Vikings of to-day

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

This book is intended to give a general account of the country and people of Labrador, and to summarize the efforts made by the council of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, during the past three years, to brighten the lives of the many brave toilers of the sea on that desolate coast.

I have avoided the use of scientific terms, and have ventured to quote from some of the few books on the subject without the permission of the authors. Amongst these are Dr. Nansen’s Eskimo Life, Mr. Packard’s The Labrador Coast, Dr. Harvey’s Newfoundland, the Oldest British Colony, Crantz’s Explorations in Greenland, Hinde’s Explorations in Labrador, Cartwright’s Journals, Rev. J. Moreton’s Life and Work in Newfoundland.

The universal kindness and hospitality extended to the Mission Staff in Labrador, Newfoundland and Canada, and the almost unlimited scope for work, have made these three years, three of the most enjoyable in our lives.

To his Excellency the Governor of Newfoundland Sir Terence O’Brien, K.C.M.G., Chairman of the St. Johns Committee, among many others, our warmest thanks are due.

The illustrations in this volume are from photographs taken on “Barnet Plates” kindly presented to the Society by Messrs. Elliot & Fry.

WILFRED T. GRENFELL.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VIKINGS OF TO-DAY

CHAPTER I

THE COUNTRY

It is said that a recent trial, over a dispute about the fishery of a small natural harbour in Labrador, called Tub Harbour, had reached its third day, when his lordship, leaning over the desk, whispered to counsel, “Where is Labrador”? Not to be caught, however, the counsel whispered back, “In Tub Harbour, my lord.” Geography, it seems, is a sadly neglected science.

Such being the case, I have ventured to describe the general features of the country in the terse, accurate, graphic, and authoritative words of the Encyclopædia Britannica.

“Labrador, properly so called,” says the Encyclopædia, “is the peninsular portion of North America, bounded by the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the North Atlantic, Hudson Straits, Hudson Bay, and vaguely defined towards the S.W. by Rupert’s River, Mistassini River, and Bersiamits River. Its greatest length is 1,100 miles, its greatest breadth 700 miles. The area is approximately 420,000 square miles, that is, as large as the British Isles, France, and Austria. The coast from Blanc Sablon, a spot 85 miles up the Straits of Belle Isle, to Cape Chidley at the entrance to Hudson Bay straits, and all the off-lying islands, with the country inland about 70 miles, are under the government of Newfoundland. The rest is part of the province of Quebec, under Canadian rule.”

Sterile and forbidding it lies among fogs and icebergs, famous only besides for dogs and cod. “God made this country last,” says an old navigator. “He had no other view in end than to throw together here the refuse of His materials as of no use to mankind.”

“As a permanent abode of civilized man,” says the Encyclopædia Britannica, “Labrador is, on the whole, one of the most uninviting spots on the face of the earth. A vast tableland occupies much of the interior. This plateau, says Professor Hind, is pre-eminently sterile, and where the country is not burned, caribou moss covers the rocks, with stunted spruce, birch, and aspens in the hollows and deep ravines. The whole is strewed with an infinite number of boulders often three and four deep. Language fails to paint the awful desolation of the tableland of the Labrador peninsula. The Atlantic coast is the edge of a vast solitude of rocky hills, split and blasted by frosts, and beaten by waves. Headlands, grim and naked, tower over the waters—often fantastic and picturesque in shape—while miles and miles of rocky precipices or tame monotonous slopes alternate with stony valleys, winding away among the blue hills of the interior.”

The cliffs rise from the ocean to a height of from 500 to 1,000 feet. The watershed of the interior plateau is on an average 150 miles from the coast, and rises considerably over 5,000 feet. Near Cape Chidley the hills are close to the sea, rising to the height of 6,000 feet, and the view from the sea is magnificent. A powerful current coming from Hudson Bay, combined with the great rise and fall of tide, renders navigation here very dangerous. A high, bare peak of syenite, inland from Cape Harrison, and known as Mount Misery, is visible seventy-five miles.

We are accustomed to think of Columbus as discovering America, but it seems certain that about the year 1000, while Northman and Saxon were struggling for pre-eminence in this England of ours, bold Vikings from Iceland visited Labrador. In the Sagas of Erik the Red and of Thorfinn Karlsefne, we read of a strange land they visited and called Vinland[1] or Wineland, which most probably was Labrador.

[1] See Hon. L. G. Power’s paper on “Vinland,” read before the Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1887.

Now, it is needless to say grapes do not abound in Labrador, and we southerners should not describe it now as the “Land of Wine.” But we must remember that Erik came from Iceland, and was also possibly addicted to the proverbial fault of travellers. Moreover, when Erik returned from one of his voyages he called the land he had visited “Greenland,” not with reference to its nature, because Biarni, a contemporary voyager, describes it as a land of “mountains and high ice hills,” but “he called it Greenland because, quoth he, people will be attracted thither if the land has a good name.” An amusing incident, which I quote from Mr. Power’s paper, arose out of this. When Thorfinn Karlsefne and Snorri were making an endeavour to colonize the “Vinland” they most inappropriately ran short of provisions. Now it so happened they had with them Thorhall, the hunter. “He was a large man and strong, black and like a giant, silent and foul-mouthed in his speech, and always egged on Erik to the worst; he was a bad Christian; he was well acquainted with uninhabited parts. Thorhall now suddenly disappeared. They had previously made prayers to God for food, but it did not come so quick as they thought their necessities required. They searched after Thorhall three days, and found him on the top of a rock; there he lay, and looked up in the sky and gaped with both nose and mouth, and murmured something. They asked him why he had gone there. He said it was no business of theirs. They bade him come home with them, and he did so. Soon after, came there a whale, and they went thither and cut it up, and no one knew what sort of whale it was; and when the cook dressed it, they ate it, and all became ill in consequence. Then said Thorhall: “The red bearded was more helpful than your Christ; this have I got now for my verses that I sung to Thor, my protector. Seldom has he deserted me. But when they came to know this they cast the whole whale into the sea, and resigned their case to God. Then the weather improved, and it was possible to row out fishing, and they were not then in want of food, for wild beasts were caught on the land, and fish in the sea, and eggs collected on the island.” Now, when Thorhall bore water to the ship, and drank, then sang he this song:—

“People told me when I came

Hither, all would be so fine;

The good Wineland, known to fame,

Rich in fruits and choicest wine;

Now the water pail they send

To the fountain I must bend,

Nor from out this land divine

Have I quaffed one drop of wine.”

Entrance to St. Johns Harbour.

And when they were ready, and hoisted sail, then chanted Thorhall—

“Let our trusty band

Haste to Fatherland;

Let our vessel brave

Plough the angry wave;

While those few who love

Wineland, here may rove,

Or, with idle toil

Fetid whales may boil,

Here on Furderstrand

Far from Fatherland.”

So that Vinland, in the year 1000, to which this voyage had been made because “the people of Brattahliel began to talk much about it,” saying, “a voyage thither ought to be particularly profitable by reason of the fertility of the soil,” appears to have turned out no better than we found Labrador in 1891. The famous log-books of George Cartwright,[2] written about 1790, give a more reliable account of the country, and he appears at first to have found it profitable to make voyages thither. The animals, and not the vegetables, engaged his attention, and he would have made a remunerative business of it had not first pirates and then privateers despoiled him of his ships, and outfits, and wares.

[2] Journals of George Cartwright.

In Labrador now, work as he may, one man cannot keep the wolf from the door—the Eskimo and natives of the coast, the mountaineer and hunter Indians of the interior, and the white settlers, are alike often face to face with starvation. The two former are rapidly dying out, while among the latter it is only where a settler has grown-up sons to work with him, and a good supply of stock in boats, nets, traps and guns to help him, that he can make anything approaching to what we in England should consider a respectable living. Even with these helps, and with steady, hard work, and with sound health, he seldom can hope to lay up store against times of misfortune. True in England the poor often see hard times, and have to face occasionally poverty and hunger. Moreover, as Richard Whitbourne, that plucky British sea-dog, says,[3] “It hath beene in some winters so hard frozen, aboue London bridge near the court, that the tenderest faire ladies and gentlewomen that are in any part of the world, who have beheld it, and great numbers of people, have there sported on the ice many dayes, and have felt it colder there, than men doe here, that live in Newfoundland.” Yet we must take into consideration that here absolute want is the exception, there the rule.

[3] Richard Whitbourne.

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CHAPTER II

NATURAL FEATURES

Labrador rocks are of the oldest formation (Laurentian gneiss), and destitute of remains of animal or plant life; so that they, too, maintain the general harmony of desolation. On the south shore, lower Silurian sandstones, red syenite, and one splendid mass of basalt, known as the “Devil’s Table,” crop out.

A shoal of caplin jumping out on to the beach.

The action of ice and fire are shown in marvellous manners on this weird coast. Not only is every rock, mountain, and pinnacle crowned with countless boulders, which seem but to need a shake to set myriads tumbling down every incline, but the whole coast is carved and chiselled in a wondrous manner by a glacial period that lasted much longer than in Europe; while the fierce frost of winter has blasted mighty rocks, and left, wherever a resting-place could be found, huge fragments, jagged and rough, “hurled aloft, as they appear, by the hands of Titans.”[4]

That long before the ice period volcanic fires helped to mould the hills, is well shown by the out-crop here and again of trap rocks. Especially near the hospital at Indian Harbour is this the case, where the light and polished quartzite rocks are capped with black trap rocks which have overflowed them. These rocks are marked with deep half-moon shaped cuts, running east and west—done by ice—and “showing that Hamilton Inlet, which at the mouth is forty miles wide, was once filled with an enormous glacier.”[5]

Near Hopedale a beautiful blue and bronze iridescent felspar is found. It is called labradorite,[6] and when polished glistens in the sunlight like a peacock’s feather. It is used for brooches, and occasionally for ornamenting buildings. We dropped anchor one night near an island almost entirely composed of this.

Copper pyrites, mica, asbestos, with salts of some of the rarer metals, such as yttrium and rubidium, have been found on the coast. One mining company works for labradorite during the summer.

In the inlets and along the rivers some trees and arctic plants are found. These are more especially spruces, larches, mosses, and lichens. Birches, aspen, silver fir, willow, cherry, and mountain ash, however, exist in favourable spots. I have seen good 60 ft. spars from the end of Sandwich Bay. The trees get more and more dwarfed as one goes north, and beyond the 59th parallel the merest scrub exists. The botanical aspect, however, which chiefly interests the settlers, is the number of edible berries, which form a valuable addition to their articles of diet. These are bakeapples or cloudberries, cranberries, whortleberries, bilberries, tea-berries, gooseberries, raspberries, and currants. They are preserved in water, or in molasses when it is obtainable, against the winter.

Very few vegetables can be grown, though with care, up the inlets a few potatoes, cabbages, and turnip tops have been raised. The Moravian missionaries have to cover their vegetables up at night to keep them warm. This lack of vegetables is tritely expressed in the diary of a gentleman wintering on the north coast; the entry describing his diet runs as follows—

—— ditto.
—— ditto.
—— ditto.
—— ditto.
—— found a blade of grass. Eat the whole of it.

Cartwright (1786) adds a list of his own of indigenous vegetable delicacies—

• 1. Young osier leaves.
• 2. Red dock leaves.
• 3. Scurvy grass.
• 4. Alexander, or wild celery.
• 5. Indian salad.
• 6. Alpine plant.
• 7. Fathen.

There is a charming catholicity about this old sea-dog and trapper.

The tips of the young spruce branches are used for making a non-intoxicating beer, being boiled with molasses. When other tea gives out, the leaves of uva ursi are used. These are known as Labrador tea.[7]

The Saga of Lief Erikson thus describes a conversation between the Viking and his old henchman Tyrker, who, for two or three days, had wandered from the party: “Why wert thou so late, my fosterer, and separated from the party?” “I have not been much further off, but still I have something new to tell of: I found grapes and vines.” “But is that true, my fosterer?” quoth Lief. “Surely is it true,” replied he; “for I was bred up where there is no want of either vines or grapes.” They said that next day they filled their long boat with grapes. But we must, I fear, consider this a “traveller’s licence,” as we must also when old Richard Whitbourne describes the wild berries of Newfoundland. “There the summer naturally produceth out of the fruitful woombe of the earthe, without the labour of man’s hand, great plenty of greene pease and fitches faire, round, full and wholesome ... great store of hay also.... Then have you here strauberries red and white, and as faire rasberries and gooseberries as there be in England; as also multitudes of bilberries, which are called by some whortes, and many other delicate berries, which I cannot name, in great abundance.

Peares,
Sowre cherries,
Filberds,

of which divers times eating their fill, I never heard of any man whose health was thereby any way impaired.”

The rivers contain salmon for about one month in the summer. These seem, however, to be very susceptible to cold, and are seldom taken north of Hopedale. In seasons when the drift ice remains long on the coast the number of salmon caught is always largely diminished. They seldom take a fly. On the other hand the trout are very voracious, very large and numerous, and will rise at any bait.[8] They remain all the year, and are easily caught in winter by cutting a hole in the ice and letting down a hook with a bit of raw meat. The women largely replenish their larder in this way. Cod are far and away the most important of all Labrador products at present—they are called “fish,” and even in legal terms are the only denizens of the sea recognised as “fish.” In summer they come into shallow water, first in pursuit of a small fish known as “caplin,” and then remain probably to spawn before seeking the deeper water in winter. It is unlikely that in their migrations they cross any large portion of the Atlantic.

The caplin come to the shallow water in countless myriads to spawn. They are somewhat like a sardine, only a little larger. At times they blacken the water, and so crowd one another as they swim along the very edge of the water in calm weather that every ripple of the sea leaves numbers struggling on the strand, till at times the whole beach is hidden by dead and dying fish. Further north these caplin visit the shore later in the year. They are followed always by immense numbers of cod. I have seen cod also so thick that even in deep water there seemed no room for them, their backs being constantly out of water. This is called the “caplin school,” and on the catch of cod during their visit the success of a whole fishery will depend.

While the “caplin school” lasts the most intense excitement exists. The men will work day and night, with scarcely an hour in twenty-four for sleep, even eating their meals in their boats. The cod at this time will not take bait, and are caught in traps in the way described in a subsequent chapter, or are hauled in a huge seine, by which a “school” is surrounded. Alas, sometimes so many icebergs are driven inshore, that the precious time slips by without any opportunity of fishing, though all the men, with boats and gear, are waiting on shore in the greatest anxiety to be “up and at the fish.” The caplin are sometimes smoked and kept for food, but usually are dried on the rocks for dog food in winter. Messrs. Munn, of Harbour Grace, have tinned them like sardines, and they are then excellent eating. The sea also affords “hair” seals; these are caught in nets in the fall of the year, or are shot swimming in the bays in summer time. Whales are common on the coast, but the people now have no means of taking them. I saw two small right-whales which had been washed up on the beach, and also one very large sperm whale. Fourteen hundred gallons of oil was taken from his head. So long ago as the 15th century, before the discovery of America, Basque whalers are said to have fished these waters. In the far north, at Ungava, the Hudson’s Bay people make a regular attempt to intercept the large schools of porpoises. At times they will get as many as 150, some individuals weighing a ton each. They are used for their skin and fat, and their flesh for dog food. This is put raw into old flour barrels, and then buried in the ground, usually in June, and in October it will be dug up again. Decomposition will have made the flesh swell up, and the barrels will have burst. As, however, the whole is now frozen, the wood can be removed, and the barrel-shaped masses of frozen and unsavoury flesh are stored away for the dogs’ repasts.

CHAPTER III

OF THE BIRDS AND LARGER FISHES

Iceberg in August off Tub Harbour.

Herrings were once in great numbers on the coast, and were so much larger and fatter than our English herring, that at times knaves have found it worth while to imitate the “Labrador Herring” brand. Of late years they have failed almost entirely to visit the coast, and fishery stations have had to be abandoned where once the sea was “dry with fat herring.” As many as 4,000 barrels have been surrounded with the seine at one shoot of the net. The only other common fish is the sculpin, pig-fish, or grubby. He is a voracious scavenger, and, in foul companionship with his friend the flounder, may be seen sweltering on the rotting heaps of offal which surround every Labrador fish-stage. He appears to have no feelings, but one all-absorbing idea—“to swallow” with his stupendous mouth. I have caught on the sharp-pronged jigger, when fishing for “tom-cod” for breakfast, the same sculpin three times in succession, until for self-protection it was necessary to club him with a rowing pin.

The sleeper shark also infests the coast, and in hundreds gather to devour the dead bodies of the baby seals left by the sealers in the spring. It has a callous nature, and Scoresby tells us, on one occasion while one was feeding on a dead whale, and scooping out at each bite pieces as large as a man’s head, a sailor pierced it through with a scythe knife. It took little notice, however, and went on feeding in exactly the same spot. Mackerel appear in the straits of Belle Isle only.

Two series of submarine banks lie off the Labrador shores, over which it is shallow enough to fish with small boats and hand lines. These have been estimated to cover an area of over 7,000 square miles. Over these the northern current spreads countless animalculæ, in the form of a vast ocean of living slime. This food attracts the bait fishes especially, and they, in turn, attract the cod. No doubt also, this is the attraction to the numerous whales, whose loud “blowing,” as they laze along in the sunshine or hunt fish for their livelihood, alone breaks at times the death-like silence in the lonely bays and inlets. A large sperm whale, 70 feet long, was towed into Battle Harbour our first year. This variety has large teeth, which are used by ivory cutters. A Captain Clarke, writing in 1766, narrates how a sperm whale charged one of his boats; it struck the bow with such violence that it threw his son, who was harpooning, some feet into the air. The whale turned and caught him in her devouring jaws as he came down. He was heard to scream, and part of his body was seen hanging out of its mouth, when it “sounded.” A small but beautiful whale, “as white as a sheet,” is common on the coast. I have seen it caught in cod-traps. Its skin makes excellent leather. The hump-back whale, and more rarely the right-whale are also to be seen. The ferocious “thresher” whale also visits us. It has terrible teeth, and one variety has also a huge back-fin, six feet high, with which the fishermen say they have seen it beating its prey to death.[9] Captain Scammon tells us of an attack by three threshers on a huge cow-whale and her baby in a bay. “Like wolves they flew at her throat, dragging her under water, the others charging at her and leaping right over her. At last they killed the baby, and when it sank kept diving down and coming up with large pieces of its flesh. Meanwhile, the poor mother made her escape, leaving a long track of blood behind her.” I have fired from my boat at the grampus, but without success. Mr. Mackenzie, of the Hudson Bay Company, however, told me he was once standing up in his small boat, waiting for a seal, when he saw a grampus rising to the surface alongside. As its head emerged from the water, he fired straight at the blow-hole, with the result that the single explosive ball penetrated the animal’s brain, and he rolled over dead without a struggle. Not an unfortunate issue as far as the small boat was concerned.

Pliny speaks of a whale 960 feet long! Another traveller’s license I fear. A hundred feet is, as far as I know, an outside limit. The whale-bone hangs from the roof of the mouth, is short in front and behind, and is at best some six feet long. It is scythe-shaped, and edged with long coarse fibres, which sweep over the huge soft tongue, filtering off the slime on which these whales live. Three hundred and fifty pieces are found on each side.

The narwhale, with his long tusk, eight feet long, with which he pokes up the sea grass on which he feeds, was once common on this coast. Some say he uses the tusk to bore holes through the ice, and so get air to breathe. The tusk is really an incisor tooth, or two incisor teeth enormously prolonged, and twisted round one another. Where no wood is found the Eskimo hang their tents on these ivory rafters.

My first Caribou, and Guide.

The sword-fish is a doubtful visitor, though he is taken off Greenland and on the American coast. Many are the authentic accounts of ships he has attacked and even sunk.[10] He will weigh as much as 600 lbs., and Professor Owen says, “he strikes with the accumulated force of fifteen double-handed hammers, and its velocity is equal to that of swivel shot.” In 1864 one, for which a sailor was angling, stove a hole through the bottom of the ship Dreadnought, and so “the insurance company had to pay £600 because an ill-tempered fish objected to be hooked, and took revenge by running full tilt against copper sheathing and wood planking.” Also in 1864 Captain Atwood took from the stomach of a large shark a full-sized sword-fish, but the shark’s skin was pierced with a dozen holes, showing how much the dainty morsel had objected to being swallowed. Hanging with the armour of Christopher Columbus at Siena, in Spain, is a sword of this fish, said to be “taken from a warrior they slew on nearing America.”

The fowl of the air are a most important factor in Labrador life. Among many land birds that do occur, far the most important are the willow grouse and the spruce partridge. The former are large birds, tawny red in summer, and white as driven snow in winter.[11] At that season many depend on these birds to keep them from starvation, and even when a settler’s ammunition has all run out, he can sometimes noose them with string on the end of a long stick as they roost in the trees, so tame are they. Like Alexander Selkirk’s animals—

“They are so unacquainted with man
Their tameness is shocking to me.”

A covey in a tree can be killed right out, if shot from the bottom upwards, so that the falling bird does not disturb the rest. A common entry of Cartwright’s[12] is, “Saw a covey of six grouse. Knocked off all their heads with my rifle.”[13]

The willow grouse in heavy weather bury themselves in the snow, only the cock bird, who acts as sentry, keeping his head above ground to watch for an enemy. Besides these “spruce” grouse, thrushes, American robins, warblers, redpoles, snow buntings, sparrows, larks, woodpeckers, crows, hawks, and owls occur. The snowy owl is an exquisite white in winter, brown in summer, and a large bird. The jay, also, is very common, filling the woods with its cries. Now and again the beautiful gyrfalcon is seen, whilst the osprey, or sea eagle, also breeds on the coast. All these birds are American varieties, and differ slightly from our British species.

There is a great wealth of sea-birds, and until the last two years the arctic curlew ranked first among these. I fear in Labrador we class all our animals in a descending order, with the flesh-pot as the basis. These curlew came north, in flocks which nearly darkened the air, in September, feeding on the numerous berries, and returned south in October. The last three years they have almost disappeared. The settlers say that, owing to their depredations on the American cornfields, poisoned wheat was laid out for them, and this led to their wholesale destruction. Their annual visit can be ill spared indeed.

Perhaps one should mention next the Canada goose. Great numbers of these breed near the great lakes or ponds. They are largely graminivorous, and therefore do not combine the flavours of fish and flesh, which we find so unpleasant in the gulls and divers. It is usual, however, to catch these when young, and confine them in bounds, for in this way not only is the flesh rendered much sweeter to the palate, but since they grow very tame, they are used as decoys for other geese. One man last year anchored out by one leg his tame decoy goose, and so shot no less than thirty other geese. But, in his anxiety for more, unwittingly left his pet too long in the water, with the result that it died of cold; and so the goose with the golden—or in this case “feathered”—eggs was lost. It shows these birds do feel the cold. It is not waste to shoot a hundred geese the same day, for it is only necessary to hang them up in rows outside the house on nails, and they will remain frozen and fresh all winter.

Both eider ducks and the king eiders abound on the coast. In huge flocks early in November they come to the south’ard, generally with a north-east wind, and then in quick succession flock after flock, taking almost all exactly the same line. Near Battle hospital is a barren, rocky point known as “Gunning” Point. Here, under the above circumstances, you can always find some half-dozen “Livyeres,” with long guns and dogs, waiting for the flocks. It is difficult to say whether the dogs or the guns are most remarkable. I measured one gun, six feet two inches long, and when it was discharged it was always an open question which end of it would do most damage, for the adventurous hunter always loaded it “ten fingers” deep. When a flock pass, all the guns are discharged simultaneously, and the ducks, which at times respond in showers, are nominally divided equally.

But now comes the excitement. As a rule a huge Atlantic surf, with these north-east winds, breaks over the point, and the splendid pluck and endurance of the dogs is taxed to the uttermost. Dashing into the waves, I have seen them repeatedly hurled back, bruised and winded, high on to the ledges of rock, only to be dragged off by the return wave and once more pounded on to the rocks. To avoid this, the brave beasts hold on with the energy of despair, and many times have I noted their bleeding paws, and nails torn off in the unequal struggle. Yet they would at once return to the charge, and, waiting their chance, leap right over the breaking crest, and so get clear of the surf. Once they have seized a duck they never let it go, and I have often felt sorely tempted even to jump in and give the brave creatures a hand, when it seemed impossible for them to keep up the struggle any longer. Yet, after being lost to view, engulfed by a huge breaker, one would see soon a duck appear, and after it a dog’s head, still true to its hazardous duty. Sometimes, however, they are really lost.

Petrels, loons, divers, gulls, guillemots, widgeon, teal, scoters, puffins, shanks, sandpipers and other waders abound. These are shot in the fall, and salted down for future consumption. Their eggs are also collected for eating; and though we found even the eggs of the domestic hen, when allowed to feed on fish remains, too highly flavoured to be appetizing, yet I have seen healthy babies flourishing on gulls’ eggs. Whitbourne, writing in 1612, speaks of the utility of the penguin—the great auk was common then. He says, “These penguins are bigge as geese, and flye not, for they haue but a short wing, and they multiply so infinitely upon a certain flat Iland, that men drive them from thence upon a boord into their boats by hundreds at a time; as if God had made the innocency of so poore a creature to become such an admirable instrument for the sustentation of man.” Then, as now, he says the “fishermen doe bait their hookes with the flesh,” and also that they were so fat that the men drew threads through under the skin and used them as candles.

CHAPTER IV

OF THE FUR-BEARING ANIMALS

Eskimo Boys.

For food purposes among land animals the caribou, which closely resembles the reindeer, ranks first. These roam over the interior in great quantities, feeding on the very plentiful Iceland moss. In winter they scrape away the snow with their large cow-like hoofs to get at it. In Newfoundland they are very plentiful in the interior, and Mr. W. Tyrrell of Winnipeg told me, that on the west side of Hudson Bay he found thousands, so tame they would eat out of his hands. They migrate north in summer, and south in winter, due, says Rae, to their “sense of polarity,” but I should presume in search of food. They are difficult to find in the woods, for the colour of their skins varies with the seasons, and always closely resembles their surroundings. Unfortunately they are too far inland for the majority of settlers to reach.

The stags have magnificent antlers, which are especially fine about October, the rutting season. With these they fight fiercely, going down on their knees, and striking with the powerful brow-antlers. I have seen several pairs of “locked horns” that have been picked up, the poor creatures having got these fixed and died side by side of starvation.

