The Lure of the Labrador Wild - Softcover

Wallace, Dillon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 145651511X ISBN 13: 9781456515119

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010

Synopsis

In the late spring of 1903 Leonidas Hubbard, an ambitious young writer, Dillon Wallace, a forty-year-old New York attorney, and George Elson, an Indian guide with no firsthand knowledge of their destination, set out on an adventure. Beset by delays, the men paddle past their intended route. When in early September they finally glimpse the vast waters of Michikamau from atop an unknown mountain, the cold winds have already begun. With almost no food left, the three begin a desperate struggle against starvation and the quickening pace of a cruel winter, heading homeward in a race for their lives. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. Dillion Wallace was a New York lawyer who travelled to Labrador with his friend Leonidas Hubbard, survived the tragic ordeal, and wrote the classic account of the expedition while holed up in a barn in North Adams, Massachusetts.

About this title

From the Back Cover

The Labrador interior has long held the well-deserved reputation of being one of the most inhospitable places on earth. It is a patchwork of Canadian shield granites and sphagnum moss, labyrinthine caribou trails and desolate subarctic barrens, all set against glacier-scoured hills stretching to an apparently limitless horizon.
In the late spring of 1903, Leonidas Hubbard, a young writer, and Dillon Wallace, a forty-year-old New York attorney, set off with George Elson, a native guide with no firsthand knowledge of their destination, to explore the incompletely mapped Lake Michikamau region of interior Labrador. Beset by delays, the men paddled past their intended route, the Naskaupi River, and headed up the treacherous Susan River instead. When in early September they finally glimpsed the vast waters of Michikamau from the top of an unknown mountain, Labrador’s cold winds had begun. With scant scraps of food remaining, the three began a desperate struggle against starvation and the rapidly approaching and unforgiving winter as they raced home for their lives.

About the Author

Dillon Wallace was the writer and New York lawyer who accompanied his friend Leonidas Hubbard on the ill-fated expedition to the Labrador. Hubbard, who became an assistant editor of Outing magazine and in 1903, led the expedition to canoe the system Naskaupi River - Lake Michikamau in Labrador and George River in Quebec. An Indian guide from Missannabie, George Elson also accompanied them. From the start (departing North West River on July 15), the expedition was beset with mistakes and problems. Instead of ascending the Naskaupi River, by mistake they followed the shallow Susan Brook. After hard long portaging and almost reaching Lake Michikamau, with food supplies running out, on September 15 at Windbound lake, they decided to turn back. On October 18, Wallace and Elson went in a search of cached store of flour, leaving Hubbard behind in a tent. Hubbard died of exhaustion and starvation on either the same or next day. Wallace got lost in the snowstorm, while Elson, after a week of bushwhacking and building rafts to cross swollen rivers (with no ax), reached the nearest occupied cabin. A search party found Wallace alive on October 30, 1903. After Wallace was nursed back to health (he suffered gangrene in his foot), the two men accompanied Hubbard's body back to New York for burial in May 1904. In 1905, Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace led two competitive expeditions from North West River to the Hudson Bay Company post at the mouth of George River. Both were successful. George Elson accompanied Mina Hubbard. In 1913, Wallace returned with Judge William Malone and Gilbert Blake to place a memorial plaque where his friend perished. Their canoe overturned on Beaver River and the plaque was lost. Wallace then created a memorial using white paint and a brush made from Gilbert's hair. In July 1977, with the assistance of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Dillon Wallace III, the son of Hubbard's companion, and Rudy Mauro placed a replica of the lost plaque on the inscribed stone at Hubbard's last camp.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 145651511X
• ISBN 13: 9781456515119
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 190