A Labrador Doctor Part 17

In the spring of 1907 I was in England, and before I left, my old University was good enough to offer me an honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine of Oxford. As it was the first occasion that that respectable old University had ever given that particular degree to any one, I was naturally not a little gratified. The day of the conferring of it will ever live in my memory. My cousin, the Professor of Paleontology, half of whose life was spent in the desert of Egypt digging for papyri in old dust-heaps, was considered the most appropriate person to stand sponsor for me--a would-be pioneer of a new civilization in the sub-arctic.

The words with which the Public Orator introduced me to the Vice-Chancellor, being in Latin, seem to me interesting as a relic rather than as a statement of fact:

"Insignissime Vice-Cancellarie vosque egregii Procuratores: Adest civis Britannicus, hujus academiae olim alumnus, nunc Novum Orbem incolentibus quam nostratibus notus. Hic ille est qui quindecim abhinc annos in litus Labradorium profectus est, ut solivagis in mari Boreali piscatoribus ope medica succurreret; quo in munere obeundo Oceani pericula, quae ibi formidosissima sunt, contempsit dum miseris et maerentibus solatium ac lumen afferret. Nunc quantum homini licet, in ipsius Christi vestigiis, si fas est dicere, insistere videtur, vir vere Christia.n.u.s. Jure igitur eum laudamus cujus laudibus non ipse solum sed etiam Academia nostra ornatur.

"Praesenta ad vos Wilfredum Thoma.s.sum Grenfell, ut admittatur ad gradum Doctoris in Medicina Honoris Causa."

As we, the only two Doctors Grenfell extant, marched solemnly back down the aisle side by side, the ant.i.thesis of what doctorates called for struck my sense of humour most forcibly. I had hired the gorgeous robes of scarlet box cloth and carmine silk for the occasion, never expecting to wear them again. But some years later, when yet another honorary Doctorate, of Laws, was most generously conferred upon me by a University of our American cousins, I felt it inc.u.mbent on me to uphold if possible the British end of the ritual. A cable brought me just in time the box-cloth surtout. Commencement ceremonies in the United States are in June; and the lat.i.tude was that of Rome. For years I had spent the hot months always in the sub-arctic. The a.s.sembly hall was small and crowded to bursting--not even all the graduating cla.s.s could get in, much less all their friends. The temperature was in three figures. The scarlet box cloth got hotter and hotter as we paraded in and about the campus. My face outrivalled the gown in colour. I have made many lobster men out of the boiled limbs of those admirable adjuncts of a Northern diet, but I had never expected to pose as one in the flesh. The most lasting impression which the ceremony left on my mind is of my volunteer summer secretary, who stood almost on my toes as he delivered the valedictory address of his cla.s.s. I still see his gradually wilting, boiled collar, and the tiny rivulet which trickled down his neck as he warmed to his subject. We were the best of friends, but I felt that glow of semi-satisfaction that comes to the man who finds that he is no longer the only one seasick on board.

About this time King Edward most graciously presented me, as one of his birthday honours, with a Companionship in the Order of St. Michael and St. George--most useful persons for any man to have as companions, especially in a work like ours, both being famous for downing dragons and devils. My American friends immediately knighted me. The papers and magazines knighted me in both the United States and Canada. But that got me into trouble, for only kings can make p.a.w.ns into knights, and I had to appeal several times to the a.s.sociated Press to save myself being dubbed _poseur_. I have protested at meetings when the chairman has knighted me; at banquets, when the master of ceremonies has knighted me. I gave it up lest accusation should arise against me, when at a semi-religious meeting I uttered a feeble protest against the t.i.tle to which I have no right, and my introducer merely repeated it the more firmly, informing the audience meanwhile that I was "too modest to use it."

There was attached to the conferring of the Order one elective lat.i.tude--it could either be sent out or wait till I returned to England and attended a levee with the other recipients. I had a great desire to see the King, and, though it meant a year's waiting, I requested to be allowed to do so. This not only was most courteously granted, but also the permission to let my presence in England be known to the Hereditary Grand Chamberlain, and the King would give me a private audience. When the day arrived, I repaired to Buckingham Palace, where I waited for an hour in the reception room in company with a small, stout clergyman who was very affable. I learned later that he was the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was carrying a fat Bible from Boston, England, I believe, to be presented to the United States of America.