A hunter this fall, having skinned a young stag he had killed, put the skin over him so that the horns, which were attached, came on his head. He then walked out towards a herd of does, over which a fine stag was keeping zealous watch as they grazed on the open marsh. They allowed him to come within range, and then the stag, mistaking him for a rival, actually charged down upon him.

Polar bears are not uncommon, and five were killed this season near Cape Chidley. Captain Blandford, of the S.S. Neptune, told me that, having sent some men ashore for water in a strange harbour near Cape Chidley, they returned in great haste, calling for their guns, and shouting, “Bears!” They were soon perceived from the ship to be firing, shot after shot being heard in rapid succession, and great expectations were raised of bear steak for dinner. At last the hunters returned with downcast countenances. The bears proved to be only inflated heads, which some Eskimo were using as buoys for their lines.

In one boat going out to their fish trap were seven men, six rowing, and the skipper standing on the stern seat, steering with an oar.

Suddenly a large white bear was sighted swimming close to the boat. There was no gun on board, and yet the men were loath to lose so rich a prize. Chase was therefore given, and the skipper kept hurling at the bear the large two-pronged lead “jigger,” with a stout line attached. Each time he threw it the bear warded it off, striking it a smart blow with his fore-paw. At last one jigger came fast, and then another, till the bear, who seemed only bent on escape, and was now wearied with repeated diving, was hauled near the boat, and first clubbed with an oar, and then despatched with an axe.

Black bears are very common. They are, as a rule, herbivorous, eating the wild berries, and insectivorous; but one night a settler I was staying with showed me the skin of a large bear he had just trapped. He was living at the mouth of a trout and salmon river, the entrance to which he barred with nets. Two bears happening to observe some fish struggling in the net on the surface of the water near the land were, I suppose, tempted to feloniously sample the unexpected windfall, and having once erred, continued their wild career. For the settler told me they learnt regularly to come down and haul his nets, dragging them to the land, and not only eating out the fish, but severely damaging the nets. But punishment had been meted out to one in the form of a charge of buckshot, to the other by a steel trap.

Cartwright thus illustrates the power of this bear: “We discovered this morning the damage done by a polar bear to a cask of oil. It was of strong oak staves, well secured by thick, broad hoops of birch. Yet with one blow of his tremendous paw he had snapped off the four chime hoops and broken the staves short off.”

The most valuable fur animals are the fox, otter, beaver, mink, marten, and lynx. Musk-rats, squirrel, and hares are also plentiful. The porcupine is not uncommon. One specimen I shot was larger than a sucking pig. The long black hair, which almost obscures the short quills, made it resemble a bear as it sat asleep on a bough at the top of a fir tree. A bullet through the head brought it down at once, but even when mortally wounded they will cling to the boughs, and you may have to fell the tree. I saw a dog one day worrying one. The porcupine, with its head well down, waited for the dog to come near, and then switched round his tail end, on which are most spikes, with lightning speed, hoping to leave some in his enemy’s nose. The quills are all barbed, so that they “work in.” In this way they will kill dogs, wolves, and foxes. A fox was found dead near Hopedale, its skin ruined by festering sores, which, on examination, showed the ends of the black and white quills. It is very amusing to see how easily it wards off an enemy by always turning its back to him! When the dog was tired out, the porcupine went up the nearest tree, had a good meal, and went to sleep on a bough.

Black or “silver” fox skins are very valuable. For one good black skin I have known £170 given by a Russian nobleman. The average retail value of silver fox skins is nearly £50. Now the cunning of foxes is proverbial, but Cartwright tells us a story of vulpine ingenuity in a marten. One day he was going to travel a long distance, and desired to leave a deposit of food for his return journey. He feared to bury it, because foxes would be sure to find it, so climbing a tree he hung it by a string from one of the branches. Shortly after a marten came along, and espied the dainty morsel high over his head. Whether he had watched old Cartwright climbing, or whether it was an inspiration, the tale does not say, but in any case it climbed the tree also, gnawed through the string, and then, with an appetite whetted by the exercise, had a square meal at its leisure.

A Beaver.

Walking one day through thick wood we came across a regular “pathway,” the trees having been felled to make travelling easy. A glance at the stumps showed that it was a road cut by beavers, to enable them to drag their boughs of birch along more easily. The pathway led to a large house on the edge of a lake, and, fortunately for us, the beaver was at home. There were other houses on an island in the lake, and below them all a large, strong dam, some thirty yards long, built the shape of a half-moon, and below this two more complete dams across the river that flowed out. The dams were made of large tree-trunks, with quantities of lesser boughs, and were many feet thick, and very difficult to break down. The houses were built half on land, half in the water. The sitting-room is upstairs on the bank, and so is the “crew’s” bedroom, and the front door made at least three feet below the surface to prevent being “frozen out” in winter, or, worse still, “frozen in.”

The whole house was neatly rounded off, and so plastered with mud as to be warm and weather-proof. This is done by means of their trowel-like tails, which are also of great use in swimming. The house was so strong that even with an axe we could not get in without very considerable delay. In the deep pond they had dammed up, we found a quantity of birch poles pegged out. The bark of these forms their winter food, and is called “browse.” The beaver cuts off enough for dinner, and takes it into his house. Sitting up, he takes the stem in his fore paws, and rolls it round and round against his chisel-shaped incisor teeth, swallowing the long ribands of bark thus stripped off. While entering the house the stick often sets off a trap set for them. The trappers say they do this purposely. When surprised they retreat to holes in the bank, of which the entrances are hidden under water. These are called “hovels.”

Beavers always work up wind when felling trees, and cut them on the water side, so that they fall into the pond if possible, and the wind helps to blow them home. This beaver we caught proved to be a hermit—at least he was living alone. He may have been a widower of unusual constancy. They do not destroy fish, their food in summer being preferably the stem of the water-lilies. Otters occasionally kill and eat beavers. When they call the beaver has to try and be “not at home.” Of the other animals I have not space to say much. The blue-grey hare is a large animal, and like all the others turns white in winter—so wonderfully does God remember all His creatures.

The pretty little squirrel is very tame. Like a good sensible fellow he makes round holes in the ground, and hides enough berries for his “winter diet.”

The climate of Labrador is rigorous in the extreme, in spite of the fact that in summer, especially in the inlets, the thermometer sometimes registers 75° and even 80° F. Icefields from Baffin’s Bay and Davis Strait block the coast from October to June, the sea freezing entirely over all along the shore. Over this all the winter travelling is done, but sometimes the commotion below so moves the ice up and down that a team of dogs with their sledge will only move backwards when a swell arises. The average temperature all the year round is at Hopedale 27° F., at Nain 22·5° F., that is a mean average temperature of 5° and 9·5° respectively of frost. During the months the sea is open, countless islands of ice are driven all along the coast, while snowslips often make the land dangerous. A settler, his two sons, and son-in-law were ascending the slope of an island near Sandwich Bay to witness the first break-up of the ice in spring, when an avalanche of snow buried all but one son, who was a few yards behind the rest. Rushing to where he saw his father last, and tearing away the hard-frozen snow with hand and foot, he came eventually on his father’s head, four feet below the surface. Though his father heard the son searching, he could neither stir nor shout to guide him, from the weight of snow over him. This man told me the sad story. The other two lads were lost.

Storms of exceptional violence and of sudden onset occasionally visit the coast. The wind seems to blow from all quarters at once, hurling clouds of sea-water as dust, often mixed with icy spicules, far over the land. A few years ago a vessel in Black Tickle, lying at anchor near Gready, was carried up and left on the rocks twenty feet above high-water line; at the same time £4,000 of damage was done, in that one harbour alone, by all the stages with the summer’s voyage of fish and all the boats being suddenly washed away. It was then October, and snow was on the ground. All the survivors left as soon as possible. On returning next year an old man of this vessel was found dead beneath the snow, his hands crossed, his eyes bandaged. Evidently he had laid himself out for burial. On October 9, 1867, in one of these sudden gales, forty vessels were hurled on the rocks. Forty poor souls lost their lives, and fifteen hundred people were cast ashore.

Again on October 26, 1885, in a similar hurricane 80 vessels were lost, 70 lives, and 2,000 men, women, and children left on the coast. The Newfoundland Government had to send up special steamers to bring these people home.

Easterly gales especially, as the water is deep, heave in a most wonderful ground-swell. Close to the land, I have in our little steamer been so low down in these great watery valleys, that, standing on deck, we could not see even the tops of the hills over the crest of the next wave. Admiral Bayfield says, “It bursts with fury right over islands thirty feet in height, sending sheets of foam and spray, sparkling in the sunbeams fifty feet up the sides of precipices.”

One feature, however, of rare beauty is peculiar to these Arctic regions. I mean the Aurora Borealis. At times one radiant crown circles the zenith; at others, vast columns of light advancing across the heavens keep changing shape like battalions of men attacking, the varying uniforms of these flying squadrons resplendent with every shade of violet, red and gold; at others deadly pale phantoms creep ghost-like upwards from the northern horizon, till the whole space overhead is filled with quivering rays. Icebergs, till now invisible, reveal their baneful presence; but almost before the sailor has time to note their bearings, these transient glories are suddenly extinguished, and the sea and sky are once more plunged into darkness, all the more death-like for the contrast, so that men call it, “The dead at play.” The weird mirage also serves to add mystery to these regions. Often have we seen huge icebergs as if capsized, and hovering in the waves of ether over the stern realities below, as though kissing them and rejoicing in their power for evil.

CHAPTER V

WE GO TO LABRADOR AND START WORK

ON June 15, 1892, the good ship Albert, 97 tons register, and 151 displacement, was towed out of Great Yarmouth Harbour, and amidst many farewells from wharves, quays and piers, spread her canvas for her first transatlantic voyage. Trimmer ship never left port bound on such a journey. Stout timbers, teakwood decks, iron hatches, new running gear—nothing had been forgotten—and in light airs of summer or whole gales in winter, I want no snugger vessel. The four voyages made by her at present, under the care of Captain Trezise and his crew of eight men, certainly deserve notice here.

1892. Bound out. From Fastnet Rock to St. Johns, Nineteen days.

Bound home. From St. Johns to Start Lighthouse. Twelve days.

1893. Bound out. From Fastnet Rock to St. Johns. Seventeen days.

Bound home. From St. Johns to Great Yarmouth. Twelve and a half days.

Our best twenty-four hours’ work was 240 miles, registered on two harpoon logs. The fact that we registered under 100 tons, allowed us to carry an uncertificated mate—Skipper Joe White, so well known in the North Sea. It also made my certificate as a competent master of some practical use. After visiting the mission vessel Edward Birkbeck, at work among Manx and Irish fishermen off the south-west coast of Ireland, we followed the course taken by Cabot in his caravel, the Matthew, nearly 400 years ago, and made a landfall directly opposite St. Johns Harbour. Here a scene of the wildest confusion greeted us. The prosperous city we expected to see had been almost blotted out by fire; and still amidst the ruins of churches, public buildings and private dwellings, smoke and flames arose in all parts of the city exultant and unsubdued, looking at night-time like glutted vultures over their helpless prey. Warehouses, wharves, and even vessels at anchor, had shared the same fate, so that landing at all was a difficult matter at first. In the streets, here and there, were disconsolate groups of men, excavating from tons of fallen masonry, safes which had proved none too safe, and which, lying burnt, battered, and discarded at intervals, served to enhance the sense of general desolation.

From the harbour the first appearance suggested the ruins of Pompeii, for the wooden houses of 12,000 people had gone up in smoke, leaving only rows of blackened and scorched pillars rising from the charred debris. On closer inspection, however, the illusion was dispelled, for the pillars proved to be tottering brick chimneys, with two or three half-destroyed fire-grates above one another, the whole being topped by most prosaic cracked chimney-pots. Queer things had happened in the general panic. Patients who had lain in bed for years “arose and walked.” Barrels of dry goods were rolled pell-mell into the harbour, whence they were subsequently fished out. Merchants gave general leave to bystanders to save what they liked from their shops. Church pews were packed with heterogeneous goods and chattels, which only served to add to the conflagration when the sanctuary itself fell a victim to the all-devouring flames. Title deeds, recent enactments of parliament, ledgers, valuable manuscripts, were destroyed in scores; while, as the fire occurred just before tea-time, thousands found themselves houseless, hungry, dusty and “smoke-dried” by morning. To meet these sudden needs every available building was thrown open for shelter, while weak tea and light refreshments were served out, in every variety of pot, kettle, and cauldron available, by cabinet ministers from the steps of the Government buildings. The respected premier was to have been seen at an early hour of the morning with a background of blazing houses, in a most precarious position astride an angular roof, putting out burning embers as they fell. Nor did the flames cry “Quarter” to the episcopal apron, even his lordship escaping coatless. It was said that a jeweller, who had at the last moment sent his assistant to put valuables in the safe, found on opening it afterward a dust brush and an old matchbox only. One man was noticed skurrying up the hill with a feather mattress on his back, all unconscious it was brightly burning; while one, like another Nero over another Rome, was seen playing a piano in the open street, that had been hastily deposited there by its flying owner. The musical tastes of the community were impressively brought out by the fact that some dozen “borrowed” pianos were rescued from houses in neighbouring villages, when authority was once more able to cope with disorder.

Forest fires continued to rage in every direction for days and weeks after, till the greater part of the peninsula of Avalon was treeless, many country homesteads sharing the same fate as the city. In some planter cottages I visited, I found men who had been fighting for their lives, homes, and possessions for days with these forest fires. In some cases the women, children, and goods had been carried out and deposited for safety for two or three days on the edges of the great “ponds,” as the huge lakes all over the country are called.

Most wise enactments on the part of the authorities prevented what might have led to serious riots. All public-houses and liquor shops were promptly closed, and several attempts at incendiarism were nipped in the bud. Yet, amidst all their own troubles, the Newfoundlanders found time to show us the greatest of kindnesses. So much so that it would be invidious here to particularize one more than another. While in St. Johns we visited every ship in harbour, giving away “readin’,” and finding out all we could about the fishermen and fisheries. The Hospital Mission ship, with her cargo of warm clothing, some of which was at once in demand, her medicines, and her stores of healthy literature, spoke practically of warm hearts in the old country, still dear to all her distant children, and served to prove to this, her oldest colony, that England is still a mother in more than name. Hundreds of all classes and denominations poured down to see the Albert when once her mission was understood, for it took time to realize that the lovely ship, with such admirable equipment, was really free for the poor and sick of bleak Labrador. A pilot having been provided for us in the person of Captain Nicholas Fitzgerald, the Albert sailed for Labrador.

The Albert in Bateaux Harbour.—Flags up for Service.

Dense fog prevailed for four days, so that the end even of our own bowsprit was scarcely visible, the Albert standing accordingly well out to sea, “Brother Foghorn” having it all his own way. On the fourth day we caught a glimpse of Cape Bauld, the north-east corner of Newfoundland, and then the impenetrable veil dropped again. Our only occupation had been our deep sea thermometer, which registered generally from 28-30° Fahren. in two to three hundred fathoms. On Sunday we once more sighted land. The foe had gone, and was replaced by a bright clear day—not a cloud in the sky, not a ripple on the dark blue water. Innumerable rocky islands and lofty headlands were visible away on the port bow—some showing a bright yellow from the mosses and lichens on them. Around us we could count thirty magnificent icebergs—chips from the eternal Arctic ice. A school of whales were sporting under our lee, every now and again throwing jets of glistening water high into the air. The scene to our eager eyes was one indeed of surpassing interest and beauty.

Our pilot’s experience was at once on trial, for only a very imperfect survey exists of the coast. And not one single landmark, lightship, buoy, or distinguishing mark exists to aid the mariner anywhere along this dreary coast, a lack not remedied by the luxuriance of fogs and icebergs. It stood the test well. He pronounced the spot “Roundhill Island.”

After passing through a precipitous rocky entrance, half closed by a stranded mountain of ice, on which the long swell of the Atlantic was thundering, we dropped anchor off a long narrow creek, round which our glasses revealed rude fishing stages and mud huts. The name of the harbour was Domino.

Five minutes was long enough to bring several small boats alongside, with eager inquiries as to who this strange vessel might be! Where was it bound? what was its errand? while a few more minutes saw us being swiftly rowed ashore to come and see G—— who had been “bad all summer.”

Soon I was sitting in a tiny, dark mud hut, with neither glass in the hole that served for light and air, nor a chimney to carry up the smoke from the fire on the floor, through the large hole in the roof intended for its escape. A groaning man sat doubled up on a rude bench in a dark corner of the room, while his wife endeavoured to restrain the super-abundant energy of a crowd of children. “Been ill long?” I asked, after the usual greetings had been exchanged. “About three weeks. Wish I could get home. There’s no chance for a sick man up here.” Evidently he did not yet grasp the idea of our hospital ship. “Well, we’ll see what can be done,” and the case was inquired into, and found to my joy to be one for which relief could, by care, be obtained. After some further talk, in which one or two fishermen joined, who had entered during the examination, we had a few words of prayer for God’s blessing on the means used, and left for the ship, leaving behind us, for the Albert’s first evening in Labrador, at least one poor heart grateful—and thoughtful. A hearty service aboard and many minor cases of sickness closed the day. Daylight again saw boats alongside the Albert, and we were called to visit a poor Eskimo dying from consumption. He had been brought from an island four days before, and was lying in a lonely hut, hoping some day that he would be well enough to get aboard the mail steamer for advice.

The poor house was indeed ill-calculated for a dying man—ill-ventilated, ill-lighted, and dirty—with little clothing, and still less food, semi-starvation was rapidly hastening on the end. Oh, for a clean bed, a nurse, a hospital, to put such cases in, was the whole talk over tea that evening. All was done that could be. Food, medicine, and some warm clothing were taken him; but ere the Albert came south again, death had claimed the poor fellow for its victim, and closed the sad scene of human suffering; and the valley of shadows had been crossed without the knowledge of a Saviour, who takes away all its sting. At whose door will this fault be laid? Not more than once a year does the sound of the glad tidings of God’s grace reach Spotted Island, the home still of some fifty persons.

To avoid repetition, I must now content myself by giving a general description of the people of this coast and their methods of earning a living.

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CHAPTER VI

DO PEOPLE LIVE IN LABRADOR?

Do people live in Labrador? There is a resident white population of some 5,000 at least, scattered along the south and east coasts. They call themselves “Livyeres.” North of these are Eskimos, and in the interior Indians, known locally as “Mountaineers,” but actually they are different branches of the old Algonquin race. The last returns were as follows:—

White population of St. Lawrence coast	4,411
White population of Atlantic coast	2,416
Eskimo on the coast	1,700
Indians of the interior	4,000
——————
Total	12,527
——————

These Indians, who once held North America from the “Rockies” to the sea, have steadily decreased in numbers. As they live by hunting only, the extensive forest fires, and depletion of fur-bearing animals, have driven them further and further west. Whole encampments have been reported “found dead from starvation.” Only occasionally do they visit the coast, bringing furs with them to trade with the Hudson Bay Company. They never take to sea fishing.

The Eskimo, of Mongolian origin, at one time were as far south as Newfoundland. In 1780 a tribe 500 strong still dwelt along the Straits of Belle Isle. Now almost all are north of Hamilton inlet; of these I shall speak later.

Whence do the whites come? Some are said to be descendants of those who fled the old country in press-gang days. In 1780 we hear of a crew of convicts sent out there. Some are descendants of sailors wrecked on the coast, or of Newfoundland and other fishermen who have been left there. More come from those who have gone out in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, while some few have emigrated directly there. The largest settlement consists of about 100 persons, and with the people of neighbouring coves numbers about 350. It is here where the mission has built the first hospital ever known in Labrador. In May or June every year the coast is visited by from 20 to 25,000 fishermen, women and children. These arrive as soon as the ice is blown off the coast by westerly winds. Most are from Newfoundland, some from Canada, with occasional Americans buying fish. They come in every variety of vessel—small and large, good, bad and indifferent—mostly of the schooner type. They number about 1,000. Besides the crew, which varies from five to ten men, with one or two women, most Newfoundland vessels bring a number of people called “freighters.” These are landed at various harbours, where they have left mud huts and boats the previous year, and where they will fish all summer. The fish is “made” or cured in Labrador, and sent in large vessels to the Mediterranean, Brazilian, or English markets. Meanwhile, the schooner has gone further north in search of a “fare” of fish. If successful, the fish will be salted, and brought home “wet,” so that these vessels are called “green-fish catchers.” As they come south they call for their “freighters,” with their goods and chattels, who pay 25 cents per head per cwt. of fish caught in return for their passage. The overcrowding on some of these vessels returning is very great, and is made worse by the fact that every year more vessels go than return. Besides the cargo of fish, casks of oil, nets, boats, and general goods, perhaps thirty, forty, or fifty men and women will be crowded into these small vessels, at times with only room to lie down in the hold between the deck and the cargo. On one small schooner of nineteen tons we counted fifty people, thirty-four men and sixteen women. The women, many of whom have children with them, are often very bad sailors. As a rule, they are not allowed on deck except in port, and this voyage is a nightmare all summer to numbers. They are pillars of pluck, many of these women. They can handle an oar and sail a small boat with the best, and among them are “Grace Darlings” only wanting an opportunity. They work chiefly at cleaning fish and keeping the huts for the men, though some, I think very wrongly, form part of the crews of the green fish catchers. The Canadian schooners are larger—carry about eighteen men and no women. The people consider Labrador very healthy, which I attribute to their comparative immunity there from epidemic diseases. The damp mud huts, often filled with snow till the very day they go in, the entire absence of any sanitary provisions, combined always with either cold draughts or too little ventilation, have, without any doubt, an ill effect on the people, but more especially on the women, who occupy them.

Fields of Fish Drying—Emily Harbour.

The fishermen are tall men, and broad to match, born to the sea, and are accustomed, from their training at the seal fishery on the ice, to be quick and active. No lighthouse, no buoy, no landmark aid navigation on the Labrador coast. The charts are old, bad, incorrect, incomplete and unreliable, while north of Hamilton inlet, where nearly all the schooners go for green fish, there is practically no chart at all, most of the surveying having been done by the keels and bilges of devoted fishing schooners. Streams of icebergs, floating all the summer to the southward before the polar current, render it always unwise to stay at sea at night. With sudden calms and baffling winds from high perpendicular cliffs, making a harbour without a tug is always hard enough; but here, in addition, the constant and dense fogs make it often impossible, without any kind of guide, even to find a harbour at all; for in places shoals and ledges run out twenty miles to seaward. Yet for all this shameful neglect on the part of the Newfoundland Government, the weak defence is constantly made, “Not many lives are lost.” That I know to be due solely to the consummate seamanship and daring perseverance of the fishermen. Among many good vessels, many are bad, and, worse still, are provided with but bad tackle and holding-gear. The latter is an absolute essential, with the liability that exists to sudden hurricanes, and I believe more vessels are lost in Labrador from this one cause than all others put together. Moreover many, as I have already pointed out, are greatly overcrowded. More than once we saw vessels drifting to destruction, and once, when holding on ourselves for all we were worth, we had the pleasure of saving a comrade by running him a coir hawser, and so holding him on the verge of the rocks after his own tackle had given out and the crew had received brief notice to quit through the boiling surf.

It must be remembered that Newfoundland, our oldest colony, exists solely by its fishery; that one-third of its entire revenue is now derived from this very Labrador fishery, that is some one-and-a-half million dollars, and that in no other way could this harvest be reaped. Moreover almost every man in Labrador may be called a fisherman, and yet nothing is done for all their returns. Here is another method of interpreting the value of the industry. It is said seventeen tons of fish contain the nutritive value of 50 head of cattle, or 300 sheep. Now the average yield for fifty years from the French and English Fisheries is 2,300,000 cwt., that is 338,235 cattle, or 2,029,410 sheep.

The summer Labrador settlements are on islands or outside headlands, and here both Newfoundlanders and “Livyeres” dwell, the latter retiring up the bays and inlets, to be nearer wood and game, when the former return to Newfoundland. There are about a dozen well recognised central stations in Labrador, where agents representing the various merchants’ firms are stationed to collect the fish from the fishermen dealing with their firm, and to ship it thence to market. These men have far better houses than the rest, generally also a store from which the general wants of their men are supplied. As a rule, advances are made of all needful appliances and food to some better known fishermen.

These men are known as “Planters,” and employ under them so many men and women on “share” or wages. Occasionally, also, the agent has some men of his own, working for settled wages, who may be made to fish for cod, to pack salmon, to load vessels, or do any work they are told. When seven men fish one trap or seine net, the total catch is divided into fourteen shares—seven for the planter and seven for the men. That is one share each; a few dollars on the hundred quintals being allowed the skipper of the “crew.” Or when a man fishes his own net with four men, I saw the value divided into twelve shares—four for the master, four for the trap, and one each for the men, so that each man gets every twelfth fish. When hand-lining begins, and two men have charge of each boat, every other fish belongs to the men, the owner taking two out of four. A girl’s wages are £6 to £7 currency for the season, and her keep. Each planter has his own hut, but his men often live together. The huts are of logs with the chinks filled with moss and covered with sods. Entrance is by a low doorway, and there is a small window placed low down to prevent escape of heat. Warmth and ventilation cannot co-exist in so small a space. A man a little over a fathom long once visited Sir Donald Smith, when an agent on that coast. To accommodate his legs at night a hole had to be cut in the wall, and a box lined with dogskin fixed up outside. I saw one day a fisherman moving house. The house was first wedged up on piles, then a rope was put round it, and, with the help of a few neighbours, it was dragged higher up the hill. Another house I saw had been dragged over the harbour on the ice “to be nearer the fishing ground.” An American stove, or more often an open fireplace (the smoke going out of a huge chimney like in an Irishman’s cabin), serves for warmth and cooking. The stove, anyhow, is a movable chattel, and accompanies its master to his winter hut in the fall. Clothes are so expensive and so scanty that every man is his own wardrobe, and he who puts his clothes in a drawer must himself go naked. Thus a block of furniture is obviated. Bunks are put up for the men or a partition boarded off, while the girls sleep in a “lean-to,” called a “bunk-house,” or have a part partitioned off, or hang an old curtain in front of their bunk in the smaller huts.

