Narrative of a Journey
across the Island
of Newfoundland

The first European
to cross Newfoundland on foot.

William Eppes Cormack was a Scottish naturalist born in St. John's, Newfoundland, in 1796. In 1822, at the age of 26, he accomplished the feat of crossing the island of Newfoundland on foot from east to west — the first documented European to have done so. His travel account describes the fauna, flora, native populations and coastal settlers, and it is in this context that the working dogs of the fishermen appear, with the observation on the coat that would become the most reproduced quotation in the history of the Labrador Retriever.

The book was first published in 1873 — fifty years after the journey — based on Cormack's original manuscript. Lord George Scott cites it explicitly in 1936 in his book on the origins of the Labrador as documentary evidence of the coexistence of the two coat varieties in the common ancestor of the breed.

The two coat varieties
of the St. John's dog in 1822.

In describing the working dogs of the fishermen on the coast of Newfoundland, Cormack writes the passage that would become the cornerstone of every breed history. I reproduce it here in the original English text, exactly as it appears in the manuscript and as it is cited by Lord Scott in 1936.

"The dogs here are admirably trained as retrievers in fowling, and are otherwise useful. The smooth or short-haired dog is preferred, because in frosty weather the long-haired kind become encumbered with ice upon coming out of the water."

W. E. Cormack, Narrative of a Journey across the Island of Newfoundland, 1822 — citato in Lord George Scott, The Labrador Dog: Its Home and History, 1936, p. 17

This passage says two fundamental things. First: the dogs were used as retrievers — they were already retrieving dogs, not just sled or fishing dogs. Second: there were two coat varieties of the same working dog. The preference for the short coat was exclusively practical: in a polar climate, long hair froze on coming out of the water. There was no judgement of purity, quality or racial belonging — it was a functional choice dictated by the climate.

The long-haired ones went to England.
And stayed there.

The fishermen's preference for the short coat had a direct consequence: long-haired puppies — equally capable, equally intelligent, equally suited for retrieving — were less useful on the spot. They were sold to the English who took them to Scottish and English estates where the mild climate did not pose the problem of ice. This is why long hair survived in the genetics of the Labrador even after a century of selection towards the short coat: it was never completely eliminated because it was already distributed in the bloodlines imported to England.

In 1861 Lambert de Boilieu, a commercial agent in the Labrador region in the 1850s, confirmed the same situation in almost identical terms: "the dogs sent to England with rough, shaggy coats are useless on the coast; the true-bred and serviceable dog having smooth, short hair, very smooth and close to the body." Forty years after Cormack, the situation had not changed: the long-haired ones continued to be exported to England.

Cormack was not writing
about dog breeds.

It is important to understand the context in which Cormack writes this passage. He was not studying dogs, was not writing a dog breed book, had no interest in describing racial varieties. He was simply recounting what he saw: the fishermen's dogs on the coast of Newfoundland, used as working tools. The mention of the two coat varieties is incidental — a practical note on why one was preferred over the other — not a taxonomic classification. This makes the passage even more valuable: it is not an opinion, it is a direct observation from someone who was there.