The New Student's Reference Work/Hudson Bay

Hud'son Bay, a gulf or rather inland sea in the northeast portion of North America, is wholly landlocked, except on the north, where Southampton Island and Fox Channel lie between it and the Arctic Ocean and where Hudson Strait, running 500 miles southeast, joins it to the Atlantic. Including James Bay on the southeast, it is 1,000 miles long and, on an average, 600 miles wide, and covers an area of about 500,000 square miles. This sea is the great drainage reservoir of the Canadian northwest territories. Of the many rivers flowing into it the two largest are the Churchill, whose deep and narrow mouth forms the beat harbor on the shores of the bay, and the Nelson, which is navigable for 70 or 80 miles. The possibility of opening a short route for transportation of the products of the great grain fields of the northwest through Hudson Bay to Liverpool has engaged the attention of the Canadian government, and as a result of surveys and studies of climatic conditions it is thought that this may be found practicable.