Some Newfoundland planters and agents provide boarded huts for their “crowd,” but in all the arrangements are much the same. The Livyeres’ families have all their separate huts. Each “crew” has a fish stage, alongside which the fish are brought in the boats. These stages are built out on piles driven into the mud. Long poles, known as “rounders,” are laid side by side across the tops of these, and form a kind of flooring. The whole is then roofed in with poles and sods, in order that fish-curing may proceed at night by costers’ lamps, or in bad weather. Up the middle of the stage runs a table for splitting the fish on. The green fish are hove up on to the stage with pitchforks, seized by a woman who cuts off the head—“the header,” and passed on to one who opens the throat—“the throater.” She passes it to a man—“the splitter.” He, with great dexterity, cuts out the backbone and flings the flesh into a tub of water for the “washer.” I have timed a man split thirteen fish in one minute. It takes the tyro nearer thirteen minutes to split one well. The offal is thrown through a hole in the floor into the sea below, where every variety of scavenger fish congregates. In Norway, and by Messrs. Munn of Newfoundland, the skins and bones are made into a splendid glue, while the rest of the offal is preserved for fish manure. The washed fish is next laid in pile and salted. The “salter” is also a skilled mechanic. It is easy to undersalt and easy to “saltburn,” or oversalt, whereby much valuable salt is wasted. This salt comes all the way from Cadiz by the same vessels that take the fish away. Next the fish is spread in the sun. A fine day is waited for, and all hands turn to. Many a slip exists between the cup and the lip, however. If the fish has lain too long, it will be sodden, and go grey or dun. If the sun is too hot, it will be sun-burnt. If rain comes, and it is wet and dry again, too often it will be injured. It must be turned and returned. At last it is gathered up into circular “piles,” back up, and tail to the centre. These piles are covered over with birch rinds, and a few stones placed on the top to keep the whole together till it is time to ship them away. They are weighed into the ship, two quintals at a time, a “culler” looking over them as they pass in and classifying them; and according to this classification they are paid for. The receipt handed to the fishermen runs thus:—

Received from..............

• Large}
• Medium} Merchantable fish
• Small}
• Madeira merchantable fish
• West India merchantable fish
• Talqual merchantable fish
• Inferior merchantable fish
• Damp merchantable fish
• Dun merchantable fish
• Slimy merchantable fish
• Labrador merchantable fish
• And also ...... casks of ...... gallons of oil.

There is always a great race to get first to market, for the first cargo always fetches a higher price. One fish planter ships his own fish to England, and thus is able to get at times a better price than that offered in St. Johns. On the other hand, he runs the risks of the freight, insurance, etc.

No railway, public building, roads, drains, or such like things exist in Labrador, and every man is a fisherman first, a handy man after—boat or house-builder, blacksmith, cooper, curer, as the case may be. Only three harbours do I know where liquor is sold: in one of these two poor fellows were drowned through its influence last year. No jail or police exist on the coast. A small revenue schooner, with a justice of the peace on board, is responsible for maintaining the law and preventing smuggling. The people are, as a rule, law-abiding; but crimes, especially among the half-breeds and Eskimo, go unpunished. In one settlement a lay reader and school teacher are established; in another an aspirant to the Methodist ministry, while settlements up two long inlets enjoy similar privileges. These men are all doing excellent work, as is a Presbyterian student from Dalhousie University in the Straits of Belle Isle.

Most school work can be done in winter, for in summer only those too young to work can be spared; and if they are old enough to journey alone to and from the school, they are old enough to do something at the fishery. Only a small percentage of Livyeres can read or write. Every summer it is usual for a Roman Catholic priest, a Methodist minister, and an Anglican clergyman to visit as many stations as they can on the first 400 miles of coast. They are passed along in boats from place to place by the too willing people, who, irrespective of creed, extend their kindly hospitality to all alike. In places wood buildings have been put up voluntarily by the men in their spare time, for Sunday services, conducted usually by one of themselves. Our own gatherings, at times too large for the Albert’s hold or these little buildings, were held in fish stores ashore, cleared for the purpose, or in the open air, one of the countless boulders serving for a natural rostrum. I have seen the same place serve in the morning for Church of England, in the afternoon for Wesleyan, in the evening for Salvation Army, and pretty much the same congregation attending each. I have known a Methodist meeting house on Sunday reconsecrated for Mass on Monday. This absence of conventionality, this socialism on a basis of kindly generosity, is most congenial to one from the old world.

Fresh meat and vegetables are alike hard to procure. No cow or horse exists. The domestic animal world is represented only by the inevitable dog; the vegetable by the stringy cabbage or struggling turnip, whose leaves alone attain to economic value. To prevent scurvy in winter, when fresh fish is not attainable, salt meat must be avoided, even if they can afford to buy it. The following recipe is invented with that end: “Dry the cod in the sun till it is so hard none can go bad. In winter powder this, rub it up with fresh seal oil, and add cranberries if you have any.” This dainty is known as “Pipsey.” These people neither need nor expect luxuries; sugar and milk are very rarely used—tinned milk being too expensive, molasses being cheaper than sugar, and also margarine than butter. White rabbits, white grouse and sea-birds help to eke out the winter’s diet.

But to be accurate, in two harbours I saw a pig, brought by the Newfoundlanders. When they arrived the dogs were banished to a desert island near. In one harbor we listened to much wailing. Two pigs had been isolated on an island near, the fishermen enjoying daily the bliss of anticipation. But alas! here the dogs proved equal to the occasion. An on-shore wind had brought them the joyful news, and that very morning the pigs disappeared, only a few blood-stained bristles remaining to tell the story of the crime. In one harbour a planter had brought a sheep, but its isolation had so developed its affection for its owner that it followed him everywhere, and he could not make up his mind to kill it. Goats fare a little better: they have horns. Yet in one place three nights in succession a goat had been missed. A team of runaway dogs was roaming near, but only approached the houses under cover of night. All these animals are, however, the perquisites of affluence, and belong almost entirely to the planters from Newfoundland. Some few bring fowls, which eke out a perilous existence on suffrance of the dogs. At the Hudson Bay Company’s station of Rigolette, Mr. Wilson, the chief factor, told me that two of his dogs got into his well-enclosed yard, and in four minutes killed eight hens and tore four goats to pieces. Among all these people no resident doctor exists, nor is skilled aid of any kind to be obtained in case of need; for the few minutes in the summer that the mail steamer stays in any harbour, and the irregular times of her calls, gives the doctor on board no opportunity to render effective aid. When sickness falls on the people no one knows what it is, or how to treat it. Not knowing they are ill, men work on till a trifling ailment becomes a matter of life and death. A slight accident with no “first aid” at hand, permanently cripples a limb or destroys a valuable function, such as sight. Bleeding unchecked from a simple wound deprives a dependent family of the father and breadwinner. Many are the piteous stories I have learnt of such cases since first, in 1892, the Gospel Hospital-ship Albert was sent out by warm hearts in Old England to their brothers and sisters in this “region beyond.”

After all this description of Labrador, do you ask, as I do, why do people stay here, when the fair farm lands of Canada are offered free to all? There is a story that a solitary old woman in the wilds of North America was one day visited by a gentleman from that “hub of the universe,” Boston city. She asked him, “Where do you live?” “Oh, hundreds of miles away—in Boston.” “How do you manage to live so far away?” was the reply. To begin with, every one has a lingering belief in his “ain countree.” The wild life to which these people are born has a certain charm to others besides themselves. Sailors they are born and bred. What else can they do? Some have been taken by the Canadian Government to the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence—the Arcady of Longfellow—and yet have found eventually their way back. The fact remains—here is an increasing English-speaking colony.

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CHAPTER VII

JUST HOW THE FISH ARE CAUGHT

Boat returning from the Trap full of Fish.

Cod (Gadus) = goad or rod fish—called in Norway stick or stock fish, or in Spanish “baccalhao,” in Italian “mazza,” a club or rod—all of which synonyms imply that a rod or stick is used in preserving the fish. In Norway two are tied tail to tail, and then slung over a stick, being then exposed to sun and air so many days—prescribed by law. The Eskimo largely hang them from a rod by the gills after splitting and salting them, but Newfoundlanders spread them out on poles, called “flakes,” or on the natural rocks, called “bournes.” But “you must first catch your hare, then cook him,” and seasons suitable being very brief in these Arctic climates, the most rapid methods must be adopted; and in cod-catching Newfoundland has eclipsed all her rivals.

In spring, nets only are used, for the fish are in shoals, feeding on the myriads of caplin, a fish the size of a sardine, which are inshore then to spawn. The most successful net is the cod-trap. Practically it is a submerged parlour of net without a roof, but with a large door, into which the cod are invited to walk by a long net leading to the nearest headland of rock, and ending at the centre of the door. It is all kept in position by heavy anchors. The distance from the rock is from a hundred to a hundred and fifty yards. Cod are gregarious fish, and, like sheep, follow a leader. When, therefore, one comes up against the net as he swims near the rocks, he turns out into deeper water to circumvent it, and so leads his confiding following directly into the net. Here, being a platonic fish, he remains, indolently browsing on the infusoria and ocean slime which collect about the twiny walls of his prison. Suddenly a boat appears overhead, and a long telescope, with a plain glass bottom—the fish glass—is pushed down into the room, through which the trap-master is peering to see how many finny prisoners there are. Now the door is pulled up, and now the floor is rising—rising—rising, being passed along under the boat, until all the frightened captives are huddled together in one seething mass near the surface. Now a dipper is put in, and the jumping, struggling fish are heaved into the boat. Soon the boat is full to the gunwale, and still there are more prisoners. Large bags of net are produced and filled with the rest of the fish. These, after being buoyed, are thrown overboard to wait till they are “wanted.”

I have seen fifty to sixty hundredweight of fish taken in the same trap time after time. Sometimes more are caught than the curers can keep pace with. Then the fortunate trap-master allows his neighbours to “haul the trap,” receiving in return a small proportion of cured fish. Now certain positions are thought better than others for setting these traps, with the result that there is every spring a race from Newfoundland to get them, like our members of parliament race for seats. The law does not allow traps to be set till a certain day, and the leading net must be put out to secure the berth—a top hat on a bench is not sufficient—and unless within four days the whole trap is set, the claim becomes void. Thus, while the ice was still on the shores of Labrador, a steamer was sent ahead with numbers of men, each armed with “a trap leader,” to get ahead of the sailing schooners which were working their perilous way along inside the floe ice. In one case, after the best berths had thus been taken, the nets to complete the traps did not turn up till after the prescribed four days. Meanwhile another crew had pulled up their nets and pounced on the coveted prizes. Again, some men were landed with “leaders” on one station late at night. “No sail in sight. We’ll secure our berths to-morrow morning.” During the night, however, a southerly wind brought in two schooners, and during the hours of darkness these secured the prize while the others slept.

Snug Harbour.

The “cod-seine” ranks second in importance among nets in Labrador. It is of prodigious size, up to 60 feet deep, requiring seven men to work it, and is used either to bar an inlet, or to shoot round a shoal of cod in deep water. The seine master stands, fish-glass in hand, high on the bow of the seine skiff, as his stalwart crew, with eight huge pine oars, drive the boat along, perhaps hour after hour. The vast net is piled up on the stern, while one man stands on the thwarts, steering with his oar like an Italian gondolier. Suddenly “Easy all!” is cried; “Hold her up!” and the seine master peers down into the water with his glass. A school of fish is on the bottom. Swiftly the net anchor is dropped, and the net is paid out astern as the willing backs bend to the oars and force the skiff round and home to the starting place, marked by a gaily-painted buoy. Thus the whole school are enclosed. Now the weighted foot rope is “gathered” together, the net has become one vast bag, and the prisoners are dealt with as before, i.e. dipped out and bagged off.

The gill net is rarely used in Labrador now. In Norway it is still a favourite method. Twenty to twenty-four nets, eighty feet long and about fifty feet deep, are “shot” in water of from twenty to sixty fathoms, or even in ninety fathoms, as many as three to four thousand cod being meshed at one time. Under certain circumstances nets are no use, e.g., on the great banks, or late in the season in Labrador. Lines must then be used, and it is advisable to use bait on the hook. To us accustomed to row out and catch a few codling with a mussel, the subject of “baits” has apparently little interest. But out here it has become a subject of international importance. The fact is, mussels are too soft, coming off the hook too readily, and also cod are a fastidious fish, and will only condescend to swallow that “poisson” which is in season. True, it is not essential to bait the hooks at all. Instead you may take two large hooks, fix them back to back with a piece of lead, which will act at once as bait and sinker. Lower this to the bottom, and then keep jerking it up and down. Often you will strike fish as fast as you can work, using one line in each hand. This method, called “jigging,” eventually injures the fishery, probably because numbers of fish escape after being wounded, and others follow them, possibly to devour them, more than five being injured for one caught. The fishermen say the injured warn their friends, but a fish’s appreciation of pain is somewhat doubtful.

Sailors have told me of sharks which, after being caught and having had their livers cut out, will continue to pursue and swallow the same piece of pork as long as sufficient vitality remains in them to keep pace with the vessel; nay, even that, after being cut in half, the “bow end” will still wriggle after the bait, when the ship is becalmed in the doldrums. But Jack is prejudiced against sharks.

Bait is necessary, however, in deep water, a fact that led the Newfoundland Government to pass the famous “Bait Act,” rendering it illegal to supply the French with bait in the hope of destroying their banking industry. Alas! laws are easier to make than enforce, and the worst sufferers were those who formerly made out of this supply an honest livelihood.

Octopus and Squid is facile princeps among baits for cod. Yet the cod must be circumspect in indulging this weakness, and confine his attention to those of tender years, for these cephalopods attain to enormous size at times in these waters. Thus the Rev. Dr. Harvey (F.R.S., Canada), of St. Johns, narrates how, while recently two Newfoundlanders were out fishing in their little rowing boat, two enormous arms rose out of the water, seized the boat, and endeavoured to drag it below the surface. Fortunately a chopper lay at hand in the boat, and the great beast, after losing two of his arms, sank amidst volumes of black ink. The parts of arms cut off were nineteen feet long, and are now preserved in St. Johns Museum. Shortly after another was secured by Dr. Harvey, which had been found floating, dead. Its grasp embraced forty feet. Again, in 1772 Cartwright caught one seven feet long without head or tentacles. The beaks of these fish resemble a parrot’s, and in large specimens are far more solid than human teeth.

Catching octopus is exciting work. A number of row-boats are anchored close together outside some point of land, and the fishermen are lazily jigging up and down a little bright red leaden weight, bristling with wire spikes. Suddenly a stir—all are working with might and main. A company of squids are passing and flying on the jiggers like vampires; the red weights are being grabbed voraciously. Beware as you get him on board. Suddenly he relaxes his grasp, and shoots out a jet of ink, which smarts considerably in one’s eyes, and leaves weird patterns on white linen. They swim backwards and at great pace after their prey. Salted down, these squid fetch fifteen to fifty cents per hundred. “Bankers” pay ten to twenty cents per hundred.

Caplin I have mentioned. They are taken in fine meshed seine nets or in cast nets thrown from the shoulder like the “retiarius” of old threw his.

Herrings form a very excellent bait. They are caught in gill nets anchored out in likely spots, and these are emptied every day. Our English drift nets are rendered impossible by the icebergs and sudden storms, with no harbour lights in case of emergency at night, and herring see the net in daytime. Herrings have been kept frozen, and then found to serve as excellent bait. A new way to freeze these is to half fill a barrel with broken ice, salt and herrings, and then roll it well over and over. Thus a constant supply of bait at known places might be maintained in fixed ice houses; a much needed arrangement, for much time and money is lost by the uncertain supply of bait. Launce or sand eels have often to be used, but can only be taken on sandy bottoms, perhaps miles from a fishing station. Then several crews club together, and lend men in turns to row the bait skiff as many as twenty-four miles, sharing up the bait when it arrives. Occasionally they pay shares for a small launch to keep up a regular supply. White fish, a small fish taken in surface seines, are occasionally used, and also sometimes whelks.

CHAPTER VIII

THE TRUCK SYSTEM

Cod alone is fish in Labrador diction. Cod is the coin of the realm. Money is scarcely known, and no other medium of exchange is used by the people, whose raison d’être almost is cod. All live on goods advanced on credit, to be paid for by their catch of cod. This truck system, is the next of kin to the old feudal system, and has long been extinct in most civilized countries. It seems the early treatment of Newfoundland by England is partly responsible for the rise of this baneful system, which it is now difficult to remove. The struggling fisherman knows it is a state of bondage, but cannot get out of it; the merchant knows its disadvantages outweigh its profits; while the colony must recognise that it is alone the cause of so many of its younger and more energetic men leaving the country as soon as they can see their way to do so—for no race loves its country with more patriotic affection than do Newfoundlanders.

Up to the end of the eighteenth century no one was allowed to remain in Newfoundland after the fishing season, each captain of a fishing vessel being held responsible, under heavy penalty, to bring back all his crew to England; while if any one did desert and remain behind to be near the fishing grounds, and to reap the harvest of the sea for his own benefit, his stage, and even house and goods, might be appropriated by the first fishing captain out next year. This made it only possible for fishermen to go out when some merchant capitalist would finance the voyage, who, in return, repaid himself out of the fish caught.

Now many vessels were sent out, and though the catch of fish by any individual vessel was uncertain—for fish set into one place one year and another the next—the whole catch would generally repay the merchant amply. But as in some cases all vessels of one merchant might do badly, a large price was charged on goods advanced as a further security for the merchant, that in any case he might be quite sure to recoup himself for his outlay. And lastly, though there might be no immediate return in fish or cash, yet the fishermen at once began to accumulate a large nominal debt; and though possibly, and even probably, they would never be able to liquidate this, yet the fact of their being indebted to any particular merchant insured their fishing for him year after year. Thus, perhaps, the best issue for the merchant at settling time seemed in every case to be a debt by each man, but not large enough to make the fisherman despair and so fish badly. Thus the successful fisherman had to pay for his unsuccessful brother’s deficits. The fishermen soon found this out, and were not only soured against their suppliers, but lost the incentive to make any effort to discharge their whole debts. The merchant now found it difficult to make ends meet through bad debts, and was led to buy in the fish himself, insisting on the fishermen not paying in cash, but fish. Each year the commercial body fixed its own price for fish, punished those of their men who sold the fish for cash if they could do so, and themselves resold the fish in foreign markets, gaining a second profit when possible. Thus large nominal debts arose, which in hundreds of cases the men could never hope to liquidate. The spirit of pauperism was directly fostered, the men becoming absolutely dependent on the charity of their merchants, and in many cases from year to year never knowing how much they really owed.

This system persists to-day, as an evil heirloom, dragging down both merchant and fisherman. To-morrow’s labour is ever mortgaged ahead for food to-day. At last a time comes when no longer any hope of return from certain men can be expected. The advances are suddenly cut off, and these men, deprived of their usual source of supply, fall back on government relief, till to-day over one-third and nearly half of the whole revenue of the country is spent in pauper relief. The recipients are frequently able-bodied men, and yet they have no shame in accepting it, looking on the government as an independent source of wealth, and calling their annual six to twenty-four dollars “a government appointment.”

Thus the system has played into the hands of idleness and dishonesty also; for though all a man’s catch is nominally his merchant’s, he is tempted to keep some part back and sell it elsewhere, that he may have some ready money to spend when he returns. Thus one man who has already more fish than would pay his own debt, will accept fish from another heavily in debt, and turn it in to his merchant as his own, handing over afterwards the money or goods he obtained in return to his friend, and perhaps deducting a shilling a quintal for the risk involved. A far more common way is to take and sell your fish right away to another firm. All are generally glad to get fish anyhow; for not only is it a loss to send away a ship without a full freight, but also there is a great race to get vessels away first each year, as the first in the market will realize a higher price for their cargo throughout. To prevent this the various firms agreed at one time not to buy fish from another merchant’s planters. But this fell through, and now only a careful watch is kept on how much fish each man has as the season progresses, and the amount compared with what he delivers to his merchant. Any man caught alienating much fish would not receive any advance in future, though most firms are anxious to get all the men they can.

The advances are made in May or early June. When the fish has been put on board the vessels for market in October, notes of credit are sent to the merchants thus:—

Received from......., .... qlts. ... qrs. ... lbs. of Labrador fish.

To Messrs. .........,      qlts. ... qrs. ... lbs. of Merchantable fish.

Per Agent.......

Then, as soon as the total catch can be roughly estimated, the Chamber of Commerce meet in St. Johns and decide what price they will give for fish. The credit notes are at once cashable at that price, cargoes being all insured. Each firm then credits its planters and men with their catch at that price, and a balance is struck between the total and the amount of each one’s advance in May. If a surplus remains, it goes to provide the fisherman with his winter’s diet. Now a good catch for a fisherman is 100 quintals of dry fish, or 300 quintals of green. On an average 100 fish go to the quintal, that is, each man must catch 30,000 fish. Each quintal is worth in St. Johns from 2-1/2 to 3 dollars, so that 275 dollars is a good season, less 30 dollars for salt 245 dollars, or about £50. It must be remembered many will only average 20 quintals some years, or 50 dollars, not £50. The average catch per head for “bank” fishermen last year was 47-1/2 quintals. How often a man will be dependent, therefore, on charity for a supply of food for himself and his family during the winter becomes apparent.

Often the winter’s diet that can be laid in is all too small for the needs of the family; and before the breaking up of the ice once more allows cod-fishing to commence, and the planters to return from Newfoundland, the poor Livyeres are reduced to living on “the landwash.” “A short feast and a long famine” is a coast epigram.

Clothing is perhaps most difficult to find money for, and is apt to become so scanty that the settler, for lack of proper protection from the weather, cannot prosecute his fishing or hunting, especially where the temperature falls to 50°, or even more, below zero. I met one poor fellow who years before had missed his way home at night and had had to sleep out in the open. He had lost both feet from frost-bite. One can realize the need for woollen clothing. When near Winnipeg, in North Manitoba, I saw a young Englishman, who had been caught out in a blizzard, and had lost both hands and both feet at the wrists and ankles from frost-bite. But a still more vicious circle is established when, to procure food for this winter, a settler has to part with his means of “killing a voyage” next summer. The following is a case in point as related to me on the spot:—

Some three years ago, at Big Bight, a Mr. Olliver, with his wife and five children, had fallen into great poverty. At last in spring, when all his food was exhausted, he set out, taking his last possessions, an old Jack plane and a trout net, with him. Having no dogs, he had to travel afoot over the ice and snow. At last he came to the house of the best-off settler about, Mr. Tosten Anderson, a Norwegian, and a splendid fellow. When asked for food, Mr. Anderson, showing all the flour he had, said, “To part with any more than I have done, means we must all starve together.” This was thirty to forty miles from his own home. He then went on twelve miles to a Mr. James Thomas, whose reply was just the same. Two days later he reached Richard Blomfield’s house on his way back. Here he met the same reply again. No more was heard till three days later, when Blomfield was summoned to the Ollivers’ house. On the middle of the floor, his coat off and his gun by his side, lay Mr. Olliver, shot through the head. In a heap in one corner lay the three youngest children, scarcely dead from blows from an axe lying near them. Apparently determined to spare those who might provide for themselves, he had sent out first his wife and eldest daughter to search for food, and his eldest boy to search for birds. Mr. Blomfield told me he supposed that the cries of the hungry children proved too much for the poor father. Truly Virginius of old acted in much the same way.

This, of course, is an extreme case, and in order to arrive at a fair conclusion, we took, as far as possible, a census of the Livyeres—noting the numbers and ages of children—the proportion that could read and write, and the number each had of gallons of molasses, barrels of flour or pork, pounds of tea, and tobacco, which, alas, nearly all use, however poor and unable to afford luxuries. That a very large proportion had a quite insufficient quantity of food became beyond question. It must be remembered it is not a question of how much they can buy, but how much a supplier is willing to give to people already heavily indebted to him, only a few being independent enough to pay down for what they take. Government aid, sea birds, seals, trout, willow grouse, and rabbits, i.e. arctic hares, are the supplemental sources available. The Newfoundlanders are too often only little better off than Labradormen, and I have many piteous accounts of parents themselves suffering chronic starvation in order to supply their little ones with the necessities of life. Soon, it is sincerely to be hoped, the interior of Newfoundland will be opened up. All look to the new railway to turn the attention of many to the cultivation of the land, which will at least help to render existence more easy. It is reasonable to hope also that the new sealing laws, the new fishery restrictions, and Mr. Adolph Neilsen’s magnificent work at the fish hatchery and lobster incubation, are the presages of happier times. But the people can never be free, industrious, and contented, until the truck system is dead and buried.[14]

[14] December, 1894. And now the long impending crash has come—both the banks of Newfoundland have failed, and ten out of twelve merchants’ firms have had to suspend payment, while the masses of the population are face to face with absolute starvation. The Truck System has entailed ruin on all concerned in it, and has brought the country to the verge of bankruptcy. There are not few, however, who see in these terrible events the promise of better things. A better system of trade must arise, a better relation between labour and capital, a better era for this oldest of England’s colonies. “Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.” God grant it may be so in this case.

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A visit from Eskimo.

CHAPTER IX

RESULTS OF THE FIRST VISIT

November, 1892, saw the Albert once more in St. Johns Harbour, after having spent seventy-eight days on the coast. She had visited many harbours, treated 900 patients, distributed much clothing and literature, and collected much valuable information; while Mr. Adolph Neilsen, superintendent of Newfoundland fisheries, who had joined the Albert during the greater part of her cruise, had been carrying on scientific observations calculated to directly benefit the fishing industry. Daily services had been held, at which thousands in all had been present, and not a few had confessed openly aboard their intention, by God’s help, to live new lives.

On arriving in a new harbour, our large blue flag, now known along the whole coast as the herald of good things, had always proved a sufficient call to prayers. We found no need for adventitious attractions; where opportunities are so few, we found men and women only too glad to come and join in simple praise to God for mercies past, and prayer for the unknown future before them. Here the uncertainty of things seen, renders things unseen more real, while the impotence of man being so evident, makes the power of his Maker more intensely felt, and the anxiety to be ever ready to meet Him more deeply earnest. Even the sceptic has acknowledged it means something, this “coming to Christ” of the fisherman. His faith, unburdened by “higher criticisms,” or convenient interpretations, sees in his Master’s words a call to follow Him, on earth as well as in heaven. Often I have watched men tremble and hesitate, time after time, when God’s Spirit seems striving with them, before the final step is taken. For they count well the cost beforehand, and realize fully the weakness of their own natures. But once “over the line” means following Christ to them—means coming out, being separate, marked men. The world sets for them no higher standard than they set for themselves, and their self-sacrificing fidelity to their ideal has stirred the heart of more than one Christian worker. There is little half-and-half following, little “coasting” for fear of “launching out,” such as saps to-day the joy and rejoicing of thousands of professed Christians. A fisherman knows if he has “tacked ship,” and is on the Lord’s side, or on the other side. Often they say, “I should like to be”; almost never, “I hope I am.”

