Mina Benson Hubbard (1870-1956)

Abstract

In July, 1905, a young widow embarked upon a 576-mile journey through a relatively unexplored region of central Labrador. This trip was to complete the work left unfinished by her late husband, Leonidas Hubbard, Jr. He had conceived the idea of finding and mapping a navigable water route from North West River on Lake Melville to the George River post. ... Mina Benson Hubbard became the first white woman to travel over the territory; she was preceded by only two white men. In 1838 John McLean, a Hudson's Bay Company employee, had passed through much of the region, and in 1875-76 Pêre Lacasse, a Roman Catholic missionary, travelled over the area. Mina, however, produced the first reliable maps of the Nascaupee and George River watersheds. Her book A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador and her diaries provide descriptions of her encounters with the Naskaupi and Montagnais Indians, and of the last great herds of Labrador's barrenland caribou. She was one of the last people to view the life of central Labrador in its pristine state. ...