Chapter III: Part 3

In the forests of the south and southeast are the Mountaineer Indians, as they are called by all English speaking people; or, if we wish to put on airs and assume French we may call them the _Montaignais_ Indians. In the North are the Nascaupees, today the most primitive Indians on the North American continent. In the west and southwest are the Crees.

All of these Indians are of the great Algonquin family, and are much like those that Natty Bumpo chummed with or fought against, and those who lived in New York and New England when the settlers first came to what are now our eastern states. Labrador is so large, and there are so few Indians to occupy it, however, that the explorer may wander through it for months, as I have done, without ever once seeing the smoke rising from an Indian tepee or hearing a human voice.

The Eskimos of the north coast are much like the Eskimos of Greenland, both in language and in the way they live. Their summer shelters are skin tents, which they call _tupeks_. In winter they build dome-shaped houses from blocks of snow, though they sometimes have cave-like shelters of stone and earth built against the side of a hill. The snow houses they call _iglooweuks_, or houses of snow; the stone and earth shelters are _igloosoaks_, or big igloos, the word igloo, in the Eskimo language, meaning house. When winter comes big snow drifts soon cover the igloosoaks, and the snow keeps out the wind and cold. As a further protection, snow tunnels, through which the people crawl on hands and knees, are built out from the entrance to the igloosoak, and these keep all drafts, when a gale blows, from those within.

The Eskimos heat their snow igloos, and in treeless regions their igloosoaks also, with lamps of hollowed stone. These lamps are made in the form of a half moon. Seal oil is used as fuel, and a rag, if there is any to be had, or moss, resting upon the straight side of the lamp, does service as the wick.

Of course the snow igloos must never be permitted to get so warm that the snow will melt. The temperature in a snow house is therefore kept at about thirty degrees, or a little lower. Nevertheless it is comfortable enough, when the temperature outside is perhaps forty or fifty degrees below zero and quite likely a stiff breeze blowing. Comfort is always a matter of comparison. I have spent a good many nights in snow houses, and was always glad to enjoy the comfort they offered. To the traveler who has been in the open all day, the snow house is a cozy retreat and a snug enough place to rest and sleep in.

On the east coast the Eskimos are more civilized and live much like the liveyeres. All Eskimos are kind hearted, hospitable people. Once, I remember, when an Eskimo host noticed that the bottom of my sealskin mocasins had worn through to the stocking, he pulled those he wore off his feet, and insisted upon me wearing them. He had others, to be sure, but they were not so good as those he gave me. No matter how poorly off he is, an Eskimo will feel quite offended if a visitor does not share with him what he has to eat.

Though Dr. Grenfell's hospitals are farther south, on the coast where the liveyeres have their cabins, he cruises northward to the Eskimo country of the east coast every summer, and in the summer has nursing stations there. Sometimes, when there is a case demanding it, he brings the sick Eskimos to one of the hospitals. But, generally, the east coast Eskimos are looked after by the Moravian Brethren in their missions, and in summer Dr. Grenfell calls at the missions to give them his medical and surgical assistance.

As stated before, the liveyeres and others than the Indians, build their cabins on the coast, usually on the shores of bays, but always by the salt water and where they can hear the sound of the sea. Every man of them is a hunter or a fisherman or both, and the boys grow up with guns in their hands, and pulling at an oar or sailing a boat. They begin as soon as they can walk to learn the ways of the wilderness and of the wild things that live in it, and they are good sailors and know a great deal about the sea and the fish while they are still wee lads. That is to be their profession, and they are preparing for it.

The Labrador home of the liveyere usually contains two rooms, but occasionally three, though there are many, especially north of Hamilton Inlet, of but a single room. All have an enclosed lean-to porch at the entrance. This serves not only as a protection from drifting snow in winter, but as a place where stovewood is piled, dog harness and snowshoes are hung, and various articles stored.

In the cabin is a large wood-burning stove, the first and most important piece of furniture. There is a home-made table and sometimes a home-made chair or two, though usually chests in which clothing and furs are stored are utilized also as seats. A closet built at one side holds the meager supply of dishes. On a mantelshelf the clock ticks, if the cabin boasts one, and by its side rests a well-thumbed Bible.

Bunks, built against the rear of the room, serve as beds. If there is a second room, it supplies additional sleeping quarters, with bunks built against the walls as in the living room. Travelers and visitors carry their own sleeping bags and bedding with them and sleep upon the floor. This is the sort of bed Dr. Grenfell enjoys when sleeping at night in a liveyere's home.

On the beams overhead are rifles and shotguns, always within easy reach, for a shot at some game may offer at any time. The side walls of the cabins are papered with old newspapers, or illustrations cut from old magazines.

The more thrifty and cleanly scrub floors, tables, doors and all woodwork with soap and sand once a week, until everything is spotlessly clean. But along the coast one comes upon cabins often enough that appear never to have had a cleaning day, and in which the odor of seal oil and fish is heavy.