For visiting places inaccessible to the ship, from the fact that they lay among dangerous rocks, or up narrow creeks, or because they only offered shelter to small boats, we had taken with us a twenty-five foot whale-boat, the Alfred, which we rigged with two lug-sails and a jib. In this we made many journeys. Once we capsized her; once lost our way in the fog, and had a nasty half-hour, with wind rising, and fearing we were making out to sea as we ran before it, till the thunder of the surf warned us of the land, and the bottom of towering cliffs, white with Atlantic breakers, broke suddenly into view. We had to abandon the boat that night, and walk home over the hills; but we managed to fetch her home, close-reefed under shelter of the back of the islands, next day. It so happened that where we landed two or three couples wanted marrying. No chance had offered for several years, so one couple determined at once to return to the ship with us for that ceremony, as we had at the time a visiting minister on board. It was late at night before we got there, but we decided (1) any hour was better than none, and (2) that in a lonely harbour, on a solitary ship (and as they already had three children), “pronouncing the banns might be dispensed with.” So we adjourned to the cabin, and proceeded to business at once. The skipper was best man and I was witness, while the steward and crew, who had previously decorated the cabin with bunting, together with one or two Livyeres from the creek, were congregation. After all was over, hard biscuits and tea were served, in lieu of a wedding breakfast, while the occasion was honoured from a few old fowling-pieces and by a couple of dynamite distress rockets on the Albert’s deck. Altogether, we visited in the Alfred and the Albert some thirty-five harbours, exertions which so told on the Alfred’s constitution that now she is taking her last rest at Great Yarmouth.

Our dingey also upset in Domino Run, when endeavouring to get ashore; an accident which proved nearly fatal to the ship’s carpenter, for he happened to come up under the sail, and was unable to swim. Happily it only ended in an undignified rescue. A more serious accident happened to the Albert’s winch, for in Winsor Harbour, while letting go the anchor, a catch got wrong and stripped off all the teeth of the cog-wheels. After this we were unable to get our anchor in, except with the help of a great many men, for it was impossible to replace the cog-wheel on the Labrador. It was quite a sight on leaving harbours to see often fifty men, who had come off voluntarily, “walking in” the anchor by means of a system of pulleys, each as he came to the stern of the ship trotting back to catch hold of the rope again near the bow, a continuous chain of men being thus maintained, and all singing, as they pulled, one of the old shanty songs to assist them to pull together. The names of the harbours we entered were, if old Eskimo names, long and unpronounceable, such as Nukasasuktok; if French, often almost unrecognisable, thus Cape d’Espoir has become Cape Despair; if English, often descriptive of some incident, such as Run-by-Guess, Seldom-Come-By, Ice Tickle, Cutthroat Island, Split-Knife Harbour, Bakeapple Bight, Tumbledown Dick Island, and so on.

Moravian Station, Hopedale.

When visiting up the bays our chief enemies were always the mosquitos. These are a very real scourge, for, like the black fly and sand fly, which also exist in myriads, they bite very severely, and we found them at times so thick that it was difficult to breathe without inhaling them. Even the “Livyeres” seldom, if ever, get accustomed to them, while it is at times impossible to send Newfoundland crews up inlets for firewood.

Our medical cases had included many and various ailments, especially of the eye, the lungs, and the skin. Many teeth, of course, had called for attention; and the forceps had on more occasions than one been the way to a man’s heart. If you do not believe this, try a week’s toothache at sea without remedies.

Among many interesting cases was that of one poor fellow, who fourteen days previously had accidentally shot off both his arms below the elbows. Since that time he had lain on his back, with nothing but an oily rag over the wounds. As we went into his hut he held up the raw stumps piteously, from which, in each case, some inches of bare bone protruded. What could be done was done to relieve his agony, but the poor fellow died of exhaustion after an operation on the stumps. The night we were leaving that harbour it was dark and blowing as I clambered out over the rocks, to signal for the ship’s boat about 10 p.m. There I found waiting for me the poor man’s wife, who, in a flood of tears, gratefully wrung my hands, till I too felt a choking sensation about the throat. There was something so real in her sorrow, now left still more lonely on that lonely coast.

One day a silver-haired old fisherman came aboard for advice. “All my three sons died this summer from diphtheria, sir,” he told me. “I buried them all the same week. My eldest was nineteen, and he lasted out the fever; but he couldn’t swallow, and I did not know how to feed him.” “What did you do?” “Well, I tied a split herring round his throat—some say that is good—but he starved to death before my eyes. It is hard for us now to get along, with no one to help me tend the nets. You see I’m not so young now as I was.”

One poor woman, with a tumour of the leg, one day sent for “the mission doctor.” She couldn’t walk for it, she said, and life had become a burden. We told her, “An operation will make you quite well, and we can put you to sleep while it is done.” She would not take chloroform, however, and so we thought all was over. Next morning another message summoned me to the cottage, where I found five strong men waiting. “These men have promised to hold me, doctor, while you take that away. But I may bawl, mayn’t I?” In quarter of an hour all was completed, and my plucky patient was laughing loudest at the queer scene; for bawl she had, indeed, “to keep me from thinking of it,” she said. But the men held on well, and in ten days she was all healed, and was up and walking.

Among our most interesting visits had been that to Hopedale, the most southern station of the Moravian missionaries; but I must leave to a later chapter a description of the Eskimo, of whom we saw a good deal. There were three Moravians and their wives here, the oldest having lived in Labrador twenty-seven years. Once a year they communicate with England by the good ship Harmony, which, with its predecessors, has been visiting the coast for one hundred and twenty years. These men are true followers of the Saviour in the self-sacrificing spirit, which draws them to live their lives out on so barren and deserted a coast. At seven years old their children leave them for ever, to be educated in Germany, and then find an occupation in life. In one harbour, Zoar, was a lonely missionary and his wife, who had just sent home their eighth and last child, a little girl of seven years. “Can you not bring me a baby from England? we are so lonely now,” said the good man’s wife to me. Even to get a wife they must write home, and one is chosen by lot for them. After our visit, they wrote as follows:—

Hopedale, Labrador,

September 7th.

To the Council of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.

Gentlemen,—On behalf of the Moravian Mission here I would ask you to accept our warmest thanks for sending your ship, the Albert, to visit us and our people, cut off as we are for so many months in the year from the rest of the world. We feel by its visit that we are within your thoughts. For the comfort we have found in having our hands spiritually strengthened by the presence of other Christian men; for what benefit we have received from medical attendance in our Mission house and in our congregation; for the kind gift of books for our library, and for the blessing we had in joining these meetings kept, and for the pleasure we have had in meeting all those we met from the Albert, we beg you to accept our most hearty thanks. May our Lord and Saviour bless your work everywhere, as He has done it here among the fishermen and at our Station.

With kind and brotherly love, we remain your brethren in Christ,

P. M. Hansen,

Moravian Missionary.

In Hopedale Harbour we stayed many days, for hundreds of vessels kept calling in on their way south; for winter was then approaching, and already cod-trap boats going to their nets had had to cut through two inches of new ice.

On our arrival in St. Johns it was thought advisable to report the results and deductions from this experimental voyage. Accordingly his Excellency the Governor, Sir Terence O’Brien, invited the leading citizens acquainted with the fishery to meet at Government House. The report showed that (1) much needless suffering, limbs and special functions, besides life itself, were to be saved by the possibility of obtaining skilled assistance in the first instance; the famous sealing master, Captain Sam Blandford, who was present, stating that while he had charge of the mail steamer plying on the coast, seventeen unfortunate people had died aboard without possibility of proper treatment. (2) That even that year twenty-nine persons had died at one harbour in Labrador of diphtheria without being able to get a doctor’s help—nay, more, no one would take their fish or visit them to trade a winter’s supply. (3) That the doctor on the small mail steamer was so short a time in each harbour, and the time of his arrival so uncertain, that the people had little confidence in the few moments possible to devote to each case, even if they were fortunate enough to see the doctor at all, while it was impossible to undertake any serious case with success. (4) That poverty and starvation directly result from sickness or accident to the breadwinner being left untreated. After the report the following proposition was moved by the Hon. A. Harvey, and supported by Sir Wm. Whiteway, premier, and Sir Robert Thorborne, ex-premier, which was carried unanimously:—

“Resolved—That this meeting, representing the principal merchants and traders carrying on the fisheries, especially on the coast of Labrador, and others interested in the welfare of this colony, desires to tender its warmest thanks to the directors of the Deep Sea Mission for their philanthropic generosity in sending their Hospital ship Albert to visit the fishing settlements on the Labrador coast....

“Much of our fishing industry is carried on in regions beyond the ordinary reach of medical aid or of charity, and it is with the deepest sense of gratitude that this meeting learns of the amount of medical and surgical work done, besides all the other relief and help so liberally distributed. This meeting also desires to express the hope that the directors of the Mission may see their way to continuing the work thus begun, and should they do so they may be assured of the earnest co-operation of all classes of this community.”

His Excellency the Governor then nominated a committee to help to perpetuate and extend the operations of the Mission in Labrador. One merchant present, Mr. W. Baine Grieve, presented to the Mission a house at Battle Harbour for the first hospital.

The Albert soon after left for England. She reached Yarmouth on December 1st, where she received a hearty reception from the many friends of the work.

In the report of the Chamber of Commerce of Newfoundland the following reference to the work was included:—

“A new feature worthy of mention in this report, affecting as it does, more or less, the comfort of 20,000 or 30,000 of our people, was the appearance on the Labrador coast of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen ship Albert, outfitted by a philanthropic society in England, non-sectarian in its lines, and intended to afford skilled medical aid to, and provide to some extent for the mental and material wants of our fishermen. This essay has been an unqualified success, and has evoked from the recipients of its bounty expressions of deep gratitude, while at the same time it has engendered in the breasts of all who are interested in the welfare and prosperity of the Colony feelings that must strengthen the bonds which bind this comparatively neglected dependency to the Mother Country. The vivid portraiture, by the doctor in charge, of his own personal experiences on the coast is likely to result in well-organized co-operation by the Colony next season upon the lines on which the Mission ship is being worked.”

And in February, 1893, the following resolution was received from the St. Johns Committee:—

“That this representative Committee will undertake to provide two suitable buildings which may be used as hospitals by the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, should the Council of the Mission signify their intention to continue their operations on the coast of Labrador, and the Committee will heartily co-operate in any other way that the Council of the Society may suggest.

“That a copy of the foregoing resolution be forwarded to Dr. Grenfell for the information of the Society.

“(Signed) {T. O’Brien, Governor, Chairman.

{M. Monroe, Secretary.”

The council of the Mission replied that they were prepared to fit out a second expedition, and to undertake the working of the two hospitals.

During the rest of February, March, and April the captain of the Albert and myself held meetings in various towns, in the endeavour to raise money to carry on the work. Meanwhile we sent out directions for the fitting up of the house given by Mr. Baine Grieve at Battle Harbour, and also plans for a wooden hospital, to be built in sections in St. Johns, for transference to Indian Harbour, at the entrance to Eskimo Bay, one hundred and eighty miles further north.

In April an earnest appeal was made for money to obtain a steam launch, to assist the Albert, by visiting otherwise inaccessible places, and by towing her in and out of narrow harbours. At the same time preparations were being pushed ahead at Yarmouth. The Albert was once more recalled from her work in the North Sea. She was victualled for six months, refitted as far as necessary, and stored with the clothing, woollens, and literature which had been in the process of collection all winter. A crew was shipped, and by the 1st of May she was all ready to sail. Our whaler had been knocked to pieces last year, and we had to get a new boat to replace it, or trust still to the money coming in for a steam launch.

Arrangements had been made for the Albert to visit one or two English seaports on her journey out, in order to solicit further help, amongst others Exeter, Swansea, and Bristol, whence she was to sail direct to St. Johns. Still the money had not come in. While, however, we were at Bristol, our boat still unbought, the joyful news reached us, “Money necessary for a launch has now come in.” The Albert touched last of all at Swansea, where a suitable rowing boat, the Mary Grenfell, was presented to her. In Chester we found the most suitable launch for the money we had—an oak-built, copper-fastened boat, with simple 9-inch engine, six years of age, though only little work had been done in her. She was forty-five feet long. Her great defect was her width, which was only eight feet, so that, being carvel-built, she would roll most dreadfully. However, while the Albert sailed across to Queenstown we fitted out the launch at a total cost of £325, and arranged to ship it direct by Allan line steamer Corean to St. Johns. On June 1st I joined the Albert at Queenstown, and next morning we set sail for Newfoundland.

The hospital committee had meanwhile appointed A. O. Bobardt, M.B., M.R.C.S., of Melbourne, Australia, and King’s Hospital, and Eliot Curwen, M.B., B.A., of Cambridge and the London Hospital, as medical missionaries for the two hospitals. These sailed with us in the Albert. They had also appointed Miss Cecilia Williams and Miss Ada Carwardine to act as matrons and nurses under the doctors, and had arranged for them to sail by the same steamer as the launch. We had three dirty days on the way out, and once were at close quarters with a large iceberg, but the Albert again quitted herself well, and on our arrival in St. Johns we again experienced the greatest of kindness. Our committee had collected some fifteen hundred dollars. A meeting was at once called, and a small executive of two members were appointed for each hospital, the Hon. M. Monroe acting for Battle Harbour and Mr. W. C. Job for Indian Harbour.

On the arrival of the launch she was at once put into order for starting, while the nurses joined the Albert, as the best way to reach their respective stations. Meanwhile the Indian Harbour hospital was sent on by steamer to Labrador. But a pleasing function yet remained to be done—the christening of the new launch. A telegram had reached us that the Princess May, who had long been interested in the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, had consented to allow it to be named after her. Accordingly on May 6th, amidst much rejoicing and display of bunting, Her Excellency Lady O’Brien christened our launch the Princess May.

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CHAPTER X

OUR SECOND SEASON

On Friday, July 7th, with a steward, an engineer, and Dr. Bobardt as my companion, the Princess May left St. Johns for Labrador, the Albert having left the previous day. It was not without some feelings of misdoubt that we first encountered the swell of the Atlantic, knowing we should not make harbour till night; and as we had two large bays to cross, none of us being familiar with the coast, we had hoped for a clear day to enable us to keep the land in sight; but here again we were disappointed, for the rebound from the cliffs forced us to stand out half a mile to sea, and a dense fog shut everything from view. Not having yet given the launch a trial ourselves, and she being six years of age, we were not surprised after the first five miles, when the engineer sang out, “Sprung a leak, sir; shall we put back?” An examination revealed the fact that we could stop the leak with a wood plug; and so to disappoint some few “croakers,” who had “told us so,” we settled to stand on. Our compass having only a card disc, and not being filled with spirit to steady it, proved very unsteady, our narrow width, of only eight feet, making us roll very rapidly. We adopted the method of endeavouring to steer midway between the extreme points the needle swung to, and then to keep one point inside our course so that we should not run out to sea. Very shortly this resulted in bringing us up straight before a perpendicular cliff. Evidently our compass was incorrect. An examination revealed that its box had been screwed on to the cabin with large iron screws, the proper binnacle having been broken on the voyage out, and being still at the optician’s in St. Johns. These we soon extracted, and making a fresh start to the nor’ard sighted Bacalhao Island, about forty miles from St. Johns, at mid-day.

Not having sighted any more land by 5 p.m., we began to think it was time to turn inshore, and after some time found ourselves suddenly amidst numbers of ragged rocks and small islands. Our chart book described on the north side of Trinity Bay some “Ragged Islands”; and we guessed we had struck among these, so once more we stood out into the fog. Shortly a weird noise attracted our attention. We stopped and listened. Yes, it was a fog-horn. This confirmed our recent diagnosis of “Ragged Islands,” and once more we knew where we were. Night saw us safely berthed in Catalina Harbour, where we managed to coal ship before going to rest. With no small feelings of satisfaction we went below that night. True the locker was hard to lie on, but the anxiety and subsequent success of that first day was a sure soporific, combined with the fact that the previous night had been none too restful, for we had then no confidence in the powers of the Princess May. Here we found our compass was still incorrect, so we unshipped it altogether and carried it forward, to be further from the magnetic influence of certain iron handles. Right gaily we left harbour next morning, but outside found a new experience. The wind had veered round and was blowing on shore, with a chilling drizzly rain to enhance the effect of the nasty lop of the sea. Our loose deck gear began to go overboard, and among it our boat-hook took leave of us. Being heavy at one end it disappeared from sight at once. It was gaily painted black and white, and we were sorry to lose it, being our only one. As I looked back it suddenly rose again, lifting its painted handle high out of water, as if to ask for help. We couldn’t well desert it after that, and so went round to pick it up. Our log has no record of the number of circles we completed; but if the reader has ever pursued a stick with one heavy end in a choppy sea, he will find it usually disappears just as the vessel has completed the tedious manœuvres necessary to come up to it. The next question was, should we venture further? The mail steamer was just coming out behind us, and it wouldn’t look well to give up. We would try for Cape Bonavista. By ten o’clock the Cape was safely rounded, and the wind increasing we determined to lay into the Bay, which is twenty-eight miles across. We should not have reached Greenspond, north of the bay, that night, had we steamed the course we intended; but after some hours steaming and seeing no land, we spied a fishing boat, and went alongside for information as to our locality. We found we were already across the bay to our great surprise and joy. It appeared that Dr. Bobardt, who had steered all day, had headed two points to the westward of his course.

Interior of Male Ward, Indian Harbour.

We were loath to steam on Sunday, but our next run round Cape Freels was a most difficult one, from the numberless off-lying rocks and shoals. So when three a.m. showed a clear horizon and a calm sea, we started off. Alas, fog fell on us shortly, and left us threading our way through the labyrinth. Now and again we could see bottom, and at times some rock near the surface, over which at intervals the swell would break with a noise like thunder. The Princess May did well this day—covering eighty miles—and the mail steamer, which had only just reached and was anchored for the night in Toulinguet Harbour, was surprised to see us come in and tie up alongside. The fourth day saw us on the French shore, as we rounded Cape John at mid-day. Here, however, we met a strong head wind, against which we had no alternative but to steam. Now, to provide some kind of cabin, a little house had been built into the fore-part of the launch, with a square glass front, being inside just about the size and shape of the ordinary ’bus. As we steamed into the head sea, it was just up to this part of the cabin, which projected a couple of feet above deck, that the launch dived, with the result that a sort of water spout was thrown up and then dropped on deck. Yet, as everything was closed up, no water got below, and we managed to make a harbour to the north side of the headland. The water, however, got everywhere but below, and we were glad of a change after dropping anchor.

At almost all the places we called at along the French shore, we found the people very poor and but little educated. Unfortunately in Newfoundland the Sectarian School system prevails, with a most disastrous result among these poor and scattered communities. In all we found some who were anxious to avail themselves of the visit of a doctor. In many no qualified medical man ever goes; and on the part known to us, that is the east coast, there are none at all resident. In the lonely harbour we were now in, called Pacquet, a man soon emerged from the woods and came off to us in a boat. He was ill-clad and looked equally ill-fed, and his boy, who was with him, was suffering from a pustular disease of the skin, for which we prescribed. Though it was warm where we were anchored the inlet was still partially choked by two large icebergs, and our friend told us that want of a net, and indeed any proper fishing gear, as yet prevented their getting any fish. The mosquitos were here very numerous and very busy. It was impossible almost to go ashore even for fresh water from the river at the head of the inlet, and indeed when the dingey came back, a cloud of these bloodthirsty pests followed her to the launch, and invited themselves to spend the night in our already sufficiently crowded cabin. Professor Hind narrates an Indian tradition that mosquitos were created for the benefit of a saint, who, for disobedience, had been banished from heaven to a desert part of the earth. In her solitude she prayed for even flies as companions, whereupon mosquitos and black flies were created. This gave her plenty of employment till it was time for her to return, but the flies remained in order to teach men the folly of trying to divert their attention from the consequences of their sins by seeking amusement. Captain Whitbourne says they are of great use to make the idle work.

We were early astir next morning, and took a course for the St. Barbe Islands. But a breeze rising towards the land, we made a detour in order to cross White Bay, which is eighteen miles at its narrowest point, and so lay across till we were seven or eight miles only from land. Then we again headed north, and by nine o’clock, with a good breeze behind us, crossed Hare Bay and ran into St. Anthony Harbour. During the day a curious mirage had for some time kept us under the impression that we were hedged in by floe ice. We could see the vertical edge, the gleaming white top, and what appeared to be even cracks, fissures, and hummocks. It turned out to be only an optical illusion, and we found that it kept retreating before us all the afternoon like a will-of-the-wisp. At St. Anthony we were among friends of last year, so were soon ashore, and the day closed with a hearty service in the kitchen of the largest house.

The breeze increasing, delayed us a day in this port, but before daylight on the 13th we left for an attempt to cross the Straits of Belle Isle. As we rounded Cape Bauld a most magnificent crimson light lit up the whole horizon. Against it stood out many stately icebergs, rising weird and ghostly from the deep purple of the sea. One of immense height looked just like some gigantic cathedral, its gabled roof in the red glow shining like burnished gold, while ever and anon the stillness preceding dawn was broken by the deep boom of the Atlantic swell reverberating from some hollow chasm at its base, suggesting a mighty organ played in its vast recesses. No sooner had we passed it in silence than the engineer touched me on the arm and pointed back at its lordly summit. “Look, sir! isn’t that some one on the berg?” And there, sure enough, plain and sharp against the sky, on the crest, stood the figure of a man. But our glasses soon dispelled the illusion. It was but a pinnacle with a thin base, which, when thus seen edgeways, so closely resembled a human figure.

From here we headed for the Sacred Islands, and a breeze making up the straits, we ran in behind Cape Onion to see what sort of a day it was going to be, before we ventured to cross the straits. I was surprised, on landing, at the quantity and variety of wild flowers here. There were represented among many others, saxifrages, umbellifers, composites, ranunculi, primulas, and gentians. The insectivorous “Drosera” is common on the heights, and the beautiful “Linnæus borealis” nestles in among the scrub.

The country, viewed from the head, is very peculiar, being, as far as the eye could range, one immense flat plain, with quite as much water as dry land, from the innumerable winding ponds or lakes of fresh water.

By mid-day we ventured to make a start, and headed direct for Cape Charles, close inside the island of Belle Isle. As we brought the hills and steep cliffs of Labrador into view, we found there was still much snow in the gulfs and crevices; while it was necessary carefully to thread our way among the numbers of icebergs, which up to this very week had been blocking the straits. By sundown we sighted the flag-staff on Battle Island, and at 7.30 were once more alongside the Albert. A crowded gathering below decks closed the day, all being full of joy and hope at the prospect of another season’s work.

Next day the house given by Mr. Baine Grieve was inspected, and we found that Mr. Hall, the agent for the fishery, had already placed it almost in a condition for occupation. The Albert’s crew also had been at work—carpentering, painting, and landing heavy goods, such as bedsteads, bedding, food, drugs, and furniture.

Meanwhile, the hospital for Indian Harbour, at the mouth of Hamilton inlet, had been sent north, ready cut in sections in the coastal steamer, Winsor Lake. Two carpenters had also been sent north to work at its erection. Next day, therefore, our party divided again, the Albert going north to help with the second hospital, having on board Dr. Curwen and Sister Williams, while I, in the Princess May, went south along the straits of Belle Isle, Dr. Bobart and Sister Carwardine remaining at Battle. This arrangement was rendered possible by the agent extending his generous hospitality to the nurse and doctor indefinitely.

Our first run took us to Red Bay, where we at once were among friends of last year. Alas, poverty and want had laid their hands heavily on this place, and some families had been nearly naked and next door to starving all winter. Not only had 1892 been a poor fishery, but now the best chance for 1893, viz. the caplin school of cod, had come and gone, while densely packed ice, held in by persistent easterly winds, had prevented the men getting their nets out.

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CHAPTER XI

A Newfoundlander’s Hut, Labrador.

OUR VOYAGE CONTINUED

On our arrival in a harbour our method was, as last year, to hoist our blue flag to announce our arrival, to then visit any seriously sick I could hear of, after which we had evening service in a shed, stage, or house, and then, last of all, any could come for advice or assistance. To every family or vessel a good bundle of reading was given if they wished it, all the literature being selected at home as healthy and suitable for fishermen. If any wanted God’s Word, that, too, was to be had for asking for it; while a register was kept of all the poor, describing as accurately as we could the nature of the needs and deserts of each case, in order that when, at the end of the year, we divided up the warm clothing we had brought out, it should fall into the hands of the most deserving. In this way also we became possessed of a valuable record for future reference. Thus in one house when visiting a case, I found my patient to be the mother of a large family. The poor thing, who, with self-sacrificing courage, had refused to believe herself ill till she could get about no more, was lying on one single wood form in a bare and dirty room, her head close to an old cracked stove, behind which a crowd of shivering urchins were huddled together. The sickness was acute bronchitis and pleurisy, made worse by little clothing and less food. A haggard man meanwhile was pacing up and down, nursing a screaming and hungry baby. I pulled the children out from behind the stove for inspection; but their rags so failed to cover them, that each hastened back at once after the ordeal to the seclusion and warmth behind the old stove. The complete attire of one bony little mite was an old trouser leg, into which he was packed like a sack. All were alike barefooted.