At last Sir Frederick Treves, who kindly acted as my introducer, took me up to the King's study--that King whose life his skill had saved.

There a most courteous gentleman made me perfectly at home, and talked of Labrador and North Newfoundland and our work as if he had lived there. He asked especially about the American helpers and interest, and laughed heartily when I told him how many freeborn Americans had gladly taken the oath of loyalty to His Majesty, when called up to act as special constables for me in his oldest Colony. He left the impression on my mind that he was a real Englishman in spirit, though he had spoken with what I took to be a slight German accent. The sports and games of the Colony I had noticed interested him very much, and all references to the splendid seafaring genius of the people also found an appreciative echo in his heart. When at last he handed me a long box with a gorgeous medal and ribbon, and bade me good-bye, I vowed I could sing "G.o.d save the King" louder than ever if I could do so without harrowing the feelings of my more tuneful neighbours.

When later, as a major in an American surgical unit in France, I was serving the R.A.M.C., the ribbon of the Order was actually of real service to me. It undoubtedly opened some closed doors, though it proved a puzzle to every A.D.M.S. to whom I had to explain the anomaly of my position when I had to go and worry him for permission to cross the road or some new imaginary line. In England, and even in America, I found that the fact that the King had recognized one's work was a real material a.s.set. It was a credential--only on a larger scale--like that from our Minister to the Colonies, the Marquis of Ripon, who kindly had given me his blessing in writing when first I visited Canada.

How far signs of superiority are permissible is to my mind an open question. Hereditary human superiority does not necessarily exist, because selective precautions are not taken, and the environment of the superior is very apt to enfeeble the physical machine, anyhow. The question of the hereditary superiority of a man's soul, being outside my sphere, I leave to the theologians. History, which is the school of experience, belies the theory, whatever current science may say. As for the giving of hereditary t.i.tles, it is significant that they do not as a rule go to scholars or even scientific men, but to physical fighters, being physical rewards for material services. When these are in the possession of offspring no longer capable of rendering such services, it appears ridiculous that they should sail under false colours.

To make a man a hereditary duke for being humble and modest, or hereditary marquis for being unselfish and generous, or an earl for being a man of peace, and a benefactor in the things which make for peace, such as a good husband and father and comrade, has, so far as I know, never been tried. Some of the so-called lesser honours, such as knighthood, are reserved for these. However, an order of knightly citizens, so long as they are real knights, is, after all, little more than the gold key of the Phi Beta Kappa, or the red triangle of the Y.M.C.A. worker, or the Red Cross badge of the nurse. We are human, anyhow, and such concessions, seeing that they do have an undoubted stimulating value in the present stage of our development, to an Englishman seem permissible.

CHAPTER XVII

THE REINDEER EXPERIMENT

Labrador will never be a "vineland," a land of corn and wine, or a country where fenced cities will be needed to keep out the milk and honey. But though there may be other sections of the Empire that can produce more dollars, Labrador will, like Norway and Sweden, produce Vikings, and it is said that the man behind the gun is still of some moment.

In past years we have made quite extensive experiments in trying to adapt possible food supplies to this climate. I had seventeen bags of the hardiest cereal seeds known sent me. They consisted of barley from Lapland, from Russia, from Abyssinia, Mansbury barley and Finnish oats. All the seeds came from the experimental station at Rampart, Alaska, and were grown in lat.i.tude 63 30', which is two degrees north of Cape Chidley.

I find in the notes of one of my earliest voyages my satisfaction at the fact that a storm with lightning and thunder had just pa.s.sed over the boat and freshened up some rhubarb which I was growing in a box.

It had been presented to me by the Governor to carry down to Battle Harbour, and I was very eager that it, my first agricultural venture, should not fail.

Everywhere along the coast the inability to get a proper diet, owing to the difficulties of successful farming even on ever so small a scale, had aroused my mind to the necessity of doing something along that line. In one small cottage I saw a poor woman zealously guarding an aged rooster.