Those of the Newfoundland fishermen that bring their families to the coast live in all sorts of cabins. Some are well built and comfortable, while others are merely sod-covered huts with earthen floor. These are occupied, however, only during the fishing season. The fishermen move into them early in July and begin to leave them early in September.

As stated elsewhere, no farming can be done in Labrador, and the only way men can make a living is by hunting and fishing. Eskimos seldom venture far inland on their hunting and trapping expeditions, but some of the liveyeres go fifty or sixty miles from the coast to set their traps, and some of those in Hamilton Inlet go up the Grand River for a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles, and others go up the Nascaupee River for upwards of a hundred miles.

Trapping is all done in winter and it is a lonely and adventurous calling. Early in September, the men who go the greatest distance inland set out for their trapping grounds. Usually two men go together. They build a small log hut called a "tilt," about eight by ten feet in size. Against each of two sides a bunk is made of saplings and covered with spruce or balsam boughs. On the boughs the sleeping bags are spread, and the result is a comfortable bed. The bunks also serve as seats. A little sheet iron stove that weighs, including stovepipe, about eighteen pounds and is easy to transport, heats the tilt, and answers very well for the trapper's simple cooking. The stovepipe, protruding through the roof, serves as a chimney.

The main tilt is used as a base of supplies, and here reserve provisions are stored together with accumulations of furs as they are caught. Fat salt pork, flour, baking powder or soda, salt, tea and Barbadoes molasses complete the list of provisions carried into the wilderness from the trading post. Other provisions must be hunted.

Each man provides himself with a frying pan, a tin cup, a spoon or two, a tin pail to serve as a tea kettle and sometimes a slightly larger pail for cooking. On his belt he carries a sheath knife, which he uses for cooking, skinning, eating and general utility. He rarely encumbers himself with a fork.

For use on the trail each man has a stove similar to the one that heats the tilt, a small cotton tent, and a toboggan.

From the base tilt the trapping paths or trails lead out. Each trapper has a path which he has established and which he works alone. He hauls his sleeping bag, provisions and other equipment on his toboggan or, as he calls it, "flat sled." He carries his rifle in his hand and his ax is stowed on the toboggan, for he never knows when a quick shot will get him a pelt or a day's food.

Sometimes tilts are built along the path at the end of a day's journey, but if there is no tilt the cotton tent is pitched. In likely places traps are set for marten, mink or fox. Ice prevents trapping for the otter in winter, but they are often shot.

At the end of a week or fortnight the partners meet at the base tilt. Otherwise each man is alone, and we may imagine how glad they are to see each other when the meeting time comes. But they cannot be idle. Out through the snow-covered forest, along the shores of frozen lakes and on wide bleak marshes the trapper has one hundred traps at least, and some of them as many as three hundred. The men must keep busy to look after them properly, and so, after a Sunday's rest together they again separate and are away on their snowshoes hauling their toboggans after them.

At Christmas time they go back to their homes, down by the sea, to see their wives and children and to make merry for a week. What a meeting that always is! How eagerly the little ones have been looking forward to the day when Daddy would come! O, that blessed Christmas week! But it is only seven days long, and on the second day of January the trappers are away again to their tilts and trails and traps. Again early in March they visit their homes for another week, and then again return to the deep wilderness to remain there until June.

Sometimes the father never comes back, and then the wilderness carries in its heart the secret of his end. Then, oh, those hours of happy expectancy that become days of grave anxiety and finally weeks of black despair! Such a case happened once when I was in Labrador. Later they found the young trapper's body where the man had perished, seventy miles from his home.

As I have said, the life of the trapper is filled with adventure. Many a narrow escape he has, but he never loses his grit. He cannot afford to. Gilbert Blake was one of four trappers that rescued me several years ago, when I had been on short rations in the wilderness for several weeks, and without food for two weeks. I had eaten my moccasins, my feet were frozen and I was so weak I could not walk. Gilbert and I have been friends since then and we later traveled the wilderness together. Gilbert has no trapping partner. His "path" is a hundred miles inland from his home. All winter, with no other companion than a little dog, he works alone in that lonely wilderness.

One winter game was scarce, and Gilbert's provisions were practically exhausted when he set out to strike up his traps preparatory to his visit home in March. He was several miles from his tilt when suddenly one of his snowshoes broke beyond repair. He could not move a step without snowshoes, for the snow lay ten feet deep. He had no skin with him with which to net another snowshoe, even if he were to make the frame; and he had nothing to eat.

A Labrador blizzard came on, and Gilbert for three days was held prisoner in his tent. He spent his time trying to make a serviceable snowshoe with netting woven from parts of his clothing torn into strips. When at last the storm ended and he struck his tent he was famished.

Packing his things on his toboggan he set out for the tilt, but had gone only a short distance when the improvised snowshoe broke. He made repeated efforts to mend it, but always it broke after a few steps forward. He was in a desperate situation.

He had now been nearly three days without eating. He was still several miles from the tilt where he had a scant supply that had been reserved for his journey home. To proceed to the tilt was obviously impossible, and he could only perish by remaining where he was.

