THE ROMANCE OF LABRADOR BOOKS BY SIR WILFRED GRENFELL FORTY YEARS FOR LABRADOR THE STORY OF A LABRADOR DOCTOR YOURSELF AND YOUR BODY WHAT CHRIST MEANS TO ME THE FISHERMAN'S SAINT HODDER & STOUGHTON, LTD. LONDON • riH::;:.i. ' " ,................. '.. · ·. ·~ -- . P hotograph, by F. C. Sears SUNSET AT NORTHWEST RIVER A LABRADOR VILL.'\GE THE ROMANCE OF LABRADOR SIR WILFRED GRENFELL K.C.M.G., M.D., F.R.C.S., ETC. Illustrations by D. Ross LONDON HODDER & STOUGHTON LIMITED 1 93+ Copyright, 1934, by THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. All rights reserved-no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief pass~ges i~ con!lection wi_th a review written for melus1on m magazme or newspaper. M ad4 and p,;nted in Gnat Britain by Key and Whiting, Ltd., and The Kemp Hall Press, Ltd, 1-AA!Wn and Oxforll Northward Ho ! " THERE is a lure to far-away places on the earth's frontier which only those who have been there can fully understand. It may be the desert, the mountains, Africa, the Orient, the South Sea islands, fever-infested tropical jungles, or barren Arctic wastes. Wherever it may be, and no matter the hardships endured, the lure to go back is always the same, and those who have felt it have truly lived." v Acknowledgment N a previous book called " Labrador : The Country I and the People " most of the scientific facts concerning Labrador, up to 1922, have been collated. It was in­ tended for a book of reference rather than for popular consumption ; and readers desiring information on special subjects must be referred to it. · I wish here to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following authorities : Dr. E. B. Delabarre, Dr. Charles Townsend, Dr. 0. Austin, Dr. Charles Johnson, Mr. John Sherman, Mr. Outram Bangs, Miss Mary Rathbun, Mr. William Cabot, Mr. W. G. Gosling, Professor Fernald, Mr. W. S. Wallace-who have all been among my best helpers. Valuable informationhas been received also from the books and records of: Dr. Loeber in the Encyclopredia Britannica, Dr. Cranz's records, Mr. Rolt-Wheeler, Mr. Meade Minnigerode, M. de la Ron­ cieve of Paris, the curators of libraries and museums which I visited in Rouen, Dieppe, Paris, London, New York and elsewhere, to the Hudson's Bay Company's magazine," The Beaver," Dr. Bryant's monograph, Mr. Durgin's letters, Dr. Storer's observations, Dr. Prowse's History, Mr. Dillon Wallace, Mr. Hesketh Pritchard, and Mrs. Hubbard. In " The Romance of Labrador " I owe special debts also to Professor Coleman of Ottawa, Professor Wheeler of Cornell, Mr. Noel Odell of Cambridge, England, and particularly to Dr. Reginald Daly of Harvard, whose yij ACKNOWLEDGMENT monograph written for " Labrador : The Country and the People " I have here largely used again. The data on which the following chapters are based have been garnered from every source available to an inveterate wanderer, and from more than forty years' personal experience in the country. It is impossible for the author to acknowledge as he would wish his debt to others. If any feel aggrieved, he trusts that they will accept this expression of sincere gratitude to everyone who has added to the stock of knowledge of " The Romance of Labrador." All men of science desire to have their contributions to knowledge used to the utmost for the benefit of mankind. Like good coin, the more it is turned over the greater their reward. yiji CONTENTS Chap. Page ... PROLOGUE Xlll I. THE PAGEANT OF THE RocKs •. I (The Stage is Set) II. THE PAGEANT OF THE INDIANS. (The Curtain Rises) III. THE PAGEANT OF THE ESKIMO • 32 ( The" Innut't "Arrive) IV. THE PAGEANT OF THE VIKINGS 51 (" Winged Hats and Dragon Ships") V. THE PAGEANT OF THE BIG FouR 68 (The Kaleidoscope Shifts) Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal, and Cartier. VI. THE pAGEANT OF THE FRENCH (" Le coq se trouve dans le nouveau monde ") VII. THE PAGEANT OF THE ENGLISH OccuPATION 114 (The Lion's Share) VIII. THE PAGEANT OF THE UNITAS FRATRUM 139 (Peaceful Penetration) IX. THE UNDERSEA PAGEANT. 155 (" Oh, Ye Whales and all that Move in the Waters") ~ CONTENTS Chap. Page X. THE PAGEANT OF THE THREE KINGS I8I (Of Sub-Arctic Waters) XI. THE PAGEANT OF THE SOIL 204 (Phanerogams and Cryptogams) XII. THE PAGEANT OF THE ANIMALS 223 (" The ' Little Brothers' of the ' Labourer's Land ' ") XIII. THE PAGEANT OF THE AIR 255 NlKTJ liTEpwT6s (Winged Victory) XIV. THE PAGEANT OF FORTY YEARS AND AFTER. 