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[Dobson, W. D.].
Travelling by Dog-team in Newfoundland [with] Description of Hunting Trip after Caribou. Unpublished Typescripts of an oil engineer in the far north.
Publisher:
Date of Publication: 1922
Stock Code: 6588
Original typescript comprising two unpublished accounts, presented together, also with two additional copies of each individual account. The main typescript is foolscap, pp. 5 typed recto only, pinned at upper left corner. The four additional copies are stapled. Housed in beige card folder inscribed “Travelling By Dog Team Canada, March 1922 by W. D. Dobson”. Typescript rust marked at pin and a little foxed with 3 horizontal folding creases. Additional copies clean and uncreased. Folder nicked & creased to edge with browned adhesive tape repairs and spine splits. Detailed and exciting conversational description of the journeys, with descriptions of local residents and living conditions, climate and landscape and game in Canada in the Twenties. Mr Dobson alludes to his purpose for being there - “work on the oil fields necessitated our making the trip” and describes the journey in great detail. He mentions Daniel’s Harbour so this must be the further attempt to commercially exploit the oil fields at Parson’s Pond in north west Newfoundland, this time by an English firm the General Oil Fields Limited who operated a refinery there in the 20’s. He notes “to travel fast you must lighten your load, not increase the number of dogs... in two hours we were sitting in old Captain Abe’s kitchen eating venison steak. The real journey did not commence until the morrow...” and “All travellers are welcome, and are fed and sheltered and considered as guests into whichever house they go... we had tea and lit up our pipes and then the population started coming in”. On arriving near his destination he states “Standing on the cliff tops and looking out to sea all you could discern right to the horizon was ice. Broke, jagged, huge clumps of ice... fine hillocks 50 and 50 feet high were chucked about here and there”. Martin, Wendy; Once Upon a Mine: The Story of Pre-Confederation Mines on the Island of Newfoundland.

£150.00