Utterly exhausted after a fruitless effort to flounder forward, he sat down upon his flatsled, and looked out over the silent snow waste. Weakened with hunger, it seemed to him that he had reached the end of his endurance. So far as he knew there was not another human being within a hundred miles of where he sat, and he had no expectation or slightest hope of any one coming to his assistance. "I was scrammed," said he, which meant, in our vernacular, he was "all in."

Gilbert is a fine Christian man, and all the time, as he told me in relating his experience, he had been praying God to show him a way to safety. He never was a coward, and he was not afraid to die, for he had faced death many times before and men of the wilderness become accustomed to the thought that sometime, out there in the silence and alone, the hand of the grim messenger may grasp them. But he was afraid for Mrs. Blake and the four little ones at home. Were he to perish there would be no one to earn a living for them. He was frightened to think of the privations those he loved would suffer.

Suddenly, in the distance, he glimpsed two objects moving over the snow. As they came nearer he discovered that they were men. He shouted and waved his arms, and there was an answering signal. Presently two Mountaineer Indians approached, hauling loaded toboggans, laughing and shouting a greeting as they recognized him.

"'Twas an answer to my prayers," said Gilbert in relating the incident to me. "I was fair scrammed when I saw them Indians. They were the first Indians I had seen the whole winter. They weren't pretty, but just then they looked to me like angels from heaven, and just as pretty as any angels could look."

The Indians had recently made a killing, and their toboggans were loaded with fresh caribou meat. They made Gilbert eat until they nearly killed him with kindness, and they had an extra pair of snowshoes, which they gave him.

This is the life of the trapper on The Labrador. This is the sort of man he is--hardy, patient, brave and reverent. He is a man of grit and daring, as he must be to cheerfully meet, with a stout heart and a smile, the constant hardships and adventures that beset him.

Dr. Grenfell declares that it is no hardship to devote his life to helping men like this. His work among them brings constant joy to him. They appreciate him, and he has grown to look upon them as all members of his big family. He takes a personal and devoted interest in each. It is a great comfort to the men to know that if any are sick or injured at home while they are away on the trails the mission doctor will do his best to heal them. Before Grenfell went to The Labrador there was no doctor to call upon the whole winter through.

The trapping season for fur ends in April. Then the trapper "strikes up" his traps, hangs them in trees where he will find them the following fall, packs his belongings on his toboggan and returns home, unless he is to remain to hunt bear. In that case he must wait for the bears to come forth from their winter's sleep, and this will keep the hunter in the wilderness until after the "break-up" comes and the ice goes out. Those who go far inland usually wait in any case until the ice is out of the streams and boat or canoe traveling is possible and safe.

The break-up sets in, usually, early in June. Then come torrential rains. The snow-covered wilderness is transformed into a sea of slush. New brooks rise everywhere and pour down with rush and roar into lakes and rivers. The rivers over-flow their banks. Trees are uprooted and are swept forward on the flood. Broken ice jams and pounds its way through the rapids with sound like thunder. The spring break-up is an inspiring and wonderful spectacle.

When the hunting season ends and the trappers return from their winter trails, they enjoy a respite at home mending fishing nets, repairing boats and making things tidy and ship-shape for the summer's fishing. Everyone is now looking forward with keen anticipation to the first run of fish. From the time the ice goes out all one hears along the coast is talk of fish. "Any signs of fish, b'y?" One hears it everywhere, for everybody is asking everybody else that question.

In Hamilton Inlet and Sandwich Bay salmon fisheries are of chief importance. Salmon here are all salted down in barrels and not tinned, as on the Pacific coast. Once there was a salmon cannery in Sandwich Bay, but the Hudson's Bay Company bought it and demolished it, as there was doubtless less work and more profit for the Company in salted salmon. Elsewhere the fisheries are mainly for cod.

In a frontier land it is not easy to earn a living. Everybody must work hard all the time. Men, women, boys and girls all do their share at the fishing. Women and children help to split and cure the fish. It is a proud day for any lad when he is big enough and strong enough to pull a stroke with the heavy oar, and go out to sea with his father.

The Labrador, or Arctic, current now and again keeps ice drifting along the coast the whole summer through. When ice is there fishermen cannot set their nets and fish traps, for the ice would tear the gear and ruin it. Neither can they fish successfully with hook and line when the ice is in. When this happens few fish are caught.

Then, too, there are seasons when game and animals move away from certain regions, and then the trapper cannot get them. Perhaps they go farther inland, and too far for him to follow. I have seen times when ptarmigans were so thick men killed them for dog food, and perhaps the next year there would not be a ptarmigan to be found to put into the pot for dinner. I have seen the snow trampled down everywhere in the woods and among the brush by innumerable snowshoe rabbits, and I have seen other years when not a single rabbit track was to be found anywhere. It is the same with caribou and the fur bearing animals as well. In those years when game is scarce the people are hard put to it to get a bit of fresh meat to eat.