Staying here over Sunday, I was the guest of a Labrador fisherman, rather better off than the majority, an erect, grey-haired man of about forty-five, standing some six feet two inches. His cottage, built with his own hands, was a pattern of neatness and cleanliness, but the bad seasons were compelling even him to desert the harbour, and try squatting farther along the coast. He was still the fortunate possessor, however, of a cod-trap (value about £80), by means of which he still hoped to end the year out of debt. He was the class leader for the neighbourhood, and had many years been standing on the Lord’s side, and, indeed, after the Wesleyan Missionary for the Straits, he was the backbone of the religious life of the place. Such an one, where every detail of one’s life is known, must indeed be an “Epistle read of all men,” of which fact he was well aware, as also, that his neighbours, while unable or undesirous to read God’s word for themselves, measured the claims of God on their own life very largely by his actions. This we found to obtain more or less along the whole coast, especially among these scattered communities, where little or no provision is made for their spiritual needs. When therefore Sunday morning broke, and a large iceberg was noticed drifting towards his cod-trap, threatening to deprive him of his means of earning his daily bread, he at first decided to go and spend the day working to save his net. But soon he came back, saying, “I’ve decided not to go, doctor; there are those in this harbour that only want a pretext for working on the Lord’s Day, and I’ll not be the one to give it them.” As we climbed the hill to the little wooden chapel I noticed him standing and greeting the people as they came along, according to his custom, as if forgetful of the fact that the mass of ice was at that moment probably robbing him of his all. We had three such services that day; the Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. John Sidey, was present, and more than one of our hearts were full at the evidence of the reality of God’s Spirit among this out-of-the-way, isolated people. Long before sunrise on Monday, indeed immediately after midnight, my good host was away in his boat after the wreck of his cod-trap, and by breakfast had returned, his face radiant with the same happy smile he always has, saying, “I knew it would be all right, doctor. The worst of the ice passed outside it; a few hours’ work, and we shall get it all right again.”

Interior of Indian Harbour Hospital.

In the Straits of Belle Isle we visited all the stations to Old Ford Island, about 100 miles from the entrance. At L’Anse au Loup, Blanc Sablon (the boundary between Canada and Newfoundland), and at Bonne Esperance, we found large stations for fishing, with numbers of men hard at work at the caplin school. We had quite a number of surgical and medical cases, including two of true (sailor’s) scurvy from want of proper food. At one place we were called to operate on the back of a French settler, at another on the arm of a poor Newfoundland schooner-man. In this last case I had the assistance of a Roman Catholic priest who was journeying along the coast.

While visiting in Forteau Bay we passed close to the wreck of H.M.S. Lily. We found here that a Beaver line steamer, the S.S. Lake Nepigon, had recently run ashore. While journeying down the straits she had struck on a whale-back iceberg, and was sinking head foremost, like the Victoria, when her captain succeeded in grounding her on one of the few bits of sand for miles. Her screw and rudder were practically out of water when she took the bottom, with her bows in 27 feet. The doctor aboard had spent three days on shore near, and had operated on one cancer of the lip and on an old compound dislocation of the wrist in a young girl. These came to us to have the stitches removed.

While returning from visiting a patient at Greenly Island in thick fog, we were unfortunate enough to run the Princess May ashore. It was as dark as pitch at the time, and we had burnt all our flares out while threading our way through a quantity of schooners at anchor. Two men on the bows of the boat, after a long pause to search for some guidance, had just given the word “all right ahead,” when we ran up on a flat-topped rock, and found that high, almost perpendicular, cliffs were only a few yards ahead. Throwing out our dingey, and removing all superfluous weight from the bows, we succeeded shortly in getting off; and guided by the stentorian shouts of some men from a schooner, alternating with their fog-horn, we found our way alongside and made fast to her. As we were too many even to lie down on the launch I went aboard the schooner, the hospitable skipper of which insisted on my turning into his bunk. He was only just back, apparently, with a load of fish from his traps, and hearing the echo of our voices from the cliffs had guessed something was wrong. He added, “there is fish to be had now, and so I don’t turn in at all myself”; and sure enough, after a shake down and some supper he and his crew disappeared into the foggy darkness for a fresh load from the trap, while sleep reigned supreme on board. He turned out to be a green-fish catcher, who was “making” his fish on his vessel.

Further along the straits, at Bonne Esperance, we met with a more serious mishap, for while returning from a visit up Salmon River our propeller refused to rotate, and we had to depend on our sail. The kindness of the first engineer of a sealing steamer (Mr. William Crossman) anchored in the harbour set us all right again, however, for he made us a complete set of new steel screws for our piston-top—our own had given out, and we neither had means of making new ones, or replacing them, in Labrador. After one or two other similar mishaps, but having treated some one hundred and fifty patients, and having received much kindness and a warm welcome wherever we had been, we reached Battle Hospital again on the 29th of July. We brought a dying fisherman the last 80 miles with us, which necessitated his sleeping three nights in my cabin. He was still in the prime of life, but pneumonia developed into gangrene of the lungs, and he subsequently died in Battle Harbour Hospital.

The Sunday passed pleasantly and rapidly among the people here. After evening service, held by the schoolmaster in the little church, we had a good “fishermen’s meeting.” Dr. Bobardt was away all day visiting sick people on a neighbouring island, and holding service among them. No patients were yet allowed in hospital, though it now only remained to cover the floors and get the stores in. Sister Carwardine had therefore arranged for the nursing of one poor woman, on whom an operation had been necessary, in a room of a cottage near at hand.

As the mail steamer was shortly expected, and would certainly bring patients for the hospital, the following day was spent by all hands in rendering the hospital inhabitable; and by evening our first patient was comfortably located in a room on the ground floor, while the sister spent her first night in hospital in an arm-chair.

Next day, before leaving for the north, Dr. Bobardt again being away visiting, I was called on to bury a poor fellow, father of a family of five, who had died from consumption in a neighbouring cove. The burial-ground is a small plot at the bottom of a deep ravine on the seaboard side of the island. On each side rose barren rocky crags, behind was the bleak island top, while in front lay the great Atlantic, bearing on its heaving bosom, as far as the eye could see, countless mighty icebergs. As the sad procession wound along the defile, carrying in its rude wood covering what was so recently a living, hopeful human being; as they laid it in its last long resting-place amidst these cold and desolate surroundings, the craving for something beyond the grave burnt fiercely in every heart; while the joy of knowing of a Heavenly Father, who has given us victory even over the grave, was realized as a priceless possession which the world cannot give—no, nor sell either.

Our next object was to visit the coast up to Indian Harbour, calling for coal and a few supplies left for us half-way up by the Albert, at a place called Bateau. In making a narrow inlet called Francis Harbour, we found much difficulty in getting in; for after long searching for the entrance, it proved to be blocked with ice, and a circuitous method inside an island was unknown to us. However, once inside the warmth of our welcome made up for the suspense outside, and after service in the neat and commodious parlour of the agent’s (Mr. Penny) house, we had a levée of sick visitors till midnight. We next entered a deep narrow cleft in a high mountain, running parallel with the sea, nowhere wider than a stone’s throw. It is very deep, and high hills of bright red rocks rise abruptly on both hands. On the outer side are perched houses and fishing stages. This is known as Venison Tickle. The agent (Mr. Hawker) received us most warmly, and being himself doctor, parson, planter, and all combined, took me round at once to the various sick and injured. One poor old fisherman, suffering from apoplectic paralysis, we sent to hospital at Battle, though we learnt from a schooner that already it was nearly full.

Landing on a low island as we passed north, we found the eider-duck nesting in considerable numbers, while in the little pools among the rocks were young ducks and young gulls in numbers. Of the latter we caught several for our stew-pot. We steamed thence fifteen miles to Boulter’s Rock Harbour by a long narrow channel inside two enormous islands, the passage being known as Squasho Run. Fog succeeded fog all along this part of the coast, and it was only by the help of volunteer local pilots we succeeded in finding many of the harbours.

One dark night, unable to find our way further, we dropped our anchor inside some outlying islands called Seal Islands. It seemed to us that we had hardly got straight and settled down for the night’s rest before we heard a boat bumping against our side. In such a lonely place, and in a thick drizzly fog at night, a superstitious person might well have started. Soon we heard the soft tread of a mocassin over the half-inch boarding which, covered with painted canvas, served us as a roof; then a bustling at the hatchway door, and soon the broad face of a half-breed Eskimo peered into the cabin. It appeared he had a very sick daughter at his hut on the island, near which no doctor ever went. He had heard of the Princess May being about; and seeing our cabin lights shining as he chanced to pass in his boat homewards, he had come in search of assistance. Soon, swathed in oilskins, I was sitting in the stern of his boat, while he swiftly rowed away into the darkness. Landing, and following closely behind him over broken rock for some quarter mile, brought me to his cottage, which, in true Labrador fashion, was well filled with inhabitants. Among them I found two seriously ill, one a young man of eighteen, the other a young married woman of about thirty. On this poor woman it was necessary to operate on our way south in order to save life even for the time; but as we had no hospital open in winter, she had to be left in that crowded hut to the tender mercies of the most unskilled of nurses, and though any communication with the island has been impossible since, I fear she will not have survived the winter.[15]

I was one day asked, a little further north, to visit a woman reported to have been ill in bed for three months, and who was living up a bay fully ten miles from any fishing station. At length, dropping our anchor off the spot indicated, which was the mouth of a large salmon river, we blew our whistle repeatedly to try and attract her husband’s attention. After some time a small boat put out with one man sculling in the stern. He seemed to approach warily, and the man piloting me took in the situation in a moment. As soon as the small boat was alongside, he greeted the oarsman with “It’s all up; come aboard and surrender quietly, or you will be shot down.” The condemning reply came back, “Indeed, sir, the river isn’t barred. It couldn’t be barred. No nets would hold across it. It never has been barred. I wouldn’t bar the river. You can come and see for yourself.” We got into his boat, and he started with us to the shore, when I asked him if the launch was safe at her anchorage, as darkness was coming on. The prompt reply was that she would be aground on rocks at low water, and that we had better steam across the inlet and anchor the other side, where it was soft and good holding ground, at which our engineer at once proceeded to get steam again. On landing, I asked for the sick woman, and was shown into the most miserable dark hovel I ever saw. By a wretched tin chimneyless lamp I examined my patient. She was lying clad in one old petticoat on a few sacks spread over a kind of built-up bunk. Her bodily ailments were fortunately not great, but as she told me, and I believe truthfully, having no clothes to get up in, she was obliged to stay where she was. Turning to go out, I stumbled over our boatman, who at once commenced most profuse apologies. It appears he was just off to destroy his “bar,” when my pilot had told him I was not an excise officer, and the Princess May was not a gunboat. So he went off to tell the engineer the anchorage was good enough, I fear that is not the only barred salmon river in Labrador.

Further north we steamed up Sandwich Bay, and visited, among other places, Cartwright, now a Hudson Bay post, but founded about 1790 by an English trader of that name. Here again we had a serious case to deal with. A girl of fourteen had been ill with internal abscess for between two and three years. She was sent to hospital after a trifling operation, and remained there a month. When I returned south I found her well and happy, and she told me she was only sorry she could not live in hospital.

I was interested in examining at Cartwright a marble tomb, raised, as the inscription proclaimed, “to commemorate the piety and zeal of the founder of this colony.” Some humble lichens had, in the course of time, grown in between the slabs, and with irresistible power had forced them open, revealing to the prying eye within not the crumbling dust of the departed trader, but a mighty demijohn of rum, no doubt made mellow by long years of waiting. Alas! that there are those to-day whose memory would be most aptly treasured by such an epigram, whom in life, for their riches’ sake, a blinded world “delights to honour.”

We were now only two hands on the launch, the engineer and myself, for our steward had returned to Battle Hospital. We were therefore anxious to push ahead, and on August 10th we were glad to run into Indian Harbour, and again “bring to” alongside the Albert. We found to our sorrow that bad weather had prevented the landing of our hospital till a month after we had expected; and, though all available hands had been at work, it was found impossible to occupy it this season. We therefore decided, as soon as the shell was finished and all done that could be without cutting the chimneys, to board up the windows, store the property in it, and leave it for the winter under care of the nearest “Livyere.” Meanwhile Dr. Curwen and Nurse Williams would remain on the Albert, and use it as their hospital. This place is the centre of a very large number of stations, and they had already found ample scope for work. Just before we left in the Princess May, both doctor and sister were summoned over the island to treat a woman on whom a fish stage had fallen, while they already had in the ship’s hospital a young girl dying of consumption. The condition in which some of our patients were when first admitted was horrible; the condition of the women from the green-fish catchers especially; for with scarcely any privacy, and scarcely any opportunities for washing, it was not to be wondered at that vermin often abounded. The experience of both our nurses tallied in this respect, and a good wash, clean clothes, and a few days’ nursing always appeared to work marvels, even in apparently hopeless cases. When it became evident that this poor girl must die, she expressed her determination to go home by the first opportunity, that, if possible, she might reach her family in Newfoundland before the end came.

It was ten o’clock at night, and a blustering evening in Cape Webeck Harbour, when we next met the mail steamer going south. With much difficulty we got our poor patient into the boat, wrapped over and over in clean blankets; two of us in the stern sheets holding the large bundle in our arms, while Captain Trezise and his men rowed us down the harbour. Getting her up the steamer’s side was, however, a still less easy task, but was at last accomplished, and she was soon ensconced in a bunk in the saloon. Fortunately we had decided that Nurse Williams should now return to Battle Harbour to help Nurse Carwardine, for the hospital there was now overflowing into huts around, and our in-patients could be kept down to one or two. The nurse therefore was able to tend to her wants during the journey down. Eventually she reached St. Johns, where the Rev. Dr. Harvey most kindly met her, got her to the train and off to her home; so that her last wish was gratified, and she passed away peacefully among her loved ones.

At Cape Harrison we had a really hot Sunday, the flat cabin reflecting the sun so fiercely from the water that our very paint began to blister. Such a chance was not to be lost, and the fisherfolk gathered from far and near. One company, who journeyed from their schooner in King’s Arm, must have travelled some ten miles to us, rowing first to Sloop Harbour, then walking over the high cape, and then rowing again to Webeck Island; while even as we went to and fro from the meetings, which, owing to the numbers, we were obliged to hold on the shore, we heard sounds of hymns and praying from some of the mud huts we passed. It was a day indeed to be remembered. Our longest single expedition during this time had been to the Hudson Bay post of Rigoulette, up Hamilton inlet, some fifty miles from the entrance. Here we had several patients; and especially one little lad with a diseased bone in the leg—part of this it was necessary to remove. At the operation we were ably helped by the wife of the agent (Mr. Wilson), who proved herself a most able nurse and assistant. The difference of temperature up this long inlet is very marked, and we found the children of the house actually picnicing outside the hut in a canvas tent.

CHAPTER XII

The S.S. Princess May in Merchantman Harbour.

CONCLUSION OF SECOND VOYAGE

Our next meeting with the Albert was arranged for Hopedale, the first station of the Moravian brethren. In the meanwhile we visited such harbours as Ironbound Island, Ragged Islands, Roger’s Harbour, Long Island, Ailik, Turnavik, and Winsor Harbour. Again we had one or two serious cases: one poor fellow with cancer of the gullet; one from whom it was necessary to amputate two fingers, and from another one finger. While at Winsor Harbour, we decided to visit an off-lying island, called “Double Island,” from which the Hopedale Eskimo had their summer fishery. Unfortunately it is not even indicated on the charts, and missing our way to it we got entangled among a series of reefs. At sundown a strong northerly wind arose, making the water boil in foaming breakers over the shallow patches. This however in reality assisted us, for we were thus able to avoid the hidden dangers, as any shallow likely to pick up the Princess May was now a white seething mass; indeed, I have found places where we saw the water break as deep as five to fifteen fathoms. We had decided at last to “heave to” under the lee of an island, keeping steam all night for fear of a shift of wind, when through our glasses we descried against the horizon a ragged tent. Steering for this we soon descried figures of some of the little people skurrying to and fro after their fish as fast as they could go, for the sky looked threatening, and they did not wish the fish to get wet again. Our steam whistle at once caught their attention, and soon two of their little boats came shooting out through the surf.

With their help we were safely moored fore and aft in a little narrow creek, and a few minutes later saw us ashore. Amongst them we noticed many friends of last year, especially a dear old man, a sort of Christian father among them, named Daniel. A profuse hand-shaking and welcoming ensued, and then they intimated they wished me to come up to one of their tents. My Eskimo was exhausted, however, with Auchenai—How do you do? (or, literally, Be ye strong?), and Aila, yes, and a few other every-day expressions. When, therefore, I was set down on a low box in the tent, with a space in front of me for the patients to squat, and the rest of the ground available densely packed with Esquimaux, I was confronted with the difficulties of a veterinary surgeon. Among other things a toe, frost-bitten last winter, had to be removed; apparently not such a painful operation as one might have supposed at first, and one in which the patient appeared to take a personal interest, from the proud fact that she occupied on that account the position of most importance.

At Hopedale I left the Albert again, and, joined by one of the Moravian Brethren—a Dane (Rev. P. Hansen), proceeded at once further north. Together we visited as far as Okkak, though the entire absence of charts, and the innumerable islands and labyrinths, made us more than once end up in a blind tickle. At Zoar we deposited our deck cargo of coal, piling up wood on our cabin top instead, and lashing a ladder against our foremast, from the top of which in the clear water it was possible to see rocks in time to avoid them. We passed on our way immense flocks of water-fowl. While in places the rocks shine with the beautiful blue or yellow sheen of the Labrador felspar, the trees get perceptibly fewer and smaller as Okkak is approached, the shrubs more stunted, and the berries more scarce, until north of Hebron no trees at all are found.

With much perseverance and labour the brethren at each station raise a few potatoes, cabbages and flowers, but when trees are cut down for wood they do not replace themselves in a man’s lifetime. It is impossible in these pages to recount all the incidents of this part of the trip. At each station I had numerous patients—Eskimo and white. In the former cases my dear friend and whilom companion, the Rev. P. Hansen, interpreted. At each station also we gathered daily for prayer and exhortation, and for me the time passed all too quickly. Now, however, the approach of winter was making itself felt. Schooners were flying south before every favourable breeze, and in so small a boat as the Princess May no unnecessary delay was advisable. On the 8th of September we again reached Hopedale, and were surprised to find the Albert still there.

A terrible tragedy had occurred in a neighbouring inlet. It appeared some men fishing, from an island called East Turnavik, had gone up to boil their tea-kettle at a solitary house on a promontory of Kipekok Bay. On entering they at first found no one at home, but during the process of tea-making came across two women lying on the floor of the passage covered over with a counterpane. At first they thought they were merely enjoying an afternoon sleep, but soon found both were dead; hereupon they at once beat a hasty retreat to their own island, and next day came back with half-a-dozen more men and the planter. A search revealed two more dead women in an inner room, while no trace of the two men who lived there could be found.

Next day, however, these returned with wood from the bay, saying they had been away making coffins for the last four days. The circumstances were so suspicious, and one of the men bore such an exceedingly bad character on the coast—having been suspected of deeds as dark before—that the two neighbouring planters advised an inquiry, and sent up their steam launch to Hopedale for Dr. Curwen to come and make an examination. From the evidence taken from the men, and the general appearances of the case, he was convinced they had died of poisoning. Eventually the head of the police was sent down from St. Johns, and, confessing to another crime, the worst of the two men was taken away and placed in Harbour Grace Jail for the winter.

Whilst endeavouring one night to navigate a narrow passage known as “the Rattle,” the Princess May had been suddenly caught by the current, and at full speed taken a rocky bottom. The tide was falling at the time, and all hopes of getting off before morning had to be abandoned. Our ladder and some large blocks of wood lashed together were therefore placed under her port bilge, and she was listed over on to them by all the moveable weights we had. After a very uneasy night, which fortunately held calm, we got safely off. It was necessary now to inspect the launch’s bottom. We therefore grounded her in Hopedale Harbour, and at low tide examined her outer casing. She proved to be nastily dinted in one or two places: a bit of her keel was gone, and a few inches of copper torn off here and there, but her hull was still as sound as a drum. Not so her shaft. We found that it had worn very considerably inside the propeller, and the outer end had so dropped that another two inches and the screw would be unable to rotate. For this we had no remedy, and had nothing for it but to “Go ahead.” Sunday, the 10th of September, we spent in Hopedale, the harbour of which was now crowded with no less than 100 schooners; and though the Brethren put at our disposal their large chapel, capable of holding some 400 people, Captain Trezise found it necessary in the evening to hold an overflow service on the Albert.

An Eskimo Family, Hopedale.

It was with no ordinary feelings of sorrow that we heard at Emily Harbour that the Albert had been ashore. To think of her splendid frame and delicate lines the sport of these cruel jagged rocks was heartrending. The beautiful little ship which had smiled at so many storms, and carried those entrusted to her so many thousands of miles so faithfully and safely. It appears she was trying to make West Turnavik Harbour at night, and the pilot who came off from shore mistook the blind entrance for the real one. Both anchors were at the time ready for letting go, and the moment the mistake was noticed were run out. But as the vessel swung to, her stern came down on the rocks, and for nearly three hours bumped heavily. By the help of Captain Bartlett and some sixty men she was eventually warped safely off; but it was found necessary, in the dry dock at St. Johns, to replace 35 feet of her keel.

Rough weather characterized our journey south, and, indeed, often rendered it very difficult getting round the great capes at all. We revisited, where possible, all the places we visited going north, and also others we had been obliged to pass by. Thus we saw again many of our former patients, distributed to many the clothing we were able to allot them, and also had the joy of seeing once again, before winter set in, some of those who were commencing in earnest to live consecrated lives. When the weather kept us longer than we intended in a harbour, we brought into use our magic lantern, for which we had some beautiful slides of the life of Christ, Bible lands, and some simple stories. This never failed to bring a crowd together, even if sleeping the night in the building became necessary for those who came from too far to return; and, indeed, we eventually often preceded our services with the views through the magic lantern.

On Thursday, October 19th, we once more steamed into Battle Harbour, where we found the Albert had preceded us by a couple of days. Dr. Bobardt and the sisters were still busy and in good health. Hospital had been full all the time, and thirty-nine in-patients had been treated. Only one other death had occurred in hospital—a young girl from a schooner, who had died of cellulitis from neglected sores, which had assumed the characteristics of erysipelas. We were delighted to hear that the fishery here had been good. Mr. Hall, the agent, had again been first away with a steamer loaded for market. After all the time and attention he had so generously bestowed on our work, by lending the launch when it could be spared, by loan of men for the hospital, by entertaining nurses, doctors, and others, we could but rejoice that his fishery had been a really successful one. Our only regret now was that no hospital could be kept open during this winter.

Bad weather prevailed during our journey to St. Johns. The Albert, in a gale, lost her boom, and blew away some canvas, while the delays to the Princess May on that coast, where no telegraphic communication exists, gave rise to the impression that she was lost with all hands, an impression heightened by the fact that the mail steamer, which had encountered the same gale in the Straits of Belle Isle, had noticed in the sea a small boat’s flag and flagpole resembling ours. Unfortunately, therefore, it appeared in the English dailies that we were missing. Except losing a good spirit compass and loose deck paraphernalia, we had suffered no inconveniences. Indeed, being forced to shelter in so many of the small harbours along the French shore, gave us a valuable insight into the lives of the out-harbour people of Newfoundland, and also the opportunities of helping many who need it quite as much as do some on the Labrador.

At Toulinguet, on November 3rd, we met our old friend Captain Taylor, of the mail steamer Virginia Lake, who showed us a written commission to search all the islands for us between certain latitudes. Thence we wired our whereabouts to St. Johns, but we heard subsequently that that kindly office had been performed for us the day previously by the captain of a schooner, who had passed us on his way south. The sealing steamer Neptune gave us a line across Trinity and Conception Bays, and so, on the 7th, we ended our cruise for 1893 in St. Johns Harbour.

We found St. Johns in the excitement of a general election, and it seemed as if there was little likelihood of our getting an audience to listen to a report of the season’s work. However, Sir William Whiteway kindly placed at our disposal the “Star-of-the-Sea” Hall, and His Excellency Sir Terence O’Brien consented to preside at an evening meeting. By the help of some good friends in St. Johns, some of our most successful photographic plates were turned into lantern slides; and not only was the large hall filled with friends and sympathisers, but one hundred and fifty dollars were realized for the funds.

The Albert sailed for home, having on board Dr. Curwen and the two nurses, on Tuesday, December 28th, and after a wonderful passage, entered Great Yarmouth Harbour on the thirteenth day, having accomplished the long run at an average pace of nine English miles or 7·5 knots per hour.

CHAPTER XIII

ON DOGS AND DIFFICULTIES

The Esquimaux dog, unlike his Newfoundland congener, is by no means a fiction, being an ubiquitous feature of Esquimaux life. Indeed, being musical like his master, his propensity for nocturnal chorus keeps him constantly in evidence; and, though he is never heard to bark, he manages often to leave a deep impression on an incautious stranger.

On his dog’s pluck and endurance the master’s safety often depends, and to his marvellous instinct for finding human habitations many a man, hopelessly lost in a snowstorm on the icefield, owes his existence. Yet the Eskimo, finding it ample trouble to satisfy his own needs, never adds to his trouble by feeding his dogs in summer time, with the result that the exigencies of existence have considerably sharpened their faculties.

To look at, they closely resemble the grey wolf of the prairie, and wolves mingling with the team would scarcely be recognised by an untrained eye. Usually the dogs wander in summer around the land-wash, in troops of say fifty, eating the offal below the fish stages; or when caplin schools are close inshore, they wade into the water and swallow the fish alive. Always lean and lank at this time of the year, they never neglect to lay up against an evil day, a fact that becomes most ludicrously apparent on these occasions, for they “swells wisibly.”

Perhaps the most interesting sight is to see them catching flounders. The fish lie buried in the sand in shallow water, and as the dog’s paw comes down on one it struggles to get away. He then literally “puts his foot down,” and after it his head, which disappears under water only to reappear with a struggling victim. This is carried kicking to the land, to be devoured at leisure.

The door of the chapel at the Moravian station of Hopedale was one day accidentally left ajar. Such a golden opportunity for a meal was not to be wasted, and a company of dogs soon found its way in. Some tempting hymn-books and litanies were shortly brought to light, redolent with blubber from the thumbs of the worshippers. Needless to say they were sacrificed at the only shrine dogs recognise.

On another occasion a similar oversight let them into the tenderly-nurtured kitchen garden of the Brethren. The dogs rased the cabbages to the ground, and even carried away with them the few highly-prized wurzels.