283 (Apologia Pro Vita Mea) LIST 0 F ILL U 81' RAT I 0 N S SUNSET AT NORTHWEST RIVER. A LABRADOR VILLAGE • Frontispiece Page CAPE U IVUK I 8 CAPE BLOW-ME-DOWN 19 THE CONTORTED CRUST OF THE EARTH NEAR CAPE MuGFORD. 34 THE KlGLAPEITs, oR DoG-TOOTHED MouNTAINS • 35 THE GREAT KAUMAJETS (SHINING ToPs) so SAEGLEK FJORD, AN OLD IcE CHANNEL 51 LABRADOR GOTHIC 66 LABRADOR INDIANS-THE NASCOPIES. BREAKFAST • 67 ESKIMO GRAVE 98 NoRTH LABRADOR EsKIMO. EsKIMO AT MoRAVIAN STATION • 99 VIKING SHIP (8TH TO lOTH CENTURY) . 114 As THE VIKINGS SAW IT 114 "I WILL CALL THIS LAND HELLULAND-THE LAND OF FLAT STONES " 115 A PIECE OF HELLULAND 115 THE BisHoP's MITRE 130 THE CANYON OF THE GRAND FALLS 131 xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page RAPID TRANSIT I46 A MoTHER IN IsRAEL 147 ABE, THE MATE OF SIR WILFRED's HoSPITAL BoAT • 147 " THE LAND Goo GAVE TO CAIN " 178 "HoPEDALE," THE MoRAVIAN MISSION STATION AMONG THE ESKIMO 179 SALMON FouR YEARS IN RIVER 194 ONE OF THE THREE KINGS-SALMON SEEN JUMPING UP FALLS . 195 A MoDERN APOSTLE . 210 A NORTHERN NEIGHBOUR 21 I LABRADOR SUMMER FISHING SHACK 226 WILD CoTTON . 227 REINDEER 258 CAPE WHITE HANDKERCHIEF 259 THE SUNNING BALCONY-ST. ANTHONY HosPITAL. 274 HARRINGTON HOSPITAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL GRENFELL AssociATION 275 ST. ANTHONY HosPITAL • 275 INDIAN HARBOUR 298 VIKING DRINKING CuP-BIRCH KNOB . 299 The author is indebted to F. C. Sears for many of the photographs. xii Prologue HIS book is an attempt to record the scientific and T historic facts about Labrador, as far as they are known. It is the " audi alteram partem" of a medical man, who has spent much of the pal't forty years on those coasts, and who admires greatly Mussolini's dic­ tum, " We must not be proud of our country for its history, but for what we are making of it to-day." When the word " Labrador " is mentioned, men shrug their shoulders and shiver as automatically as, when the definition of a spiral staircase is asked, they twist their right forefinger up into ascending whirls. Quite recently, a university graduate coming to Labrador in June to help me for his summer holidays, unblushingly walked up the wharf carrying a pair of boots with skates screwed on them. Practically no part of Labrador is north of Scotland, and three out of our five hospitals are south of the latitude of London. The records by which Labrador has been judged are those of disappointed adventurers, of genuine explorers who condemned that which they did not understand how to adapt, of those who in a new era of man's power over Nature have never personally seen the country, and of men who have become so dependent upon the luxuries of so-called modern civilization that they have neither the grit nor the vision to-day for the venture of converting its raw materials to man's use. So far it has xili PROLOGUE been the men who judged it, and never the land itself, which have been" of no use." No stories of the peoples who have passed across the world's stage bring home as vividly the reasons why, under man's hand, the progress of civilization is often deplorably delayed. We have no fear of being listed in the days to come as among the "false prophets." There is no "dump­ heap "-unless it is we, who are free to become such. In God's economy there is no waste. " Lo, the book exactly worded Wherein all hath been recorded: Thence shall judgment be awarded." xiv CHAPTER I T H E P A G E AN T 0 F T H E R 0 C K S ~,.,,~·-· The Stage is Set " THE Labrador Coast is still one of the most bold and rugged in the whole world," said a famous geologist. " The bareness of the rocks, their freedom from obscuring forest and turf, helps the long coast to tell its own geological story. Mother Nature has there taken off more than the usual amount of clothing which she is wont to bestow on the land elsewhere ; and the autographed story of the ages is so imprinted on her naked bones that those who run may read its thrilling pages, and the wayfaring man can enjoy the conceit of being for a while a veritable Sherlock Holmes. To know Labrador is to know her geology. Seldom elsewhere is the explorer's mind so forced to think of the very I THE ROMANCE OF LABRADOR beginning of things. One day the scientific study of Labrador will bring a rich store to our knowledge of the whole earth." To follow the story, however, the reader must keep thinking of a thousand years as but a day. The moun­ tains we look at now do not seem to alter one iota in our lifetime, yet whole series of mountain ranges have grown up and then been worn away in the earth's lifetime by the same forces that are acting to-day.