"Have you got a hen?" I asked her.

"No, Doctor; I had one, but she died last year."

"Then why ever do you keep that rooster?"

"Oh! I hopes some day to get a hen. I've had him five years. The last manager of the mill gave him to me, but you'se sees he can't never go out and walk around because of the dogs, so I just keeps he under that settle."

Pathetic as were her efforts at stock farming, I must admit that my sympathies were all with the incarcerated rooster.

The problem of the dogs seemed an insurmountable one. The Moravians'

records abound in stories of their destructiveness. Mr. Hesketh Pritchard writes: "Dr. Grenfell records two children and one man killed by the dogs. This is fortunately a much less terrible record than that shown farther north by the Moravian Missions. The savage dogs did great harm at those stations one winter." Among other accidents, a boy of thirteen, strong and well, was coming home from his father's kayak to his mother. After some time, as he did not arrive, they went to search for him and found that the dogs had already killed and eaten a good part of him. A full-grown man, driving to Battle Harbour Hospital, was killed by his dogs almost at our doors.

The wolves of the country only pack when deer are about. As a contrast to our dogs, wolves have never been known to kill a man in Labrador, so it would be more correct to speak of a doggish wolf than a wolfish dog. It is an odd thing and a fortunate one that in this country, where it is very common to have been bitten by a dog, we never have been able to find any trace of hydrophobia.

A visitor returning to New York after a summer on the coast wrote as follows: "One of my lasting remembrances of Battle Harbour will be the dreadful dogs. The Mission team were on an island far removed, but there were a number of settlers' dogs which delighted in making the nights hideous. Never before have I seen dogs stand up like men and grapple with each other in a fight, and when made to move on, renew the battle round the corner."

Our efforts at agriculture had taught us not to expect too much of the country. A New Zealand cousin, Martyn Spencer, a graduate of Macdonald College of Agriculture, gave us two years' work. His experience showed that while dogs continued to be in common use, cattle-raising was impossible. Of a flock of forty Herdwick sheep given by Dr. Wakefield, the dogs killed twenty-seven at one time. Angora goats, which we had imported, perished in the winter for lack of proper food. Our land cost so much to reclaim for hay, being soaked in humic acid, that we had always to import that commodity at a cost which made more cows than absolutely essential very inadvisable. Weasels, rats, hawks, and vermin needed a man's whole time if our chickens were to be properly guarded and repay keeping at all. An alfalfa sent us from Washington did well, and potatoes also gave a fair return, though our summer frosts often destroyed whole patches of the latter. Our imported plum and crabapple trees were ringed by mice beneath the snow in winter. At a farm which we cleared nine miles up a bay, so as to have it removed from the polar current, our oats never ripened, and our turnips and cabbage did not flourish in every case. We could not plant early enough, owing to the ground being frozen till July some years.

On the other hand, when we looked at the hundreds of thousands of square miles on which caribou could live and increase without any help from man, and indeed in spite of all his machinations, our attention was naturally turned to reindeer farming, and I went to Washington to consult Dr. Sheldon Jackson, the Presbyterian missionary from Alaska.

It was he who had pioneered the introduction by the United States Government of domestic reindeer into Alaska. At Washington we received nothing but encouragement. Reindeer could make our wilderness smile.

They would cost only the protection necessary. They multiply steadily, breeding every year for eight or ten years after their second season.

A selected herd should double itself every three years.

The skins are very valuable--there is no better nonconductor of heat.

The centre of the hair is not a hollow cylinder, but a series of air bubbles which do not soak water, and therefore can be used with advantage for life-saving cushions. The skins are splendid also for motor robes, and now invaluable in the air service. The meat is tender and appetizing, and sold as a game delicacy in New York. The deer fatten well on the abundant mosses of a country such as ours.

Sir William MacGregor, the Governor of Newfoundland at the time, had samples of the mosses collected around the coast and sent to Kew Botanical Gardens for positive identification. The Cladonia Rangiferina, or Iceland moss, proved very abundant. It was claimed, however, that the reindeer would eat any of such plants and shrubs as our coast offers in summer.

