Leaving aside the Irish peregrinatores and the Norse for the moment, it became clear fairly quickly to early European explorers that beyond furs in the subarctic and fisheries at the arctic periphery, the land held no tangible wealth. Carrier’s famous remark about southern Labrador came to stand for a general condemnation of the whole region: it looked like “the land God gave to Cain.” “Praeter solitudinem nihil video,” wrote one early explorer—“I saw nothing but solitude.” And yet, fatal shipwreck after shipwreck, bankruptcy after bankruptcy, the expeditions continued, strung out on the
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