contact, which moreover has oftenest been of a warlike character, has meant less than if it had been of earlier date. Before the Chipewyan got as far as to Hudson Bay, the Cree territory stretched right over to Churchill. The Cree have scarcely extended their hunting trips to the Barren Grounds proper to the same degree as the Chipewyan;[1] but they have had a longer time to work in. It is significant that in the few cases in which an Indian influence in the culture of the Caribou Eskimos can be traced to a certain tribe, it is to the Cree and not to the Chipewyan. This will be dealt with further in the analytical section.
All in all, the Caribou Eskimos have, despite the central situation of their country, remained remarkably isolated throughout time. On the one side they had tribes to which they were closely related in language and race, but whose culture they could only partly benefit from — on the other side nations from which they felt themselves so different in most respects that the tension between them oftenest developed into a state of belligerency. On the west great, uninhabited stretches which were seldom or never livened up by a camp fire — on the east the billows of Hudson Bay. A remote spot off the path of the culture drift, well suited for the retention and preservation of an old type of culture.
Physiography. Suess has compared the shallow Hudson Bay and the surrounding country with the Baltic transgression and Fennoscandia. The peninsula of Labrador in many respects is a counterpart of Scandinavia, whilst the Barren Grounds occupy the place of Finland.[2] This comparison is applicable on most points in geomorphology. It is the situation on the globe and the consequent differences of climate, vegetation and history, that have brought about the fundamental difference as regards human geography.
In contradistinction to those of Europe, the leading features in the topography of North America run from north to south. The main features are the contrast between the mountains along the coasts of the Pacific and Atlantic, and the continental depression between them. Crossing this division runs a geological division which, to the northeast and north, separates the so-called Canadian shield and the re-
- ↑ And yet Luke Foxe in 1631 found at Hubbart Point the remains of a birch bark canoe, an arrow with an iron head, and a piece of a bow (Foxe 1894; II 332 seq., cf. note p. 333). These objects were of course Indian and probably of Cree origin. The iron may have come from the wreck of Button's vessel at the mouth of Nelson River or from Jens Munk's ship at Churchill.
- ↑ Suess 1888; II 42 seq, 59.