When no fresh meat is to be had salt fish, bread (rarely with butter) and tea, with molasses as sweetening, is the diet. There is no milk, even for the babies. If all the salt fish has been sold or traded in for flour and tea, bread and tea three times a day is all there is to eat.

People cannot keep well on just bread and tea, or even bread and salt fish and tea. It is not hard for us to imagine how we would feel if every meal we had day in and day out was only bread and tea, and sometimes not enough of that.

X

THE SEAL HUNTER

No less perilous is the business of fisherman and sealer than that of hunter and trapper. Every turn a man makes down on The Labrador is likely to carry him into some adventure that will place his life in danger, at sea as on land. But there is no way out of it if a living is to be made.

It is a strange fact that one never recognizes a great deal of danger in the life that one is accustomed to living, no matter how perilous it may seem to others. If a Labradorman were to come to any of our towns or cities his heart would be in his mouth at every turn, for a time at least, dodging automobiles and street cars. It would appear to him an exceedingly hazardous existence that we live, and he would long to be back to the peace and quiet and safety of his sea and wilderness. And our streets would be dangerous ground to him, indeed, until he became accustomed to dodging motor cars. He is nimble enough, and on his own ground could put most of us to shame in that respect, but here he is lacking in experience.

The same hunter will face the storms and solitude of the wilderness trail without ever once feeling that he is in danger or afraid. He knows how to do it. That is the life that he has been reared to live. The average city man would perish in a day if left alone to care for himself on a trapper's trail. He has never learned the business, and he would not know how to take care of himself.

The Labradorman being both hunter and fisherman, is perfectly at home both in the wilderness and on the sea. He has the dangers of both to meet, but he does not recognize them as dangerous callings, though every year some mate or neighbor loses his life. "'Tis the way o' th' Lard."

Ice still covers the Labrador harbors in May, and this is when the seal hunt begins, or, as the liveyere says, he goes "swileing." He calls a seal a "swile." With a harpoon attached to a long line he stations himself at a breathing hole in the ice which the seals under the ice have kept open, and out of which, now and again, one raises its nose and fills its lungs with air, for seals are animals, not fish, and must have air to breathe or they will drown. The hole is a small one, but large enough to cast the spear, or harpoon, into.

Seals are exceedingly shy animals, and the slightest movement will frighten them away. Therefore the seal hunter must stand perfectly still, like a graven image, with harpoon poised, and that is pretty cold work in zero weather. If luck is with him he will after a time see a small movement in the water, and a moment later a seal's nose will appear. Then like a flash of lightning, he casts the harpoon, and if his aim is good, as it usually is, a seal is fast on the barbs of the harpoon.

The harpoon point is attached to a long line, while the harpoon shaft, by an ingenious arrangement, will slip free from the point. Now, while the shaft remains in the hands of the hunter, the line begins running rapidly down through the hole, for the seal in a vain endeavor to free itself dives deeply. The other end of the line also remaining in the hands of the hunter is fastened to the shaft of the harpoon, and there is a struggle. In time, the seal, unable to return to its hole for air, is drowned, and then is hauled out through the hole upon the ice.

These north Atlantic seals, having no fine fur like the Pacific seals, are chiefly valuable for their fat. The pelts are, however, of considerable value to the natives. The women tan them and make them into watertight boots or other clothing. Of course a good many of them find their way to civilization, where they are made into pocketbooks and bags, and they make a very fine tough leather indeed. The flesh is utilized for dog food, though, as in the case of young seals particularly, it is often eaten by the people, particularly when other sorts of meat is scarce. Most of the people, and particularly the Eskimos, are fond of the flippers and liver.

Sometimes the seals come out of their holes to lie on the ice and bask in the sun. Then the hunter, simulating the movements of a seal, crawls toward his game until he is within rifle shot.

Should a gale of wind arise suddenly, the ice may be separated into pans and drift abroad before the seal hunters can make their escape to land. In that case a hunter may be driven to sea on an ice pan, and he is fortunate if his neighbors discover him and rescue him in boats.

After the ice goes out, those who own seal nets set them, and a great many seals are caught in this way. At this season the seals frequently are seen sunning themselves on the shore rocks, and the hunters stalk and shoot them.

Newfoundlanders carry on their sealing in steamers built for the purpose. They go out to the great ice floe, far out to sea and quite too far for the liveyeres to reach in small craft. Here the seals are found in thousands. These vessels, depending upon the size, bring home a cargo sometimes numbering as many as 20,000 to 30,000 seals in a single ship, and there are about twenty-five ships in the fleet.

This terrible slaughter has seriously decreased the numbers. The Labrador Eskimos used to depend upon them largely for their living. They can do this no longer, for not every season, as formerly, are there enough seals to supply needs. All of the five varieties of North Atlantic seals are caught on the coast--harbor, jar, harp, hooded and square flipper. The last named is also called the great bearded seal and sometimes the sealion. The first named is the smallest of all.

Scarce a year passes that we do not hear of a serious disaster in the Newfoundland sealing fleet. Sometimes severe snow storms arise when the men are hunting on the floe, and then the men are often lost. Sometimes the ships are crushed in the big floe and go to the bottom. The latest of these disasters was the disappearance of the _Southern Cross_, with a crew of one hundred seventy-five men.

