Discovery of the Skull of a Grizzly Bear in Labrador

Abstract

The skull of a small, young adult grizzly bear was discovered in the course of archaeological excavation of an early historic Eskimo house in northern Labrador. This discovery confirms the rumoured presence of Ursus arctos in Labrador in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is suggested that the Labrador grizzly represents an eastward extension of the barren-ground grizzly population across the mouth of Hudson Bay.