Modesty is a virtue of which the Eskimo dog is seldom guilty. I was visiting one day a bedridden patient. As the outer door opened, a fragrant scent as of a dinner preparing was wafted outward. Suddenly an avalanche swept me off my legs, and a pack of dogs, whisking the stew-pot off the fire, began to fight savagely over its contents, the more so as each, having burnt its nose in the boiling liquid, attributed his affliction to his neighbour. Meanwhile the house filling with steam and Eskimo imprecations, the latter rendered forcible by long harpoon handles, made me almost sorry I had called.

An Eskimo’s financial condition may be gauged by the number of his dogs, and no one with less than six would rank as “carriage folk.” Eight to thirteen normally form a team, each being harnessed, by a single walrus hide trace of a different length, to the komatik. The leader will be some twenty-six yards away, which enables the team to clamber over or round hummocky ice. The driver on these occasions jumps off to help the sleigh over, while, to prevent breaking, the komatik is made of numbers of short wide cross boards lashed by strong tendons across two longitudinal pieces, no nails being used. The runners are shod with ribs of whale, with iron, or with mud. A slot is made in the snow and filled with soft mud, which at once freezes. This is next frozen on to the wood, and then planed or chopped smooth with an adze. As there are no reins, the leading dog is trained to obey the voice. At the shout “Auk” he goes to the right, and at “Ra” to the left, and so on, the others all following him. If those behind are not pulling well, the leader will drop back among them and bite at them. They always pull in the same place in a team. Thus three dogs, the whole team of a poor man, were lent to pull with six others. They were first placed in front, but would not pull, being frightened at so many dogs behind them. When, however, the leader was left in front and the other two put last of all, the whole team ran capitally. Mr. Young tells us he once put a young dog in front of his old leader, a magnificent old fellow on whom he always could rely in danger. Before he had, however, mounted the komatik, he found the pup scampering away loose—the leader had bitten through the traces. He refastened it three times, always with the same result. At last he gave his old leader a good whipping. The old dog’s spirit was completely broken by this treatment, and it so felt its double disgrace, it was never, to the day of its death, the same brave, trusty dog.

The dogs greatly enjoy their work, and when harnessed in get tremendously excited, at times even turning on their own drivers. To correct them a short whip, with an enormously long lash, all of walrus hide, is so dexterously used that an expert driver can flick a piece out of any particular dog’s ear.

Occasionally, a refractory dog is pulled in by its trace for punishment. They know the meaning of this, and anticipate the beating by a lively howling; so that merely to shorten a trace, may exert a good moral effect on a team.

The “trail” is usually over the frozen sea, the land being too uneven. Good dogs will cover from 70 to 100 miles in a day. When starting in the morning the snow is covered with little icicles, formed by the mid-day sun melting the frozen surface. As this is apt to make the feet of the dogs bleed, they are shod with a bag of seal-skin, tied round the ankle. Three small holes are cut for the claws. A pup shod for the first time, holds up his paws in the air alternately; but once he learns to appreciate the fact that shoes save his feet from being cut, though he will always eat any ordinary piece of skin, such as on a kayak or a skin boot, he rarely eats his own shoes. They do, however, bite at, and eat the harness, especially of the dog in front of them. Mr. Young[16] tells of a big dog which, though apparently always hard at work, never seemed to get tired like the rest. It always seemed to strain at its trace, and kept looking round, apparently for the driver’s approval. His suspicions, however, were aroused, and one day, cutting loose the trace, he fastened it by a single thread to the komatik. Sure enough, the dog strained and worked as hard as ever, but it never broke the single thread.

[16] Stories from Indian Wigwams, R.T.S., by Rev. Egerton Young.

When the ice is good, dogs will maintain eight miles an hour, at other times they can only advance at a walk; while, yet again, when the ice is surging up and down over the sea, and wind and snow are against them, the weight of the sleigh will even drag them backwards. These dogs are exceedingly heavy, and their dragging power is enormous. It takes a full-grown man to hold one in leash. A team of fifteen dogs took six people on the sleigh “like a house on fire.” They are very quick to recognise the danger of being cut off from the land, especially when water comes over the ice, and they will then throw their whole strength into the work. Many times when a driver, overtaken by night, perhaps having missed the trail from heavy snow, and quite exhausted gives up the unequal struggle, the unerring instinct of the dogs finds full play, and they rarely fail to reach shelter of some kind. At night the traces are unhitched and stamped down into the snow, for lack of anything to tie them to. This keeps them from straying. Their dole of food is then given them, probably rotten caplin and seal blubber; after which they sleep out on the snow, even when the temperature is 50° below zero. Yet if other dogs are near, and they can get at them, most of the night will be spent fighting. It is often the capacity for carrying food for the dogs that limits the journey. To prevent this, the Moravians make depôts of dog food along the coast during summer.

One day an old Eskimo arrived at Nachvak from Cape Chidley, a distance of about 100 miles. When asked where his dog food was, he answered, “Me go home to-morrow, then feed them,” showing the power of endurance of these dogs. On one occasion during a long journey a traveller (P. Mackenzie) shot some caribou deer, and taking all the meat he wanted, pursued his journey. While building his snow hut for the night, a fresh herd of deer passed within scent of the dogs. All, with the exception of their leader, a small bitch, managed to free their traces and gave chase. By chance they came on the dead quarry, and, falling to, at once gorged themselves on it. As they, returned to the camp, one large powerful dog was observed carrying a whole haunch in his mouth, and was seen to go and lay it down in reach of the still captive little leader.

These dogs can be dangerous at times. Once the team of a settler living in Seal Islands ran away. They came back savage as wolves, and it transpired that they had killed and eaten a little girl, of seven years old, while away. Of course their owner was forced to shoot them. This tendency to wander was recently put to good use. A solitary settler and his wife were suddenly struck down with influenza. The man developed lung symptoms, and the woman also became too ill to feed either herself or him. She could hardly crawl as far as the cupboard for food; and they both stood in great danger of being starved, though food was in the house. In this extremity the woman, who could write, scribbled on a piece of paper, “Come over quickly,” and tied it round one of the dog’s necks. The dog carried it to the nearest neighbour, a distance of ten miles over the ice, and eventually returned with help. Possibly as the old couple could no longer get about to give the dogs food, that might account for its setting off for another house.

In the water the Eskimo dog is quite at home. I have known them swim home from a desert island a good mile from land, and have watched them playfully chasing one another’s tails as they swam about in that cold water.

Fighting, however, is their chief diversion. Each team always has its king, who maintains his position solely by his might. I have watched from a boat a pack banished to an island in summer to keep them out of mischief. As we rowed round, a fine young dog, with the only female close alongside, moved by curiosity followed us out to the end of every little promontory, but the rest all maintained a respectful distance behind. Next week, when we passed again, we found he had been deposed, and then woe betide him for some time. The entire pack seem to combine to pay off their pent-up grudges against him, and at times he is so harried he takes to the water. I have watched a late leader standing up to his shoulders in water eyeing his tormentors to see if he could escape unobserved; but every attempt he made to come ashore a combined rush was made, and he was forced to retire again.

Eskimo Family.

At night on travel a snow hut is built. Half an hour is long enough for this. The snow is cut in blocks—nowadays usually with an old cavalry sabre—from the inside of the circle chosen for the house. Thus the hut goes down and up at the same time. A hole is left at the top for the air, while a block is cut to fit into the door from the outside, after all are in. If a tent is carried, it is of the usual reindeer skins, sewn together with tendons. The sleeping bag is made of seal-skin with the hair outside, and lined with reindeer skin with the hair inside. Almost any cold can be borne in it; and if your family are travelling with you, and share your bag, they are then said to be positively warm. The skin boots always worn are so exquisitely sewn, that, like the kayaks, they are quite watertight.

However, there is no water in Labrador in winter, for even the perspiration from the men’s bodies, if they do violent work, freezes inside the clothing; and, as in cases of Arctic explorers, it may become necessary to take off one’s clothes at night to hammer out the ice from the inside.

To do this sewing it is necessary to chew the edges of the skins soft. One woman said to me, “Me no good now,” showing me that her teeth were all too far worn down to be of any use in boot-making. The Eskimo’s teeth meet one another, and do not overhang like Europeans’. Soft bread gets so hard frozen that biscuits have to be carried, which, with lumps of meat, are stowed away under their clothes next the skin, in order to keep it soft. Spirits even will freeze in the bottle; but neither whites nor Eskimo carry alcohol, or dare resort to it in cold weather, if they had it. These people form an excellent apology for total abstinence, as do the Laps, who drink only coffee. In England and the United States cold weather is used as an apology for whisky. Drink soon destroys the Eskimo. Yet they, like white men, willingly become its slaves. They have even buried in their oil casks, water, molasses, and old mouldy biscuits, in order to get fermented liquor, when once habituated to it.

The Moravians have, however, kept the traffic in check, partly by not teaching the Eskimo English, and partly by Christian teaching. One dear old fellow—named Zacharias—had in his early days been expelled by the Eskimo from Okkak for drunkenness and being a nuisance to the community. Becoming a Christian under the preaching at Hopedale, he was now seeking to get back to Okkak to show them what the grace of God can do in the dark heart of a drunken Eskimo. Very practical are some of these Eskimo Christians. One Nathaniel last winter, while going to his sealing ground, was carried off to sea by the ice drifting off. When eventually he managed to escape, he told the missionaries: “I felt like Peter. I could not pray, though I thought I must die. I had not lived a good life.” On another occasion a woman actually went and gave back all the property she had won from another by gambling, when told it was displeasing to God.

The following translation of letters from some much respected leaders among them, gives an insight into their feelings and ideas. One wrote to us as follows: “In spirit I am among you, my fellow-servants. Only a little I want to say to you. Because the Lord, He helps us, you as well as us—we in Labrador. In one faith and love in that which Jesus has wrought for us, that we can walk through Him that strengthens us. Once more we have reason to be thankful, because the physician came; we are often reminded that our souls also must have medicine, i.e. the Word of God. I salute you all. The Lord may help every one of us. You as well as me. Zacharias. The one that is in Hopedale.”

Another wrote, “My wife and I and all the Eskimo wish very sincerely to thank all the good believers on the other side of the sea, who in their love have thought of us, and sent a doctor to help and assist us in our illness. We do not understand the language of those you have sent here, yet we rejoice that they are preaching the Word of God faithfully to the many fishermen who work along the Labrador. My prayer and wish are that the Lord will protect them on their journey, and bless you and them in the work. My wife and I greet all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ.”

“Daniel and Josephina.”

When the missionaries desire to punish an Eskimo, it is generally done by (1) refusing to allow him personally in the store; (2) ejecting him from the choir or band; (3) cutting him off from communion. An Eskimo, never having severer punishment, feels each of these very acutely.

Cartwright punished them much more summarily. In his dry way, he remarks: “July 1. Having reproved an Eskimo in a very angry tone for stealing a skein of thread, I gave him a few strokes with a stick. He instantly made resistance; when catching him in my arms, I gave him a cross buttock (a method of throwing unknown to them), and pitched him with great force head first out of my tent. The rest applauded my action as just, and had a high opinion of my lenity.”

Conveying Bible ideas to the Eskimo has not been easy. It must be remembered they have never seen sheep or lambs, horse or mule, fruit tree or corn, sowing or harvest. Nor have they much idea of kindness to animals at all. Every animal but a dog is to be killed, and even their dogs are to be kept at a considerable distance. But they are themselves very grateful for kindness, as the above extracts show.

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CHAPTER XIV

ON SEALS AND SEALERS

The S.S. Sir Donald.

The hair seal, locally “swile,” affords to the Newfoundland fisherman almost the only means of work in winter which will help him to eke out the meagre living provided by his Labrador voyages. True, there is a home frozen-herring trade, but it is limited to the west coast; and also the new railway employs a certain number of men as long as the inclemencies of winter allow work to proceed. But it is to the spring sealing, or “going to the ice,” as they call it, that most look for the extra few dollars to help fill the children’s mouths. Not long ago every one could go to the ice, for then only sailing-boats went, and the wealth reaped from the voyages passed mostly into the fishermen’s pockets. Now all is revolutionized, and the sealing is in the hands of half-a-dozen firms, that send out big steamers, carrying crews numbering as many as three hundred men. Moreover, the value of seal-oil has greatly decreased, and the expenses of the steamers eat up much of the profit. There are not a few whom one hears growling, “Steam has ruined Newfoundland.”

The hair seal, “Phoca Greenlandica,” must not be confounded with the fur seal of the Pacific, for though the former is found in the Pacific, the latter is never found in the North Atlantic. The fur seal is as a rule larger, has much longer hands and feet in proportion to his body, and also a much longer neck. He is apparently a much more powerful swimmer. There are, however, several kinds of hair seal. The largest is the hood seal. A truly magnificent animal, and one that shows much courage in defending himself against his enemies. Sitting up on his tail and hind legs, he defends himself with teeth and flippers, protecting his head from injury by blowing out a bladder-shaped and shot-proof excrescence on it. The usual method to kill a seal is to hit it upon the nose with a club, called a seal-bat, but when once fairly roused the bull hood seal is invulnerable there. An old sealer described to me a battle between one of these fellows and a polar bear, in which he told us the seal only yielded to be eaten after a prolonged and bloody struggle. It takes two men at least to kill one, for one man has to divert the animal’s attention by striking its tail, while the other endeavours to hit it under the jaw as it turns round.

The most important hair seal, however, is the harp. It is the variety which resort to the ice to breed in such countless thousands, and which the sealing vessels go out in pursuit of. The process of breeding is most interesting. The following account was given me by Captain Blandford, of Newfoundland, perhaps the most successful of all the bold sealing captains:—

“Soon after we got jammed in the ice there appeared from the water four or five old seals, which scrambled up on to its surface. Within five minutes there were 500 seals on it, and in half an hour 200,000 as nearly as we could guess. Scarcely had they come to rest on the ice when they commenced throwing their young, and at once, after whelping, those close to us, being somewhat frightened by the ship, jumped back into the sea, leaving the little seals whimpering exactly like babies.”

The young are born about the 1st of March, and are very small, fat, and snowy white, remaining so up till the 20th to 25th, i.e. about three weeks, between which date and the 1st of April they are big enough to take to the water. During this period they are known as “whitecoats.” They grow so rapidly that you can almost see them growing, though on the above occasion those close to the ship did not grow nearly as rapidly as those farther away, for the dams were shy about coming to give them suck.

The “whitecoats” are not large enough to kill until they are fourteen days’ old, so that on this occasion the crew had to wait. Now, however, by law no sailing vessel may leave for the ice until the 8th of March, and no steamer till the 12th, under a penalty of $2,000, which gives the seals a chance to get sizeable; nor is a vessel now allowed to make a second voyage the same year, if she has once come back loaded. This prevents the extermination of the mother seals. Great excitement always exists when the sealers are about to start; sometimes it is necessary to cut their way out of the harbour, in which they have been imprisoned during the winter months, with dynamite, saws, and crowbars, the way being cleared beforehand, that not an hour may be lost after the clocks announce midnight of the 11th. This year, 1894, while blasting a way out of the ice in Greenspond Harbour, the S.S. Walrus was severely damaged by the explosion of the dynamite, which shattered her bows, and killed some of her men. The ice was ten feet thick.

The vessels may start from any part of the island, north or south, but no one place is always best, the position of the seals varying every season. There is much competition to get a place among the crews, and the men are carefully selected for their pluck, energy, experience, and physical capacities. These are queer-looking craft to the unaccustomed eye these steam sealers of about 300 to 400 tons burden, with their outside thick sheathing of hard wood, called “ice chocks,” and their huge double stems, filled between with from nine to twelve feet of solid oak, built for charging through floe ice. For when shut in the steamer will back far enough to gain good impetus, and then dash full at the weakest part of the floe. Usually the sloping forepost allows the vessel to rise up on to the ice, the great weight then breaking down into clear water. Anything loose on deck is of course upset, as are any of the crew who happen not to be holding some support. All are rigged with three masts, and can sail as well as steam; and the screw being fixed in a slot can easily be pulled up out of the water at these times. Each masthead is fitted with a barrel or crow’s nest, from which a careful look-out for seals is constantly maintained. When once discovered, the next thing is to keep them to yourself, and, if possible, mislead any other vessels near, who might be apt to join in and so lessen your prize. A captain, well known for his success, was lately dogged in this way by a fresh hand. To mislead his rival the captain steamed into one of the large bays, where, it so happened, he got frozen in while the raw hand, turning out, caught a full voyage.

Once alongside the floe, the men jump off on to the ice, and at once the work begins. Sometimes they work in pairs, one man shooting the seals, and his chum, who is called “the dog,” following up, cutting off the tail from the dead seal to “mark it,” and then gathering them in heaps, and putting up a pole with a flag or a piece of liver as a claim. These are then said to be “panned.” This is technically called “swatching.” When shooting, 1,400 seals in a day is good work for a crew, though they have killed 3,000; but when it is only necessary to “club” them with the seal-bat, 25,000 have been killed in a day, and 47,000 in two days. Sculping (scalping?) is the next process—that is taking off the skin and fat. This scarcely takes a minute. The seal is thrown on its back, ripped up from chin to tail, and the fat and skin, known as the “pelt,” are torn off. The body is no use, and is left on the ice, except that occasionally the hearts are cut out and strung on the hunter’s belts, as a reserve of food in case of necessity.

The mother seals show great sagacity in finding the particular hole, through which she comes and goes for food, among so many thousand others, and at once she finds her own little white pup. They will evince much self-sacrifice in trying to rescue their offspring from danger, at times carrying them in their fore flippers to escape being nipped by ice, or drawing them into the water to teach them to swim. Alas, after a sealer’s visit she will only find a quivering red corpse when she returns. Let us hope she does not recognise it.

When another crew is also at work on the same patch of seals the greatest expedition is naturally used, and under these circumstances the seals will often only be “batted” and stunned, not stabbed to the heart as well, before being skinned. It is this that has given rise to the charges of cruelty, for the naked body has been seen to move around after the operation. Otherwise there is no more cruelty in killing seals than in killing cattle or poultry, and any man who is humane in one will naturally be humane in the other; nor do I think you will find anywhere a more humane set of men than you will among Newfoundland fishermen.

Captain X. was once just forcing his way through ice towards a pack of seals when he sighted a rival vessel coming up under his lee. Backing out, he at once altered his course away from the seals to mislead the other, but was too late to prevent them sighting his seals. The second vessel, being much faster, now ran in between my friend and the ice, and passing him on the starboard side gave the order “hard a starboard” to force him out from his own cutting. Incensed at this, Captain X. from the barrel shouted “hard a port,” and went straight for his rival’s stem. Fortunately an intervening pan of ice prevented a fatal accident, but he ran his bowsprit well over the other’s counter. All hands from the foremost vessel were overboard and hard at work killing and panning seals before Captain X. could land his men; so he shouted, as his final order, “Hand aboard the dead seals; never mind killing live ones,” and then, calmly descending, went and had refreshments with the other captain in the other vessel’s cabin, while the crews were left to fight it out as best they could. They are a brave, generous, and skilful set of men, these sealing captains, and reck little of danger or hardship.

Work proceeds during the night by torchlight, and the scattered fires, with their ruddy glow on the heaps of dead seals and uncouth-looking figures at work, must present indeed a weird sight. Now the pelts have to be brought back to the ship; and in this work the physical capacities of each hunter are tried to the utmost. Six pelts is a full “tow” for one man. Often when the ice is hummocky, or perhaps broken up into pieces, called “slob” ice, and it is necessary to jump from pan to pan, or again when the distance from the ship is long, and the approach of night or the fog render travelling almost impossible, are these men tempted to abandon the hardly-won pelts, and get home themselves to the ship and safety.

Sometimes one hunter will be long adrift from the steamer, and all the rest being back, and all the seals in that patch boarded, the captain is anxious to get off—how anxious, if the patch was a small one and other seals are near, perhaps only a sealing captain knows,—for all ships must be home by April 21st, full or empty. Yet though so much depends on it a stray hunter has never yet been abandoned. It costs a large sum to send these vessels to the ice, and a “clean ship” means a big loss to the merchant, and no money for the men.

Eskimo on an Island near Okkak.

Sharks, even in these latitudes, are not slow to gather at the smell of slaughter, and can be caught with boathooks between the pans. It is not a rare thing for men to slip off the pans into the water, and it requires no little skill to get out again without help; for the water, naturally, is very cold, and one is apt again and again to slip off back into the water while trying to climb on to the ice. Acts of great heroism are performed sometimes in rescuing a man thus endangered; in one case, the pans being very small, it was not possible to stand on one in order to pull the man out. The rescuer, therefore, quickly throwing off his outer garments, came jumping from piece to piece, making a grab at the struggling man as he passed, trying to push him on far enough for him to catch hold. The second run he succeeded, but, of course, himself ran great peril in the attempt. The vessels eventually, loaded to the gunwales if they have been fortunate, return to St. Johns, every hole and corner being used for stowing the pelts, so that at times the crew will have to sleep wherever they can find a dry spot, even on deck or in the boats.

Once in harbour, the fat is separated and put into enormous vats, the oil being squeezed out from the blubber by their own weight, and being eventually drawn off, clarified, and sold. Now, however, the blubber is usually “rendered” by means of a steam mincer. The skins are salted without being stretched, and are then exported “green,” for making into leather for boot tops, gloves, etc. When the white coat is a year old, he is dark in colour on the back, lighter on the belly, and is known as a “bedlamer harp.” When he is three years old, a large black saddle-shaped mark begins to appear over his back, and he is called a full “bedlamer.” When he is four years old, the saddle is fully and clearly marked, and the seal is then known as the “old harp.”

Seals, as is well known to those who visit Zoological Gardens, are very easily tamed, and display almost the sagacity of dogs. Tales are told of seals which have become so thoroughly tame that they will come and lie before the fire, making friends with the dog and cat; while one, when it had been found too expensive to keep, and had been taken out to sea and dropped overboard, followed the boat ashore again and again, even getting in at the window when the door had been shut against it. The seal is used by the Eskimo for nearly everything. The stretched coat of the bowel serves instead of glass. Their boats are entirely of skin. Their clothing almost all skin. Their winter food almost all seal meat and blubber. Dog food, dog harness, dog whips, etc., are all of seal, or of walrus hide. Moreover, to the settlers, their skins for boots and their fat for oil are invaluable.

In Labrador the “old harps” are caught either in the fall or spring, when the sea is first freezing over or the ice first breaking up, and always along shore, in one of the following ways. Strong twine nets, with very large meshes, are anchored out on the bottom in about twenty to thirty fathoms of water, off prominent headlands, or in the mouths of bays and inlets known to be frequented by seals. These are buoyed on the surface, and in these the seals mesh and drown themselves. This industry is attended with much danger and hardship, for it involves rowing out in all weathers in small boats to clear the nets. Sometimes the buoys are under the ice, and the process known as “creeping” has to be undertaken to find the nets at all, for it will not do to lose these most valuable possessions.

If the nets are not recovered by New Year’s Day, they are lost; yet occasionally they may be recovered immediately the ice goes in April, when, the men tell me, both nets and seals in them are good; but if much time elapses after the floe drifts off, both rot rapidly and are destroyed by animalculæ.

Often hours must be spent “creeping,” and then, perhaps, only some one else’s nets are taken, while all the while each must be carefully watching the other to see he is not getting frostbitten. The nose, ears, or chin will become frozen unknown to the owner and another will cry out “your ears are dead,” the parts having turned snowy white. Then begins the painful and tedious process of rubbing the part with snow—woe betide the sufferer who goes in a heated room, or uses hot water; for a certainty he will lose his ears or his nose—then the creeping must be again proceeded with; or when the nets are partly hauled bad weather will overtake them, perhaps a sudden squall from the high land sweeps down on the little open boat, and the tragedy of “the three fishers” is apt to be enacted over again. In one case, a man described to me how, when out with his brother and another man, while in the act of hauling into the boat a square flipper seal of larger size than usual, the little craft capsized, and his brother, getting cramp from cold, slipped off the bottom of the boat to which all three were clinging. Fortunately, the other two managed, it being a calm day, to hold on till a rescue was effected. It is cold work at best, and, as one stalwart fellow said, “jest a bit hard, that when a man comes home real hungry it should take him half an hour to get the ice off his face before he can find his mouth.” “Yes,” chimed in another, “I lost two toes and this ear,” showing that he had been cropped as if at the pillory. I have myself seen the frozen breath hanging from men’s beards and moustaches till, from nose to chest, it was one huge white mass.

The easier way of catching the “old harps” is with a submerged room of net, resembling the cod-trap, with the difference that the wall which is on the side the seals enter from is lowered to the bottom. A watch is kept from the shore, and as soon as the seals enter the room a rope attached to this wall is wound up on a capstan on the land, and the seals are thus imprisoned. They are now given time to entangle themselves in the net, and so get drowned, or the boat rows off and the hunter shoots the seal before taking it out of the water; for the seals would bite badly if given the chance. The net is thirty to forty fathoms deep, and is set in about six to ten fathoms of water.

The last variety of hair seal is known as the “bay seal.” It frequents the shores, bays, and mouths of fresh-water rivers, up which it breeds, all the summer, and is caught either in mesh nets, or shot from a boat as it puts up its head to breathe. This feat is rendered more easy by the natural curiosity of the seal. As soon as it spies the boat it raises its head and shoulders out of water to get a good view of the stranger. If you now remain quite still, and especially if you can imitate the “Hough, hough” of the animal, it will dive down and in a minute come up nearer the boat. I have been almost ashamed to shoot as it opened its large, human eyes, so full of inquisitiveness. “Bang!” If you are a good shot, your seal will be dead, a bullet through his brain, and you must at once row and pick him up while his few kicks keep him afloat. I remember seeing one sink after being shot, as we rowed off to the Princess May from the shore one day. We stopped over the spot, and peering down into the crystal water, could see him ten fathoms down. Suddenly, one last kick—only it seemed a slight movement—and the carcase rose to the surface for the last time. Up, up! We watched it gyrating round and round, and as it reached the surface, grabbed hold of one flipper and slung it into the boat. We had one or two good meals off that fellow, for we hung him up from our forestay, and the frosty air kept him sweet and fresh as long as we needed him. Had he not arisen we should have got him up by means of our “jiggers,” i.e., our heavy leaded hooks.