One of my good friends, Captain Jacob Kean, used to command the _Virginia Lake_, one of the largest of the sealers. She carried a crew of about two hundred men. A few years before Captain Kean lost his life in one of the awful sea disasters of the coast, he related to me one of his experiences at the sealing.

Captain Kean was in luck that year, and found the seals early and in great numbers. The crew had made a good hunt on the floe, and they are loading them with about a third of a cargo aboard when suddenly the ice closed in and the _Virginia Lake_ was "pinched," with the result that a good sized hole was broken in her planking on the port side forward below the water line. The sea rushed in, and it looked for a time as though the vessel would sink, and there were not boats enough to accommodate the crew even if boats could have been used, which was hardly possible under the conditions, for the sea was clogged with heaving ice pans.

The pumps were manned, and Captain Kean, and with every man not working the pumps, with feverish haste shifted the cargo to the starboard side and aft. Presently, with the weight shifted, the ship lay over on her starboard side and her bow rose above the water until the crushed planking and the hole were above the water line.

The hole now exposed, Captain Kean stuffed it with sea biscuit, or hardtack. Over this he nailed a covering of canvas. Tubs of butter were brought up, and the canvas thoroughly and thickly buttered. This done, a sheathing of planking was spiked on over the buttered canvas. Then the cargo was re-shifted into place, the vessel settled back upon an even keel, and it was found that the leak was healed. The sea biscuit, absorbing moisture, swelled, and this together with the canvas, butter and planking proved effectual. Captain Kean loaded his ship with seals and took her into St. John's harbor safely with a full cargo.

The following year the _Virginia Lake_ was again pinched by the ice, but this time was lost. Captain Kean and his crew took refuge on the ice floe, and were fortunately rescued by another sealer. When Captain Kean lost his life a few years later the sealing fleet lost one of its most successful masters. He was a fine Christian gentleman and as able a seaman as ever trod a bridge.

But this is the life of the sealer and the fisherman of the northern sees. Terrible storms sometimes sweep down that rugged, barren coast and leave behind them a harvest of wrecked vessels and drowned men and destitute families that have lost their only support.

These were the conditions that Grenfell found in Labrador, and this was the breed of men, these hunters and trappers, fishermen and sealers--sturdy, honest, God-fearing folk--with whom Grenfell took up his life. He had elected to share with them the hardships of their desolate land and the perils of their ice-choked sea. They needed him, and to them he offered a service that was Christ-like in its breadth and devotion.

It was a peculiar field. No ordinary man could have entered it with hope of success. Mere ability as a physician and surgeon of wide experience was not enough. In addition to this, success demanded that he be a Christian gentleman with high ideals, and freedom from bigotry. Courage, moral as well as physical, was a necessity. Only a man who was himself a fearless and capable navigator could make the rounds of the coast and respond promptly to the hurried and urgent calls to widely separated patients. Constant exposure to hardship and peril demanded a strong body and a level head. Balanced judgment, high executive and administrative ability, deep insight into human character and unbounded sympathy for those who suffered or were in trouble were indispensable characteristics. All of these attributes Grenfell possessed.

A short time before Mr. Moody's death, Grenfell met Moody and told him of the inspiration he had received from that sermon, delivered in London many years before by the great evangelist.

"What have you been doing since?" asked Moody.

What has Grenfell been doing since? He has established hospitals at Battle Harbor, Indian Harbor, Harrington and Northwest River in Labrador, and at St. Anthony in northeastern Newfoundland. He has established schools and nursing stations both in Labrador and Newfoundland. He has built and maintains two orphanages. He founded the Seamen's Institute in St. Johns.

Year after year, since that summer's day when the _Albert_ anchored in Domino Run and Grenfell first met the men of the Newfoundland fishing fleet and the liveyeres of the Labrador coast, winter and summer, Grenfell himself and the doctors that assist him have patrolled that long desolate coast giving the best that was in them to the people that lived there. Grenfell has preached the Word, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, sheltered the homeless and righted many wrongs. He has fought disease and poverty, evil and oppression. Hardship, peril and prejudice have fallen to his lot, but he has met them with a courage and determination that never faltered, and he is still "up and at it."

Grenfell's life has been a life of service to others. Freely and joyfully he has given himself and all that was in him to the work of making others happier, and the people of the coast love and trust him. With pathetic confidence they lean upon him and call him in their need, as children lean upon their father, and he has never failed to respond. When a man who had lost a leg felt the need for an artificial one, he appealed to Grenfell:

Docter plase I whant to see you. Docter sir have you got a
leg if you have Will you plase send him Down Praps he may
fet and you would oblig.

One who wished clothing for his family wrote:

To Dr. Gransfield
Dear honrabel Sir,
I would be pleased to ask you Sir if you would be pleased to
give me and my wife a littel poor close. I was going in the
Bay to cut some wood. But I am all amost blind and cant Do
much so if you would spear me some Sir I would Be very
thankful to you Sir.

