
He was "glad of Life because it gave him a chance to love and to
work and to play."
He never failed to "look up at the stars."
He thought "every day of Christ."
Sometimes towards evening in dreary November, when the clouds hang
heavy and low, covering all the sky, and the hills are solemn and
sombre, and the wind is cold, and the lake black and sullen, a
break in the dark veil lets through a splash of glorious sunshine.
It is so very beautiful as it falls into the gloom that your breath
draws in quick and you watch it with a thrill. Then you see that
it moves towards you. All at once you are in the midst of it, it
is falling round you and seems to have paused as if it meant to
stay with you and go no farther.
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.