The Eskimo harpoon their seals from the kayak, occasionally shooting it first; but shooting accurately from a kayak is no easy matter. The harpoon is made of light wood, about three feet in length. On the end of this is fixed a whole walrus tusk, to carry the loose barbed iron top, and also to weight it and carry it truly home. As soon as the seal is struck it dives, taking the harpoon with it, but as the harpoon is attached by about twenty fathoms of walrus hide to an inflated air-tight seal-skin, the hunter spies it, as soon as it comes up, even if it ever succeeds in carrying the buoy down. A few strokes of the paddle brings the kayak once more alongside, and the seal is soon put hors de combat with a lance, lashed on the back of the little boat, and the hunter starts for home, or it is towed home alongside the kayak. When one year old the bay seal is called a “jar seal,” and its skin is poor; in the second year it is a “doter,” and becoming speckled, in the third year, it is a “ranger,” and is then very beautiful, being checkered silver and black all over.

CHAPTER XV

ON THE ESQUIMAUX OR ESKIMO

It was a still moonlight night, and the Albert lay at anchor in one of those numberless creeks in which the venturous fishermen hide away their schooners, while in their small boats they are snatching from the very edges of the reefs their precious fares of fish.

We were below decks, dressing the wounds of a fisherman in the Albert’s little cabin, the only sounds being the moan of my patient or the lapping of the water against the ship’s side, when the silence was suddenly broken by the sound as of many voices singing. The air was very familiar:—

“There’s a land that is fairer than day,

And by faith we can see it afar,

For our Father dwells over the way

To prepare us a dwelling-place there.”

Mounting the gangway, I found the deck crowded by a number of the quaintest little figures. They were dressed in skins, with snow-white jumpers topped by long pointed cowls standing high up over their heads. Some sat cross-legged on the bulwarks or hatches, while others, in their seal-skin boots, were gliding noiselessly about in the moonlight, till imagination conjured up “the merry elves” of childhood. The early Norsemen called them skrellings or weaklings. They call themselves Innuits, “the people,” because they say God went on creating till they appeared, then He was satisfied, and created no more. Eskimo = raw meat eater, and is a term of opprobrium conferred on them by the Indians.

Soon all were down in our main hold, chattering, laughing, and pleased as children, at the Albert’s fittings and at our attempts to understand their remarks. The one that acted as leader spoke a little broken English, and from him we learned that they had come from a group of islands lying outside us with some boat-loads of dry fish for a planter; that they had been puzzled by our strange rig, and so had come aboard to see us.

When their leader had explained to them that we were a “Gospel ship,” and had things to heal the sick, their merry, round, flat faces grew sunnier than ever. All heads were uncovered at once, displaying mops of long straight black hair, cut fringe-like level with the eyebrows. Then they all broke out singing again, squatting all round the hold on their haunches or on the floor, while, to our surprise, one seated himself at the harmonium and played it excellently, others performing on two concertinas and two cornets. They sang in parts in their own language, but hymn tunes well known to us, so our crew all joined in, and kept it up till the watch called “All hands off board.” Since then we have seen and learnt much of this simple people; “Uskies” the fishermen call them, and we all like them greatly.

Not many heathen Eskimo remain in Labrador, yet between Ungava and Cape Chidley some are still to be found. They recognise a god (Tongarsuk), a good spirit, and also lesser spirits (Tongaks), whom he sends to tell the priests (angekoks) how to heal diseases, and how to tell the weather. The Devil is a vague kind of female spirit, apparently unnamed. These angekoks are really delphic oracles, who make supposititious journeys to the bowels of the earth to consult Tongarsuk. The journey must be in winter, in the dark at night time, and the angekok remains alone in his hut with his head tied between his legs, and his arms behind his back, while his soul is off to heaven or hell. To become an angekok poglit, i.e. fat priest or chief priest, his wandering spirit must be dragged by one toe to the sea by a white bear, and there swallowed by a sea lion and the same white bear. Then it must be spued up and return to his body, which is shut up in a dark house. A drum and other noises are kept up during the ceremony.[17]

They have a vague tradition of a flood, saying that the world upset once, and all but one man were drowned. They prove this by the fact of shells being found high above the sea, and even the remains of a whale on a high mountain. They believe in a future life and a happier one than this, where there is perpetual summer, and they locate it at the bottom of the sea, whence they get their richest possessions, or in the bowels of the earth. Reindeer are there quite common, and their beloved seals are ever ready, swimming in a large boiling kettle.[17]

[17] The Eskimo, by Dr. F. Nansen.

Nansen tells us they thought that all inanimate objects had spirits, and that this is the reason that they buried with the warrior his boat and weapons, and often figures like dolls, possibly to represent his wives. I found several of these old graves, and two I examined. One, evidently very ancient, was perched on a high central promontory, overlooking the entrances to two bays; perhaps in order that as the harp seals or wild birds passed, the warrior might, even in death, look down upon those who of yore so oft paid tribute to his skill. The body in every grave is simply laid on the surface on its back, in its clothes—in one grave a female skeleton lay alongside a male one. Over it is built a rude structure roofed with large flat stones, so that the view should be unobstructed. In a small cache alongside the above grave were two wooden figures of females, an ivory harpoon head and the remains of the shaft, the skin-cleaning instruments, and the remains of a stone lamp.

In another, further south, I found an iron sword about three feet long, used for cutting snow blocks for snow houses, a dagger with a curved blade, a clasp knife, an old pot of iron, a nail or needle case, a lead buckle silvered over, a whetstone, and a few other simple household implements, while in each case the remains of the kayak or canoe, the paddle and the harpoon were lying near.

The skipper of a Newfoundland vessel told me how one of his men took some frankincense from one of these graves. That night the crew were startled by one of the hands shouting out, “There is a man in the cabin!” though it was all dark at the time. A lamp was lit, and the same man shouted, “There he goes, up the hatchway!” The others chaffed him and blew out the light. Very soon shouts were again heard, “There he is, an Eskimo, searching in Tom’s bunk.” After that the lamp was kept lighted, and next day the grave was restored.

The early Moravian missionaries found it very difficult to convey to the Eskimo the Bible teachings of our Saviour’s love and of God as our Father. They had no word for love; neither sheep nor lambs, seed-time nor harvest, silver nor gold were familiar to them, and all the oriental similes of the sacred book were unintelligible. Yet the missionaries’ Christ-like lives during 130 years have accomplished what their words could not express.

In A.D. 1000 the Eskimo extended as far south as Newfoundland. In 1790 a tribe five hundred strong dwelt in the Straits of Belle Isle. Now only a few dwell south of Hopedale, three hundred miles north of the same straits, and only some two to three thousand north of that place. Contact with white men has killed them off, at times by small-pox or diphtheria, but usually by tubercular consumption. The two racial tides now meet at Hopedale, and here the Eskimo appear least healthy.

The nomad life in skin tents has been abandoned for wooden and mud huts. The seal-skin clothes have largely given way to inferior cotton and European goods. The “blubber” food is largely replaced by “flour and molasses.” The art of kayaking is nearly lost, and the Eskimo have become less and less reliant on their own powers of procuring a livelihood, while guns and powder have largely diminished the supply of game. This has well been exemplified around the mission station of Zoar. The Eskimo here had contracted a habit of taking out their supplies from the Moravians, but secretly traded their fish and fur with the nearest Hudson Bay station at Davis Inlet. Thus they ran up large debts, which eventually the Brethren refused to increase. Soon after, while two missionaries were in the store, some bullets were fired right through the wooden walls. Fortunately no one was hurt. But bad feelings had been roused, and at last it was found necessary to close these stores altogether, with the result that the Eskimo have been obliged to leave, and stay where they could buy provisions at hand; and now the Eskimo are all gone, and the whole station is closed for good. But this is only what civilization has done for aboriginal races all the world over.

Thank God that in this case the Gospel both preceded and accompanied commerce. To this alone I attribute the fact that after over 130 years any of the Eskimo do now remain. The Gospel has been received. Many have passed from darkness to light, and so are in a position to correspond to or resist the new environment of white men’s customs and white men’s whisky. True the Eskimo in Labrador are being slowly driven to a last stand. Thank God that stand is at Ramah, Hebron, Okkak, Hopedale and Nain, around the devoted Christian missionaries of the Moravian brethren, who for Christ’s sake spend their lives among the hardships of this bleak and barren coast; and while Beothicks and Red Indians have fallen victims to the God of mammon, remnants of this gentle and harmless race still persist. Take away these Moravians from Labrador, and the days of the Eskimo would soon be numbered.

Taken from an Eskimo Grave at Long Island.

In the eleventh century Thorfinn Karlsefne describes the Skraellings as “black and ill-favoured, with coarse hair on their heads, and large eyes, with broad cheeks.” Cartwright, writing in 1790, says they were quarrelsome among one another, and occasionally thievish. Cranz, in 1760, says they were degraded, immoral, and brutish in their heathen state. Nansen thinks they led an ideal socialistic life, but founded, I think, rather on a basis of inevitable union against starvation in bad times than on a basis of Divine and brotherly love. They appear ever to have been simple and confiding. Karlsefne says they came to visit his men in Vinland and began to barter.

“These people would rather have red cloth than anything else; for this they gave skins and real furs. For an entire fur-skin the Skraellings took a piece of red cloth a span long, and bound it round their heads. Thus went on traffic for a time, then the cloth began to fall short among Karlsefne and his people, and they cut it asunder into small pieces, which were not wider than the breadth of a finger, and still the Skraellings gave just as much as before, and more.”

According to our code they are very immoral, yet seeing the conduct of white men to one another and to themselves they always say of a good man, “He is like an Innuit” (Eskimo). They themselves have no words for cursing, and Nansen says also no words of opprobrium, such as liar, scoundrel, or rowdy. Recently one in the far north of Labrador, who already had seven wives, stole his son-in-law’s wife also—that is his own daughter. The younger man bided his time, and then shot the older one off his guard. Some twenty years ago a number came south to the most northern Moravian station. One had cut on his gun-stock many notches. On being asked what these meant, he explained they indicated so many men craftily shot. On being told it was wrong, he promised not to do it again. Polygamy is now done away with, and it is only in their fishing-tents that different families sleep together. In some tents I visited the only separations were marks made on the ground.

Yet they have learnt to repent of wrong-doing, and all their outbreaks have ended in asking for forgiveness. They confess even murder to the missionaries. I have met four who have done so. In all spiritual matters they implicitly accept the Brethren’s teaching; nor do they ever question the authority of the Bible; e.g., one man had a very refractory boy, who was always annoying his teacher, and wilfully disturbing the whole school. His father refused to punish him, for he said he thought that must be wrong for a Christian. Nor would he alter his decision till Solomon’s maxim on that point was shown him in black and white. He then at once adopted Solomon’s view of the matter, and “appealed to his son’s feelings” with a piece of walrus hide.

Other enemies, besides civilization, have helped to deplete the Eskimo race. The early Vikings harried them on their visits to the coast. Thorfinn Karlsefne mentions finding five Skraellings sleeping under a boat. He adds, his men killed them; and similar incidents occurred to others of these rovers. The Indians of the interior have always been hostile to them, and in their battles with these the Eskimo have generally come off second best.

We were shown the spot where tradition has it the Eskimo and Montaignais Indians fought their last fight for mastery. A story to which the finding of many stone arrow heads and knives lends some colour. Off the mouth of a long river lies a large island, with a smooth central plain, rising at each end to high broken rocks. On the outer end clustered the humble huts of the Eskimos, with their fishing gear lying around. One night, under cover of darkness, the Mountaineers crept stealthily down the river in their large, double-ended, birch war-canoes, and effected a landing, dragging the canoes up after them, and then hiding themselves among the rocks. Next day, however, the wary little Eskimo discovered their arrival, and pluckily determined to attack them at once. It is easy to picture the wild scene that followed. No doubt the little warriors fought desperately; but, against their taller and more powerful adversaries, were at a great disadvantage in a hand to hand conflict. Many having fallen in the open, the remnant sought cover among the rocks at the outer end of the island, only to be dislodged and driven back towards the sea. Here, no doubt, the squaws—who still dress like men and partake in all the expeditions—helped them to make one last stand for home and children. Then came the skurry to the beach. Behind are the ruthless, bloodthirsty “braves,” in front the mighty ocean. Picture the tiny skin-boats, manned by the few survivors, darting out through Atlantic surf, with probably wife and child hurriedly lashed on the back, as they do sometimes at the present day. Think of the tragedies enacted, as perhaps some obstacle prevented the kayaks getting away—some refractory child, some accident to the frail craft at the last moment. With fiendish yells the Indians are hurrying over the beach towards them, more horrible from their weird war-paint. History only says the settlement was exterminated.

Starvation also has lessened their numbers. Near Sir Leopold McClintock’s winter quarters—where the darkness lasted for three months—were camped some Eskimo. These people had neither fires nor lights. Living in snow huts, into which they crawled on their bellies through long snow tunnels, they lay huddled on one another for the sake of the warmth. Their clothes were of duck-skins and other feathers inside, and seal-skin outside. No wood existed anywhere near. Their food consisted of raw seal meat, buried deep outside. Whenever hungry, they would crawl out, eat about four pounds of raw meat, and crawl back and sleep again as long as possible—almost hibernating like the black bear. What would happen when the polar bear got at their meat supplies, as he was only too likely to do?

Only this year (1894) the crew of the whaler Balaena brought to Dundee the horrible details of what might well be expected. The Balaena’s crew discovered on the shore, in a place far removed from all animal life, the dead bodies of three Eskimos, and a number of bleached human bones. These three—two men and one woman—were evidently the last survivors of a larger party. Near to the bodies three human heads were noticed—in each case the throat had been cut and savagely hacked with a knife, while the brains had been extracted through a hole in the skull. A smashed rifle and a bow and arrows were lying near, and all the evidences of a severe struggle between the last two male survivors. A blood-stained knife was taken from the woman’s hand. It is probable the party had been waiting here (Elwin Bay) for the arrival of the whalers in 1893. Alas! ice had prevented their coming, and at last, among the patiently-expectant little people, an awful tragedy had been enacted.

Less dramatic incidents also occur in Eskimo life. Thus, in one case recently, an old tyrant had appropriated the fine new kayak of a poorer man; and soon after this poor fellow was drowned while shooting deer out of his old canoe, of which the skin covering was rotten. His son, a young fellow under twenty, remained quiet a long time. One day, however, he was taken out hunting by the old man. Whilst crossing a wide river on the ice, the son dropped behind a step and blew the other’s brains out.

On one or two occasions they have combined to attack the Moravian Brethren. Thus in Hebron, on one occasion, they shut the missionaries up in their house, not allowing them even to go and get water, demanding that all the goods in the store should be handed over to them. No resistance was made, except that the store was kept locked. At the end of three days, which the Brethren had spent in prayer, conviction seized the Eskimo, and they came and said they were very sorry.

No stretch of imagination could call them an emotional people; some are almost fatalists, and all are easily satisfied and careless of the morrow. One day an Eskimo guide accompanied me out fishing. It so happened that rain fell in great quantities, and as he had left his skin “kossack,” or jumper, at home, he might reasonably have been expected to seek shelter under one of the many rocks while I fished. Not so. He remained seated all the time out in the rain as if he were a mushroom. Late at night, after he had gone home, he came off again in his “kayak” to the ship to see me. “My boy dead,” he said. “Why did you not tell me he was ill? You knew we had medicine.” “No good; must die,” he replied.

I went next morning to see the funeral. The Moravians have taught them to bury beneath the surface. A hole had been dug in the sandy ground; the body was put in, and the grave filled up with sand. An hour later not a sign remained to mark the spot. It would never suggest itself to them to visit it.

In 1790, Cartwright, falling in love with an Eskimo girl, asked her hand from her husband Eketcheak, who had another wife himself. The reply was, “She is no good to work. Have this one and her two children.” Cartwright declined, saying he preferred the younger. “Take them all then,” said the generous husband. Cartwright explained he did not wish to trespass too much on his kindness. “Oh, you can give them back at the end of the year if you don’t want to keep them.”

While we were in Okkak, an elderly squaw came to be treated for shaking of the knees. It appeared that she had never before seen a steamboat, and had received a severe fright at the arrival of the Princess May; for she thought it was a man-of-war come to punish her son Rudolph, who some time previously had shot his wife, being tired of her. Since that incident Rudolph had become a Christian, but, as his crime was still unpunished, by Moravian rule he could not be admitted to their communion.

Remorse seemed to have seized him, and his one desire now was that his crime might be expiated by receiving its punishment at the hand of man. Naturally his mother was anxious.

This lack of emotion seems to prevent a due appreciation of the principle of self-sacrifice. Thus, one day, while a heavy storm was raging, some of those ashore noticed a party in great distress, endeavouring to reach the mainland in one of their smaller boats. A heavy surf was rolling in, and it would no doubt have been risky to go out. So the idea of a rescue seems never to have suggested itself. The people were drowned, and in telling the story themselves afterwards, they said, shrugging their shoulders, “Kujana,” meaning, “It must be,” or “I don’t care for it”—a solution which to them is perfectly satisfactory.

Yet they do at times brave deeds. Once last winter Michael and Simeon (they never have two names) in crossing from an island in their kayaks, were overtaken by a kind of blizzard. Simeon became unconscious and capsized. Michael, though himself almost in extremis, and having only his tiny kayak to fight the storm in, managed to get his friend out of the boat—into which they are usually laced—to put him on the back of his own canoe, and to carry him safely to land. Needless to say no Albert medal rewarded his brave deed. Unfortunately, the art of using the kayak is rapidly becoming lost, largely because the foolish Eskimo part with the seal-skins, necessary to cover their boats, in exchange for cheap and useless European goods. At one time, with their skin kossack or coat, laced over the opening, and fast round their wrists and face, they could upset with impunity, for with a couple of deft strokes with their paddles they were soon right way up again. Indeed, in heavy seas they would purposely upset, and so get the force of the broken water on the bottom or side of their boat, righting themselves immediately the danger had passed. In sport one kayak would “leap-frog” over another; or turning over on one side the “kayak man” would right himself on the other in their merry dexterity. Alas! that so marvellous an adaptation to the necessities of their lives should ever be relegated to a forgotten past. Broken water does them no more harm than it would to a swimming seagull, so exquisite is their buoyancy.

Generosity and vanity form a queer combination in many of them. On one occasion, a family, which had long been struggling for the mere necessaries of daily life, were fortunate enough to catch in their large stone trap a black fox. With tears of joy the father took the skin to the store. God had heard his prayers. He was credited with £9 worth of goods. When he got home, however, the well-filled cupboard so filled his heart with vanity that he issued an invitation to all his acquaintances “to come and eat and stay with him.” In two days the supplies ran out, and already again the wolf of hunger besieged his doors.

In another case a Newfoundland planter had left an Eskimo in charge of his stores during the winter, giving him for himself a more than generous winter’s diet. Soon his friends, with their chronic state of hunger, came to pay him a visit. Without a thought as to consequences, the visit was prolonged indefinitely, and soon the whole of them were without provisions. The usual course to adopt next is to drive on and visit the nearest settlement, till all alike are “commercial travellers” in the same line of business. No wonder there is an Eskimo saying, “Do not live near the komatik (or sleigh) track.”

Loyalty is said to be a marked feature in the Eskimo. They fully believed at Hopedale that Her Majesty the Queen sits on a rock on the look-out—as they do—in her anxiety for the arrival of the mission ship Harmony. We were charged with many personal messages by them to the Queen, expressing their deep sense of gratitude for sending the Albert out to them.

When they heard the English were at war in Egypt, they organized an impromptu regiment, with a captain in a discarded policeman’s coat and one odd epaulet, with which they proposed to the missionaries they should proceed to the seat of war. Indeed, they took no denial, and continued to drill till the opening of the sea turned their attention once more to cod-fishing.

I must now close my few remarks about this interesting people. Some of their habits, which to us are more repellant, I have purposely passed over—such as their predilection for their meat to be “mikkiak,” or partly rotten, and their uncleanliness. What we saw of the Eskimo we liked: their gratitude for kindnesses done; their fortitude under the knife, or in pain; their merriment and good-nature often under circumstances most depressing. When talking to a dying Eskimo of forty-five, who for a fortnight had lain in terrible agony with his hands blown off, I asked the poor fellow if the pain was unbearable. He answered simply, “It is nothing to what my Saviour bore in the Garden for me.” His last words were singing Zinzendorf’s beautiful hymn:—

“Jesus, day by day,

Guide us on our way.”

It continues:—

“Should the path us grieve,

Thee we’ll never leave;

Lord, in days of greatest sadness,

Let us bear our cross with gladness;

Trials mark the road

Leading home to God.

All our steps attend,

Guide us to the end;

Should the way be rough and dreary,

With Thy strength support the weary;

When our race is o’er,

Open, Lord, Thy door.”

---

CHAPTER XVI

THE DEEDS OF HEROES

Some 18,000 people cluster around the shores of Trinity Bay, their scattered villages and fishing hamlets nestling on its creeks and coves. It was in February. The Ice King had laid his iron hand even on the giant ocean, and the floe ice of the frozen sea stretched far beyond the eye’s horizon. Yet these boldest among England’s sea-loving sons were adding to their scanty stock of this world’s goods by venturing far out among the treacherous ice in pursuit of seals.

The morning of the 27th broke bright and beautiful, enhanced by a clear space of deep blue water between the shore and the inner edge of the ice. The eager hunters were early astir, and snatching a hasty breakfast, were soon off in their little boats, being but lightly clad, to give their limbs freer play in the various vicissitudes of their calling.

From Trinity, Green Bay, Ireland’s Eye, boat glided out after boat, as the crack of the guns of those first afloat told of a prospect of success, until over 220 men were out. “’Tis a strange and awful thing to think, how often mortality stands on the brink of its grave without any misgiving.”

Suddenly a dark cloud appeared in the north-east, with incredible rapidity masses piled themselves together, and then in a moment, from the heart of the black battalions, the tempest leaped in fury, struck the now darkened waters, and converted the bay into a seething, hissing cauldron. The temperature fell forty degrees, and the fierce cold, with the piercing wind, seemed to freeze the very blood in the veins. Gust followed gust, each more furious than the last, driving the angry sea in foam-capped mountains on to the doomed fleet of boats. Now began a desperate struggle for life, enough to appal the stoutest hearts. Two alternatives only were possible—first to face the teeth of the gale and row for their homes on the north shore; or, secondly, run before it, and endeavour to clamber over the ice to the southern side of the bay. Six boats tried the former. The spray, freezing as it fell, drenched the men to their skin, covering both boats and men with casings of solid ice. Slowly and painfully, in terrible danger each moment of being swamped, they lessened the distance between themselves and the shore. Suddenly a cry of despair arose from one of the boats—the oars had snapped, and the boat was drifting to certain destruction. Without a thought of the peril of the delay, and from the increased burden they would have to carry, the nearest boat at once went to their aid, and in that terrible sea took the perishing men on board. One of the poor fellows, however, was soon dead from cold and exhaustion. Ice began to form in thick masses on the bow and sides of the deeply-laden boat, and as each wave struck her she rose more and more heavily, until all saw the immediate need of lightening the boat. With sad, mute faces the men looked at each other. The dead man lay at the bottom of the boat, his white face and unclosed eyes turned towards the sky. “Come, boys,” said the oldest man, “it can’t be helped; Isaac must go overboard or we shall all be drowned.” Rapidly they raised the body, now draped in its icy shroud. “In the name of God we commit this body to the deep in sure, and certain hope of resurrection. Amen.” A dull plash and the reverent funeral service was over. The boat seemed now to float more buoyantly; but after another hour’s struggle for life, the brother of him whose remains had already been given to the sea, breathed his last. No doubt the horror of the scene had hastened his end. The sad ceremonial had to be repeated at once, for the ice was fast gaining and sinking the boat.

Benumbed and exhausted in this death battle, all hope was nearly over when from the foremost boat a cry was raised which put fresh courage in their hearts—Land, ho! It was the well known “Horse Chop” rocks. Another desperate effort, and at last their keels touched the strand. But, alas! for the poor fellows even then. Some, unable even to leave the boats till helped by their companions, staggered feebly ashore, and tried to crawl up the steep gulch from their landing place; but strength failed them, and four more died after landing. It was a sad ending to so brave a fight.

Deeds worthy of the highest praise were enacted in that gulch that day, the stronger helping the weaker, and endeavouring to restore and encourage those who were abandoning themselves to death. One tells how “I saw Robert Bannister manage to crawl partly up the cliff on his hands and knees. At last he just stopped, said, ‘God bless us,’ and died where he was. His son was lying dead near him.” The nearest house was two miles away, but three men had now spied them. Hastily making a fire of brushwood, they helped the still living up the cliff, and putting some of their own garments on them, nursed some back to life—but here two more poor fellows perished, while their rescuers carried or helped them over that long two miles. Not one but suffered terribly from frost-bite, especially one poor fellow who had given his mittens to a lad without any.

There were still twenty-four boats missing. What of them? Ice-covered, frost-bitten, and exhausted, some had reached harbours in the great bay, situated not so directly in the teeth of the storm; but of those who made for Bonaventure, Deer Harbour, Thoroughfare, and Ireland’s Eye, only one had died in the boat. But now deeds of even greater heroism were called for and performed. The men from Ireland’s Eye found that far out in the storm were men from English Harbour and Salmon Cove, who could not possibly reach home, and who might be sheltering on some off-lying uninhabited island, certain to perish during the night unless help were forthcoming. Food was partaken of, a brief rest snatched, God’s protecting care besought, and once more these heroes of the sea went out silently into that raging storm, from which they had but just escaped with their lives. “Inasmuch as ye did unto the least of these, My brethren, ye did it unto Me.” Two boats were manned, and after fruitless search one returned safely, but empty handed, to the shelter of the harbour. The other, through the darkness of the falling night, saw at length a small light on a desolate spot near Thoroughfare. Fierce joy burnt in those noble hearts, as they strained every sinew to drive their stubborn craft through the now almost forgotten dangers. Alas, a sorrowful sight awaited them. There in their boat on the beach, amidst the roar of the storm, and the thunder of the surf, lay two poor fellows silent in death—swathed in their winding sheet of ice, and fast frozen to their boat. By the fire were three fishermen, half dead themselves, trying to rekindle the spark of life in two of their fast dying comrades. All were taken back by the rescue party, and the living nursed back to life at the nearest cottage. It was enough to move the most cynical to tears—wives and mothers wildly wringing their hands in agony of heart; and those strong men, with nerves of iron, wept like children.