Calls to visit the sick are continuously received. The following are genuine examples:

Reverance dr. Grandfell. Dear sir we are expecting you hup
and we would like for you to come so quick as you can for my
dater is very sick with a very large sore under her left
harm we emenangin that the old is two enchis deep and two
enches wide plase com as quick as you can to save life I
remains yours truely.

Docker--Please wel you send me somting for the pain in my
feet and what you proismed to send my little boy. Docker I
am almost cripple, it is up my hips, I can hardly walk. This
is my housban is gaining you this note.

doctor--i have a compleant i ham weak with wind on the
chest, weakness all over me up in my harm.

Dear Dr. Grenfell.
I would like for you to Have time to come Down to my House
Before you leaves to go to St. Anthony. My little Girl is
very Bad. it seems all in Her neck. Cant Ply her Neck
forward if do she nearly goes in the fits. i dont know what
it is the matter with Her myself. But if you would see Her
you would know what the matter with Her. Please send a word
by the Bearer what gives you this note and let me know where
you will have time to come down to my House, i lives down
the Bay a Place called Berry Head.

These people are made of the same clay as you and I. They are moved by the same human emotions. They love those who are near and dear to them no less than we love those who are near and dear to us. The same heights or depths of joy and sorrow, hopes and disappointments enter into their lives. In the following chapters let us meet some of them, and travel with Doctor Grenfell as he goes about his work among them.

XI

UNCLE WILLIE WOLFREY

One bitterly cold day in winter our dog team halted before a cabin. We had been hailed as we were passing by the man of the house. He gave us a hearty hand shake and invitation to have "a drop o' tea and a bit to eat," adding, "you'd never ha' been passin' without stoppin' for a cup o' tea to warm you up, whatever." It was early, and we had intended to stop farther on to boil our kettle in the edge of the woods with as little loss of time as possible, but there was no getting away from the hospitality of the liveyere.

There were three of us, and we were as hungry as bears, for there is nothing like snowshoe traveling in thirty and forty degrees below zero weather to give one an appetite. As we entered we sniffed a delicious odor of roasting meat, and that one sniff made us glad we had stopped, and made us equally certain we had never before in our lives been so hungry for a good meal. For days we had been subsisting on hardtack and jerked venison, two articles of food that will not freeze for they contain no moisture, and tea; or, when we stopped at a cabin, on bread and tea. The man's wife was already placing plates, cups and saucers on the bare table for us, and two little boys were helping with hungry eagerness.

"Hang your adikeys on the pegs there and get warmed up," our host invited. "Dinner's a'most ready. 'Tis a wonderful frosty day to be cruisin'."

We did as he directed, and then seated ourselves on chests that he pulled forward for seats. He had many questions to ask concerning the folk to the northward, their health and their luck at the winter's trapping, until, presently, the woman brought forth from the oven and placed upon the table a pan of deliciously browned, smoking meat.

"Set in! Set in!" beamed our host. "'Tis fine you comes today and not yesterday," adding as we drew up to the table: "All we'd been havin' to give you yesterday and all th' winter, were bread and tea. Game's been wonderful scarce, and this is the first bit o' meat we has th' whole winter, barrin' a pa'tridge or two in November. But this marnin' I finds a lynx in one o' my traps, and a fine prime skin he has. I'll show un to you after we eats, though he's on the dryin' board and you can't see the fur of he."

We bowed our heads while the host asked the blessing. The Labradorman rarely omits the blessing, and often the meal is closed with a final thanks, for men of the wilderness live near to God. He is very near to them and they reverence Him.

"Help yourself, sir! Help yourself!"

Each of us helped himself sparingly to the cat meat. There was bread, but no butter, and there was hot tea with black molasses for sweetening.

"Take more o' th' meat now! Help yourselves! Don't be afraid of un," our hospitable host urged, and we did help ourselves again, for it was good.

Whenever we passed within hailing distance of a cabin, we had to stop for a "cup o' hot tea, whatever." Otherwise the people would have felt sorely hurt. We seldom found more elaborate meals than bread, tea and molasses, rarely butter, and of course never any vegetables.

We soon discovered that we could not pay the head of the family for our entertainment, but where there were children we left money with the mother with which to buy something for the little ones, which doubtless would be clothing or provisions for the family. If there were no children we left the money on the table or somewhere where it surely would be discovered after our departure.

I remember one of this fine breed of men well. I met him on this journey, and he once drove dog team for me--Uncle Willie Wolfrey. Doctor Grenfell says of him:

"Uncle Willie isn't a scholar, a social light, or a capitalist magnate, but all the same ten minutes' visit to Uncle Willie Wolfrey is worth five dollars of any man's investment."

It requires a lot of physical energy for any man to tramp the trails day after day through a frigid, snow-covered wilderness, and months of it at a stretch. It is a big job for a young and hearty man, and a tremendous one for a man of Uncle Willie's years. And it is a man's job, too, to handle a boat in all weather, in calm and in gale, in clear and in fog, sixteen to twenty hours a day, and the fisherman's day is seldom shorter than that. The fish must be caught when they are there to be caught, and they must be split and salted the day they are caught, and then there's the work of spreading them on the "flakes," and turning them, and piling and covering them when rain threatens.

A cataract began to form on Uncle Willie's eyes, and every day he could see just a little less plainly than the day before. The prospects were that he would soon be blind, and without his eyesight he could neither hunt nor fish.

But with his growing age and misfortune Uncle Willie was never a whit less cheerful. He had to earn his living and he kept at his work.

"'Tis the way of the Lard," said he. "He's blessed me with fine health all my life, and kept the house warm, and we've always had a bit to eat, whatever. The Lard has been wonderful good to us, and I'll never be complainin'."

It was never Uncle Willie's way to complain about hard luck. He always did his best, and somehow, no matter how hard a pinch in which he found himself, it always came out right in the end.

Finally Uncle Willie's eyesight became so poor that it was difficult for him to see sufficiently to get around, and one day last summer (1921) he stepped off his fish stage where he was at work, and the fall broke his thigh. This happened at the very beginning of the fishing season, and put an end to the summer's fishing for Uncle Willie, and, of course, to all hope of hunting and trapping during last winter.

Then Doctor Grenfell happened along with his brave old hospital ship _Strathcona_. Dr. Grenfell has a way of happening along just when people are desperately in need of him. With Dr. Grenfell was Dr. Morlan, a skillful and well-known eye and throat specialist from Chicago. Dr. Morlan was spending his holiday with Dr. Grenfell, helping heal the sick down on The Labrador, giving free his services and his great skill.

Dr. Grenfell set and dressed Uncle Willie Wolfrey's broken thigh. Dr. Morlan was to remain but a few days. If he were to help Uncle Willie's eyes there could be no time given for a recovery from the operation on the thigh. Uncle Willie was game for it.

They had settled Uncle Willie comfortably at Indian Harbor Hospital, and immediately the thigh was set Dr. Morlan operated upon one of the eyes. The operation was successful, and when the freeze-up came with the beginning of winter, Uncle Willie, hobbling about on crutches and with one good eye was home again in his cabin.

Uncle Willie lives in a lonely place, and for many miles north and south he has but one neighbor. The outlook for the winter was dismal indeed. His flour barrel was empty. He had no money.

But that stout old heart could not be discouraged or subdued. Uncle Willie was as full of grit as ever he was in his life. He was still a fountain of cheery optimism and hope. He could see with one eye now, and out of that eye the world looked like a pretty good place in which to live, and he was decided to make the best of it.

Dr. Grenfell, passing down the coast, called in to see the crippled old fisherman and hunter, and in commenting on that visit he said:

"There are certain men it always does one good to meet. Uncle Willie is a channel of blessing. His sincerity and faith do one good. There is always a merry glint in his eye. Even with one eye out, and his crutches on, and his prospect of hunger, Uncle Willie was just the same."

Dr. Grenfell left some money, donated by the Doctor's friends, and made other provisions for the comfort of Uncle Willie Wolfrey during the winter. If all goes well he will be at his fishing again, when the ice clears away; and the snows of another winter will see him again on his trapping path setting traps for martens and foxes. And with his rifle and one good eye, who knows but he may knock over a silver fox or a bear or two?

Good luck to Uncle Willie Wolfrey and his spirit, which cannot be downed.

As Dr. Grenfell has often said, the Labradorman is a fountain of faith and hope and inspiration. If the fishing season is a failure he turns to his winter's trapping with unwavering faith that it will yield him well. If his trapping fails his hope and faith are none the less when he sets out in the spring to hunt seals. Seals may be scarce and the reward poor, but never mind! The summer fishing is at hand, and _this_ year it will certainly bring a good catch! "The Lard be wonderful good to us, _what_ever."

XII

A DOZEN FOX TRAPS

On that same voyage along the coast when Uncle Willie Wolfrey was found with a broken thigh, Dr. Grenfell, after he had operated upon Uncle Willie, in the course of his voyage, stopping at many harbors to give medical assistance to the needy ones, ran in one day to Kaipokok Bay, at Turnavik Islands.

As the vessel dropped her anchor he observed a man sitting on the rocks eagerly watching the ship. The jolly boat was launched, and as it approached the land the man arose and coming down to the water's edge, shouted:

"Be that you, Doctor?"

"Yes, Uncle Tom, it is I?" the Doctor shouted back, for he had already recognized Uncle Tom, one of the fine old men of the coast.

When Grenfell stepped ashore and took Uncle Tom's hand in a hearty grasp, the old man broke down and cried like a child. Uncle Tom was evidently in keen distress.

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so glad you comes. I were lookin' for you, Doctor," said the old man in a voice broken by emotion. "I were watchin' and watchin' out here on the rocks, not knowin' whether you'd be comin' this way, but hopin', and prayin' the Lard to send you. He sends you, Doctor. 'Twere the Lard sends you when I'm needin' you, sir, sorely needin' you."