The storm raged all Saturday night, and from many a little home the men were still missing. During the long hours hope and despair alternated in many anxious hearts, for all knew they had drifted across the bay, and none knew what their fate might be.

At noon on Sunday a woman, at Heart’s Content, on the southern side, happened to notice, far out in the bay, a small boat drifting helplessly about. But for this all must have perished. Rescue parties were at once formed, and soon five boats, with seventeen men, some in the last stage of exhaustion from the exposure of that awful night, were brought ashore. These men had spent the night on the ice; they had broken up and burnt two boats, which, with the fat of two seals they had killed, had kept off the worst of the cold, while some of the fresh meat, roasted in the flames, had helped to assuage the pangs of hunger and maintain the bodily heat. All these were more or less severely frost-bitten, but, with the loss of fingers, toes, or heels, all recovered. Later in the day the rest of the boats were seen, and twenty-seven more men rescued. One of these men, Patrick Hanlan, thus described his experiences:—

“The spray was continually going over us, and freezing, and we soon saw it was impossible to reach land on the north side of the bay without running the risk of freezing to death. After a time we gave her a little sheet, and ran her for a pan of ice. Got out on the pan and made a fire to get something to eat and drink. Just as we were doing this, a sea broke over the pan, and washed everything off except ourselves. We had to jump in our boat and run her before the gale until about four in the afternoon. Just before dusk we caught up four other boats with twelve men in them. We all hauled up our boats on a large pan of ice, turned up the largest boats to make a shelter from the wind, and made a fire. I had two seals in my boat, and we pelted (i.e. skinned) them to burn the fat, breaking up one of the smaller boats, also, to use as fuel. We were on the ice drifting up the bay all night. It was bitterly cold, in spite of the big fire, and we had to keep dancing and jumping to keep up our spirits, and to keep from freezing. At dawn we were about five miles from Heart’s Delight. We hauled our boats over some ice, and then rowed for land, which we reached at nine o’clock. The people treated us with wonderful kindness, doing all in their power to relieve us. Under Providence they saved our lives, and we shall never forget their kindness.”[18]

Enough has been said to show the stuff these men are made of, and there is not space here to multiply stories that point to the same traits of character, and that show the same self-sacrificing courage. Yet with such the history of these perilous fisheries abounds. With which statement of fact, gentle reader, I shall say adieu, thanking God if in any way I may still be of service to these toilers of the sea.

CHAPTER XVII

WE APPEAL FOR CANADIAN SYMPATHY

A Missionary in Winter Dress.

In November, 1893, Dr. Bobardt and myself visited Canada, with the hope of getting help for our work, seeing that some Canadians would at least benefit by it. In Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto we found friendly audiences. St. Paul’s Church (Episcopal), the Brunswick Street Methodist Church, and the Garison Chapel, all of Halifax, each paid for the support of one cot for a year, promising to endeavour to do so annually; while a small committee was organized in each place to keep alive an interest in the work, and to help by sending clothes and reading to St. Johns, Newfoundland, for us to carry to Labrador. Governor Daly, General Montgomery Moore, and Bishop Courtney, of Nova Scotia, were good enough to assist us in Halifax; while everywhere the members of that admirable institution, “The Brotherhood of St. Andrew,” extended their generous friendship to us. In Montreal, Sir Donald Smith, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, who himself had spent thirteen years in charge of one of the Company’s stations, presented a steamer to the Montreal Committee, to enable the work to be more efficiently carried out. Dr. Roddick, of Montreal, also presented the Mission with a sailing boat for Battle Harbour, called the Urelia McKinnon. His Excellency the Governor-General, Lord Aberdeen, was good enough to preside at the meeting at Ottawa, and express his sympathy with the work. Indeed, for real interest and sympathy in every philanthropic work, and it is grand to know in every distinctively missionary work also, Canada is fortunate in possessing in both Lord and Lady Aberdeen examples of a kind alas far too rare in these so-called Christian days. A meeting was also held in Winnipeg, whither we went on a holiday trip, and here the Lieut.-Governor, Sir John Schultze, presided, and, with Lady Schultze, expressed great interest in the work. Samuel Blake, Esq., Q.C., so well known in Canada for his broad-minded Christian sympathies, was our chairman at Toronto. Our days at Toronto possessed for me an interest never experienced before. We fell on a great Missionary Convention, and from Mr. Warzawiak, of New York, Dr. MacKay, of Formosa, Dr. Gordon, of Boston, Dr. Pierson, of Philadelphia, and many other remarkable men, we heard of such difficulties overcome, obstacles removed, and successes attained by the Gospel in other fields in the missionary world, that it made one desire to be at work in China, Africa, and North America all at once.

Reaching England in March, while preparations were being made for 1894, I was enabled to visit the North Sea fleets. The English fishermen expressed a most lively interest in their brethren over the sea, and the warm-hearted admiral of the Red Cross fleet sent me a large flag, that they might be “represented in Labrador.”

Dr. Curwen having gone to China for the London Missionary Society, and Dr. Bobardt desiring to remain at home a year, our staff, consisting of Dr. Willway, Dr. Bennett, and the two sisters, sailed direct for Labrador in the Albert, while a volunteer Christian worker, who came and acted as chief engineer (Mr. W. B. Wakefield), and myself, left for Montreal, fitting out and despatching the S.S. Princess May, as we passed through St. Johns, Newfoundland.

The Albert had a long passage out, and meeting the outside of the floe ice, had a tough three days working her way through; now charging into large pans, now laying against masses piled up higher than her masts. Captain Trezise reported her as at one time in great danger of being overwhelmed by masses falling on to her decks. She, however, got through safely, and her magnificent sea qualities and rapid movements were more than ever before apparent to those in charge of her.

Eskimo Brass Band at Moravian Mission Station of Hopedale.

Having landed Dr. Bennett and Sister Carwardine at Battle Hospital, she proceeded to Indian Harbour, where the hospital was rapidly placed in working order. Here the little wood building almost came to an inglorious and premature end by fire the first week of its existence; and we were indebted to the strenuous efforts of a number of fishermen for saving it from destruction, and to Commodore Curzon-Howe, of H.M.S. Cleopatra, for landing a body of blue jackets to repair the damage, enabling the work to proceed. The Albert then returned and lay in Battle Harbour, to await the arrival of our steamer, the Sir Donald. Meanwhile, we had visited many stations from Montreal along the Labrador coast on the north side the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Everywhere we had had plenty of work to do: seeing sick people, operating where necessary, holding services, and distributing literature. We everywhere found people deeply grateful for our visit, and glad to gather to hear the Gospel. Many spoke eagerly of the hopes raised that a third hospital would be erected in the Labrador or lower province of Quebec, to which the sick could be carried, and were anxious to forward a petition to Ottawa to that effect. We were everywhere entreated not to allow this to be our last visit. At La Romaine, a station of the Hudson Bay Company, we had a severe operation on a young Montaignais Indian hunter—otherwise doomed to die—and when we left three days later he was lying in his tent, on a clean bed of spruce boughs, on the high-road to recovery. At the last places we visited, we took patients aboard for Battle Hospital—one poor lad with a horrible affection of the hip, a girl with a useless wrist and arm, a child with hip-joint disease, and a sick woman for operation. All of these eventually returned home benefited or cured.

Just before reaching Battle Harbour, with all our flags flying, our brass polished, and our spirits wild with expectancy of seeing our colleagues again, we suddenly struck a submerged rock, and for a few minutes lay in danger of rolling over and sinking in deep water. All hands behaved exceedingly well. Our boats were lowered, signals put up for two schooners which happened to be passing, to “stand by,” while kedge anchors were run out, in the endeavour to save the ship by warping her off the rocks. After a time, assisted by a heavy tide and the big ground swell, she came off and swung to her anchors in the deep water. Alas, for us, she had almost better have remained a complete wreck, for her keel and stem were broken, her rudder twisted, her propeller gone, her engines broken, and her side bulged in. Fortunately, we were able to travel over land to Battle Harbour; and Mr. Baine Grieve’s agent sent thence his bait launch and towed the Sir Donald into harbour. Here we found the Albert, very anxious about our long delayed arrival, but now overjoyed to see us in any plight. As nothing could be done to repair the steamer in Labrador, Captain Trezise undertook the exceedingly risky attempt to tow the Sir Donald to St. Johns, and this, after many exciting incidents and many close shaves of losing her, he successfully accomplished. There she now lies, undergoing repairs for another year’s work.

Meanwhile, I left with the Urelia McKinnon for Indian Harbour Hospital, and thence visited the Hudson Bay station at Rigolette, and many other places between Indian Harbour and Battle.

Dr. Bennett was anxious to leave early for England, as he was appointed by the London Missionary Society to Tien-Tsin Missionary Hospital in China; and so, till winter drove the Newfoundland people off the coast, Battle Hospital came under my charge. On November 1st the sisters and myself left for Newfoundland, Dr. Willway remaining to hold the fort alone till we could return in 1895. His arrangements were to visit, if possible, as far as Blanc Sablon, and then returning to his hospital to meet our good friend Mr. Wilson, of Rigolette, at Cartwright, to travel with him north to Hopedale and Davis Inlet, and then to await at Battle Hospital our return.

Thus, God willing, much good will be done, many sick and suffering ones relieved, many cheered and assisted in their struggle for existence, and, above all, the Gospel proclaimed in many homes where, but for the “Labrador Mission,” its sound would never reach during the long and weary winter months.[19]

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

SOME MEDICAL STATISTICS.

There were treated from the Albert in 1892 nine hundred patients, of which one-third might be called serious cases. An epidemic of influenza visited the coast, and this led to many cases of lung affections. Affections of the eyes were also common, while minor surgical cases were in great abundance. Seven operations were performed under anæsthetics.

In 1893 there were treated:—

In Labrador, the Straits of Belle Isle, and on the French shore of Newfoundland there were treated by—

These cases, for the council’s better information and that of the public, I analysed as follows. [Our case books are preserved in London for reference.]

Medical Cases.

There were in Battle Harbour Hospital the following named cots or beds: viz., Exeter, Brighton, Redhill, Hutchinson, Macpherson; also the John Fountain Elvin and John Charles Harris memorial cots.

In the male ward were first the “Brighton cot.” This was occupied by a poor Newfoundland fisherman whom I brought 80 miles in the Princess May. He had consumption, and died after about two months in hospital. His body alone reached his relatives in Newfoundland.

The second bed was the “Harris Cot.” There were three patients in this bed this season. The first was suffering with pleurisy; the second had to have his middle finger amputated, after a deep abscess of the hand; the third also had a severely poisoned hand.

The third, the “Redhill Cot,” was occupied by a fisherman with paralysis of the right arm and leg, and then by a poor fellow with consumption.

The fourth, the “Hutchinson Cot,” was occupied by, first, a man with a severely crushed hand; then by a poor fellow from far north, sent back by the Albert (he was suffering from ulcer of the stomach); and, thirdly, by a French Canadian who was brought in a sealing steamer from Canadian Labrador, with a deep abscess of the back.

The fifth, the “Exeter Cot,” was occupied, first, by a fisherman with rheumatic fever and heart disease; second, by a man with excessive deep inflammation of the arm and forearm; third, by a man with abscess in the palm of his hand; fourth, by a young American with an affection resulting from consumption in the system; fifth, by a very similar case with a Newfoundlander.

The sixth, the “Macpherson Cot,” was in the female ward. First of all it was occupied by a young girl who had to undergo a serious operation; then by a woman who had come fifty miles down the Straits of Belle Isle with an internal disease; then by a poor girl brought south in the mail steamer from the cabin of one of the small fishing vessels. She died in hospital. The poor thing was engaged to be married this summer. Had she been able to come earlier for proper assistance there can be no doubt her life would have been saved. The fourth patient in this bed was a girl of eighteen. She had been suffering with an internal abscess for nearly three years when I saw her first in Sandwich Bay in the Princess May. After the operation we sent her by the mail to Battle Hospital. Here she remained some weeks, and on returning south in the Princess May, and again visiting Sandwich Bay, I found the girl returned, a new creature altogether. “I should like to have stayed always,” she told me.

W. T. G.

In 1894, owing to the loss of the S.S. Sir Donald, and the fact of the Princess May being unable to reach the coast, the work of the mission was much curtailed. Yet out of 1,306 patients treated a much larger proportion were serious cases, and more patients availed themselves of the hospitals. This number will no doubt increase.

There were treated this year by—

These were—

Medical Cases.

Surgical Cases.

APPENDIX B

SPIRITUAL AGENCIES IN LABRADOR,

Since July, 1892, at which time we arrived on the coast.

There is a Wesleyan missionary fifty miles west of Battle, at Red Bay. To visit all round his circuit and return must involve 250 to 300 miles’ travelling. It must be remembered all this visiting is done in a small open boat in summer, at great risk in so dangerous a place as the Straits of Belle Isle; and in winter over the ice with a komatik and team of dogs. The Rev. J. Sidey was there three years, and is now replaced by Rev. J. Antle.[20]

At Battle Harbour, as is well known to our readers, there is a wooden church, but it has been in charge of a young teacher and lay reader since we have been on the coast.

At Cartwright, thirty miles up Sandwich Bay, is another wooden church and schoolroom combined. Here also is a lay reader and schoolmaster. This would be about 150 miles up the coast from Battle Harbour. The sphere of work does not, I think, extend at all outside Sandwich Bay.

Fifty miles above Indian Harbour, up Hamilton Inlet, is a young Wesleyan minister. He has a small school and chapel on the south side of the inlet. We had the pleasure of taking him in the Princess May to his new sphere of work. His name is the Rev. G. Hollett, and his sphere of work is Hamilton Inlet, I think as far in as the North West river, that is eighty miles further, or 130 from Indian Harbour.

From Indian Harbour to Hopedale the settlers number from 260 to 300, and are very poor and very scattered. The distance by sea is 150 miles, and again consists of a series of long bays and off-lying islands. There is no missionary or schoolmaster anywhere along this part of the coast, though once in the winter one of the Moravians travels over the ice as far south as Cape Harrison with his komatik and dogs, often at great peril to his life. Northward of Cape Harrison are only a few scattered European settlers, mixed among not less than 2,000 Eskimos. These are mostly members of the Moravian Church. The Moravian stations are from 50 to 100 miles apart.

To meet the spiritual needs of all these people, scattered as they are, and of the 25,000 who visit the coast in summer—some 10,000 living on their vessels all the year—we only heard of one clergyman of the Church of England and one Wesleyan minister, with one Roman Catholic priest, visiting during part of the summer. This year, 1893, we did not hear of any peripatetic Wesleyan minister, and the only clergyman was rather in pursuit of health; but we met in the Straits of Belle Isle Bishop MacDonnel and the Rev. Father Lynch, of the Roman Catholic Church. I must mention also that the Bible Society send a colporteur every year to sell Bibles and testaments on the coast, though we did not fall in with him this year, nor do I know how much of the coast he travels over. Last year a tiny schooner, manned by three Salvation Army captains, also visited the coast, partly fishing and partly preaching the gospel. Among the fishermen themselves we met many earnest and pious Christians, and as on the North Sea, so on this bleak coast we have felt God’s presence quite as real and as near in the meetings on board or in the huts as we have in great buildings and comfortable pews in the old country.

Among past workers in Labrador I hear of the Rev. J. G. Curling, Rev. Mr. Hutchinson, and Rev. Mr. Quintain. The last two spent many years in Labrador, while the Rev. J. Bull spent three years at Battle Harbour. The Right Rev. Llewellyn Jones, Bishop of Newfoundland and Bermuda, has also visited the coast, as did Bishop Field, his predecessor. The Rev. Father Lemoine, labouring among the Montaignais Indians of the interior, also sometimes comes out on the coast during the summer.[21]

APPENDIX C

A FEW TESTIMONIES TO THE WORK FROM THOSE WHO KNOW LABRADOR

From the Rev. F. S. Hollett, Missionary of the
Canadian Methodist Church at Rigolette:—

Hamilton Inlet,

Labrador.

Dear Dr. Grenfell,—

... Any way that we can help you, we will be glad to do it. As you know I can sympathise with you in the difficulties you meet with. D.V., we hope to have a visit from you next year. May God bless you in your noble work, and you will always remember,

I am
Your sincere brother in Christ,
Frank S. Hollett.

From Dr. Robert Murray, Editor of the “Presbyterian Witness”:—

Halifax,
December, 1894.

Dear Dr. Grenfell,—

... From our Presbyterian teacher from Canadian Labrador we had most favourable reports of your work. I examined him personally on his return, as to what he had seen and heard.

While he had not seen the hospitals and the doctors, he had heard most appreciative reports from fishermen ...

Yours very truly,
Robert Murray.

October 27, 1892. A representative meeting of the colony of Newfoundland was held at Government House, St. Johns. There were present, amongst others, His Excellency the Governor, Sir Frederick Carter (Judge of Supreme Court), Sir William Whiteway (Premier), Major-General Dowell, R.A., Sir Robert Thorburn (late Premier), Hon. E. D. Shea, Hon. Robert Bond (Colonial Secretary), Hon. A. Goodridge (late Premier), Hon. A. W. Harvey, Hon. M. Munroe, and Messrs. W. Grieve, P. Tessier, E. Duder, W. Job, E. Outerbridge, representing the merchant firms, Captains the Hon. S. Blandford, W. Bartlett, N. Fitzgerald, J. Watson, representing the Labrador planters, and Messrs. Ch. Emerson, J. Withers,—Cohen, etc. After a discussion, in which several present took part, it was proposed by Hon. W. A. Harvey, seconded by Sir Wm. Whiteway, and when put by His Excellency the Governor unanimously resolved:—

Resolved.—“That this meeting, representing the principal merchants and traders carrying on the fisheries, especially on the coast of Labrador, and others interested in the welfare of this colony, desires to tender its warmest thanks to the directors of the Deep Sea Mission for their philanthropic generosity in sending their hospital ship Albert to visit the fishing settlements on the Labrador coast.

“Much of our fishing industry is carried on in regions beyond the ordinary reach of medical aid or of charity, and it is with the deepest sense of gratitude that this meeting learns of the amount of medical and surgical work done, besides all the other relief and help so liberally distributed. This meeting also desires to express the hope that the directors of the Mission may see their way to continue the work thus begun, and should they do so they may be assured of the earnest support and co-operation of all classes of this community.”

Subsequent to this great meeting the following resolution was passed and forwarded to the Mission:—

“That this representative committee will undertake to provide two suitable buildings, which may be used as hospitals by the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, should the Council of the Mission signify their intention to continue their operations on the coast of Labrador, and the Committee will heartily co-operate in any other way that the Council of the Society may suggest.

“That a copy of the foregoing resolution be forwarded for the information of the society.

(Signed) {T. O’Brien, Governor, Chairman.
{M. Munroe, Secretary.”

Montreal, December, 1893.

A. Bobardt, Esq., M.B., R.N., writing, says:—

Often in Labrador have I been urged on to further work by noting how much a Mission visit is appreciated, and how the people do enjoy a meeting; and it seems a thousand pities that they cannot be brought under regular spiritual influences.

The small portable organ I had was most useful, and wherever I went it was my Fidus Achates, tending to infuse more life into my meetings. I found the people joined heartily in the hymns. Most of this visiting was done by boat, and it was in this work that one recognised fully the benefits of being able to handle an oar, and pull oneself wherever one wished to go.

In the hospital I had thirty-three in-patients, and in the nursing of these I must pay tribute to Nurse Carwardine, who, by her unremitting zeal and attention, made many of these poor fishermen know for the first time what it was to be in a comfortable warm bed, and be skilfully attended to.

The comparison between them in hospital and in their own homes or smacks is too extreme to be drawn, and they were very grateful for what had been done for them.

One case for example:—A gunshot wound of the hand came to hospital, and, though his hand was severely lacerated, he was able to return to his home with a useful limb, after being five weeks in. If this case had been left to itself, the young man must have either lost his arm, or had a stiff and useless hand; and the latter is in the way of a fisherman, who necessarily uses his hands so much in handling nets, lines, ropes, oars, etc.

Many at Battle and the surrounding coves are now thanking God for His goodness in inspiring friends in England and elsewhere to send clothing for them this fall; the look of delight when they received their bundles was a treat to witness. On Tuesday, October 31st, we left Battle Harbour, amidst the salutes from many “Brown Sallys” (guns). We carried with us the pleasantest recollections, and the hope that the work would grow and increase, bringing health, happiness, and much comfort to these Labradorites.

Sincerely yours,
Albert Bobardt.

From Rev. Jno. Sidey, now three years Wesleyan Missionary at Red Bay.

Far away in that ice-bound, snow-clad country, there are men and women struggling with poverty, hunger, and disease. Could our kind friends at home, while sitting around their warm firesides with their dear children, supplied with every want and comfort, take a peep into the many miserable hovels, where men, women, and children are ill-fed, poorly-clad (in some cases nearly naked), suffering from sickness; and with no prospect of roughing the winter out, as all traders are gone, their only resource is to apply to the nearest fishing station, perhaps many miles away, for charity, which, I am thankful to say, is very rarely refused to them—could our kind friends but get a peep at them, I feel sure that they would be only too glad to do a little to relieve their wants. There are many residents scattered far and wide, some in fairly good circumstances, and there is, without doubt, an immense field of labour, both spiritually and medically, and I trust that many friends may be found to assist in this branch....

Hoping that I have been successful in showing you that there is, indeed, a cry from Labrador: “Come over and help us.”

Joseph F. Trezise (late Master of Albert).

December 8, 1892.

From Rev. Moses Harvey, LL.D., F.R.S., St. Johns,

Distribution of Clothing.

The Albert brought from England a very large stock of clothing, both new and cast-off, the gift of kind charitable friends. This was distributed with the greatest care and discrimination, every precaution being used to guard against imposition. The cases of utter or partial destitution of clothing among families who reside permanently on the Labrador coast, were numerous, and much timely aid was given, especially to women and children. Food was also given in cases of extreme destitution. Many families were thus helped to provide for the long, cold winter of this region. There is no doubt that every spring some families are driven to subsist on mussels and seaweed they can gather along the land-wash. With ice on the coast no help can reach them.

Distribution of Books, Periodicals, and Tracts.

A very large supply of wholesome literature was carried on board the Mission ship, and, wherever she went, was freely distributed among the fishermen. Wherever it was found in any family that any one could read, a gift was made either of illustrated or plain literature, or both.

Religious Services.

Wherever the Albert or Princess May called, when opportunity offered, especially on Sundays, religious services were held, which all were invited to attend. Hymns were sung, prayers offered, and simple addresses given on Scriptural subjects. These services were much appreciated among these lonely sea-toilers; and thus something was done to make known that Gospel which has brought such blessings to mankind, but without any reference to creed or sect being made.

The steam launch, Princess May, proved to be of great service in the Mission work. Dr. Grenfell was enabled to go up uncharted bays in her, so as to visit a large number of the small settlements which would otherwise not have been within reach. He was thus able to make a thorough examination into the condition of the residents, and to collect accurate statistical information regarding them to an extent never before attempted. In all, he visited eighty-seven different settlements on the Labrador coast, as far north as Okkak. Dr. Curwen, in the Albert, visited thirty-five more settlements; and Dr. Bobardt visited all the places in the vicinity of Battle Harbour.

APPENDIX D

POVERTY OF THE PEOPLE

To gauge as accurately as possible the condition of the people, we prepared as full a census of them—of their belongings, their families, and their accomplishments—as we could. In this, during three years, I have had the assistance of four medical men besides myself, of the resident missionaries on the coast, and of the Moravian brethren further north.

We find the people, as a rule, very poor, often reduced to the verge of starvation. The causes we believe to be (1) depletion of fisheries and fur-bearing animals, and bad seasons. (2) Inability to replenish traps, guns, nets, boats, etc., when worn out. (3) Inability to secure proper clothing and supplies of food when once they become overwhelmed in debt. These causes have led to (4) loss of energy, apathy, and even despair.

There are some families still comfortably off, but these are impoverished by their own generosity, which impels them continually to assist their poorer brethren. Where they are still well off, it is generally because they have a number of grown-up unmarried sons, or are in some harbour well separated from other settlers. This last fact is more patent as one travels north. The census papers are in my possession now. I will quote here some bad cases.

APPENDIX E

THE FISHING SCHOONERS

I have spoken of these in a general way. Here are a few specimens of notes from our diaries as to numbers of crews and “freighters” carried.

The larger merchants all send their crews down in steamers. This has the double advantage of securing better accommodation, and immensely shortening the passage. We are all strongly of the opinion that nothing can be said in defence of allowing girls to form part of the regular crews of the green-fish catchers, or of any fishing vessel. It appears to be necessary that women should go down as passengers; and with proper provisions there is no reason why they should not do so.

Here is the result of an accident to such a vessel this year. Unfortunately I did not ascertain her tonnage.

On Thursday, the 14th inst., we left Spaniard’s Bay, bound to Horse Harbour, Labrador, on a fishing voyage, having on board a number of sixty-two souls, comprising men, women, and children. All went well, until about eight miles north-east of Partridge Point (White Bay). On the 17th inst., at 4 p.m., Sunday, while in a dense fog, the vessel struck a large pan of ice, which crushed her bows in, causing her to fill and sink in about eight or ten minutes. Five or six men succeeded in getting on the pan of ice with a line, and secured it as best they could to the pan. Unfortunately it could not be secured on board, owing to the dreadful panic which was taking place; so she fell off a considerable distance from the pan, preventing any one from getting on the ice. A few boats were then thrown over, but before any one could be taken on board the boats, the vessel sank, leaving men, women and children floating among the wreckage in the water. Some of the few boats filled, and were upset, leaving only two to pick up the men, women and children, who were then struggling for their lives in the water. After a very hard fight we managed to save fifty (including who were in the boats), leaving twelve poor souls to meet a watery grave, namely, eight men, two boys, and two young women. Some of the women and children were almost totally naked, having jumped out of bed, and had not time to even catch their clothes. These would have undoubtedly died before many hours were over, as they were both wet and naked, had not the schooner Irene, Captain Bursey, of Catalina, arrived at this opportune moment, and quickly got us on board, and brought us into Coachman’s Cove.

I am, respectfully yours,
Henry Gosse,
Late Master of Schooner Rose.

Spaniard’s Bay, June 28th, 1894.

Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.