Uncle Tom is seventy years of age. He was born and bred on The Labrador, but he has not spent all his life there. In his younger days he shipped as a sailor, and as a seaman saw many parts of the world. But long ago he returned to his home to settle down as a fisherman and a trapper.

When the war came, the brave old soul, stirred by patriotism, paid his own passage and expenses on the mail boat to St. Johns, and offered to volunteer for service. Of course he was too old and was rejected because of his age.

Uncle Tom, his patriotism not in the least dampened, returned to his Labrador home and divided all the fur of his winter's hunt into two equal piles. To one pile he added a ten dollar bill, and that pile, with the ten dollars added, he shipped at once to the "Patriotic Fund" in St. Johns. He had offered himself, and they would not take him, and this was all he could do to help win the war, and he did it freely and wistfully, out of his noble, generous patriotic soul.

"What is the trouble, Uncle Tom?" asked Grenfell, when Uncle Tom had to some extent regained his composure, and the old man told his story.

He was in hard luck. Late the previous fall (1920) or early in the winter he had met with a severe accident that had resulted in several broken ribs. Navigation had closed, and he was cut off from all surgical assistance, and his broken ribs had never had attention and had not healed. He could scarcely draw a breath without pain, or even rest without pain at night, and he could not go to his trapping path.

He depended upon his winter's hunt mainly for support, and with no fur to sell he was, for the first time in his life, compelled to contract a debt. Then, suddenly, the trader with whom he dealt discontinued giving credit. Uncle Tom was stranded high and dry, and when the fishing season came he had no outfit or means of purchasing one, and could not go fishing.

Besides his wife there were six children in Uncle Tom's family, though none of them was his own or related to him. When the "flu" came to the coast in 1918, and one out of every five of the people around Turnavik Islands died, several little ones were left homeless and orphans. The generous hearts of Uncle Tom and his wife opened to them and they took these six children into their home as their own. And so it happened that Uncle Tom had, and still has, a large family depending upon him.

"As we neared the cottage," said Doctor Grenfell, "his good wife, beaming from head to foot as usual, came out to greet us. Optimist to the last ditch, she _knew_ that somehow provision would be made. She, too, had had her troubles, for twice she had been operated on at Indian Harbor for cancer."

Uncle Tom must have suffered severely during all those months that he had lived with his broken ribs uncared for. Now Dr. Grenfell, without loss of time, strapped them up good and tight. Mrs. Grenfell supplied the six youngsters with a fine outfit of good warm clothes, and when Dr. Grenfell sailed out of Kaipokok Bay Uncle Tom and Mrs. Tom had no further cause for worry concerning the source from which provisions would come for themselves and the six orphans they had adopted.

These are but a few incidents in the life of the people to whom Dr. Grenfell is devoting his skill and his sympathy year in and year out. I could relate enough of them to fill a dozen volumes like this, but space is limited.

There is always hardship and always will be in a frontier land like Labrador, and Labrador north of Cape Charles is the most primitive of frontier lands. Dr. Grenfell and his helpers find plenty to do in addition to giving out medicines and dressing wounds. A little boost sometimes puts a family on its feet, raising it from abject poverty to independence and self-respect. Just a little momentum to push them over the line. Grenfell knows how to do this.

Several years ago Dr. Grenfell anchored his vessel in Big Bight, and went ashore to visit David Long. David had had a hard winter, and among other kindnesses to the family, Dr. Grenfell presented David's two oldest boys, lads of fifteen or sixteen or thereabouts, with a dozen steel fox traps. Lack of traps had prevented the boys taking part in trapping during the previous winter.

The next year after giving the boys the traps, Grenfell again cast anchor in Big Bight, and, as usual, rowed ashore to visit the Longs. There was great excitement in their joyous greeting. Something important had happened. There was no doubt of that! David and Mrs. Long and the two lads and all the little Longs were exuding mystery, but particularly the two lads. Whatever this mysterious secret was they could scarce keep it until they had led Dr. Grenfell into the cabin, and he was comfortably seated.

Then, with vast importance and some show of deliberate dignity, David opened a chest. From its depths he drew forth a pelt. Dr. Grenfell watched with interest while David shook it to make the fur stand out to best advantage, and then held up to his admiring gaze the skin of a beautiful silver fox! The lads had caught it in one of the dozen traps he had given them.

"We keeps un for you," announced David exultantly.

"It's a prime one, too!" exclaimed the Doctor, duly impressed, as he examined it.

"She _be_ that," emphasized David proudly. "No finer were caught on the coast the winter."

"It was a good winter's work," said the Doctor.

"'Twere _that_ now! 'Twere a _wonder_ful good winter's work--just t'cotch that un!" enthused Mrs. Long.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Doctor Grenfell.

"We keeps un for you," said David. "The time was th' winter when we has ne'er a bit o' grub but what we hunts, all of our flour and molasses gone. But we don't take _he_ to the trade, _what_ever. We keeps _he_ for you."