As long ago as the year 1903 my interest in the domestication of deer had led me to experiment with a young caribou. We had him on the Strathcona nearly all one summer. He was a great pet on board, and demonstrated how easily trained these animals are. He followed me about like a dog, and called after me as I left the ship's side in a boat if we did not take him with us. He was as inquisitive as a monkey or as the black bear which we had had two years before. We twice caught him in the chart-room chewing up white paper, for on his first raid there he had found an apple just magnanimously sent us from the sh.o.r.e as a delicacy.

Friends, inspired by Mr. William Howell Reed, of Boston, collected the money for a consignment of reindeer, and we accordingly sent to Lapland to purchase as many of the animals as we could afford. The expense was not so much in the cost of the deer as in the transport.

They could not be shipped till they had themselves hauled down to the beach enough moss to feed them on their pa.s.sage across the Atlantic.

Between two hundred and fifty and three hundred were purchased, and three Lapp families hired to teach some of our local people how to herd them. When at last snow enough fell for the sledges to haul the moss down to the landwash, it was dark all day around the North Cape.

Fifty years hence in all probability the Lapps will be an extinct race, as even within the past twelve or fifteen years, districts in which thousands of domesticated reindeer grazed, now possess but a few hundreds.

The good ship Anita, which conveyed the herd to us, steamed in for southern Newfoundland and then worked her way North as far as the ice would permit. At St. Anthony everything was frozen up, and the men walked out of the harbour mouth on the sea ice to meet the steamer bringing the deer. The whole three hundred were landed on the ice in Cremailliere, some three miles to the southward of St. Anthony Hospital, and though many fell through into the sea, they proved hardy and resourceful enough to reach the land, where they gathered around the tinkling bells of the old deer without a single loss from land to land.

One of our workers at St. Anthony that winter wrote that "the most exciting moment was when the woman was lowered in her own sledge over the steamer's side on to the ice, drawn to the sh.o.r.e, and transferred to one of Dr. Grenfell's komatiks, as she had hurt her leg on the voyage. The sight of all the strange men surrounding her frightened her, but she was finally rea.s.sured, threw aside her coverings, and clutched her frying-pan, which she had hidden under a sheepskin. When she had it safely in her arms she allowed the men to lift her and put her on the komatik." When the doctor at the hospital advised that her leg would best be treated by operation, the man said, "She is a pretty old woman, and doesn't need a very good leg much longer." She was thirty-five!

An Irish friend had volunteered to come out and watch the experiment in our interest--and this he did most efficiently. The deer flourished and increased rapidly. Unfortunately the Lapps did not like our country. They complained that North Newfoundland was too cold for them and they wanted to return home. One family left after the first year.

A rise in salary kept three of the men, but the following season they wanted more than we had funds to meet, and we were forced to decide, wrongly, I fear, to let them go. The old herder warned me, "No Lapps, no deer"; but I thought too much in terms of Mission finances, the Government having withdrawn their grant toward the herders' salaries.

Trusting to the confidence in their own ability of the locally trained men, I therefore let the Lapp herders go home. The love of the Lapps for their deer is like a fisherman's for his vessel, and seems a master pa.s.sion. They appeared even to grudge our having any deer tethered away from their care.

To us it seemed strange that these Lapps always contended that the work was too hard, and that the only reason that they were always gone from camp was that there were no wolves to keep the herd together.

They claimed that we must have a big fence or the deer would go off into the country. They, of course, both when with us and in Lapland as well, lived and slept where the herd was. They told us that the deer no longer obeyed the warning summons of the old does' bells, having no natural enemy to fear; and one told me, "Money no good, Doctor, if herd no increase." Reindeer seemed to be the complement of their souls.

Meanwhile the Alaskan experiment was realizing all of Dr. Jackson's happiest hopes; but it had a strong Government grant and backing and plenty of skilled superintendence. The lack of those were our weaknesses. Our deer thrived splendidly and multiplied as we had predicted. We went thirty miles in a day with them with ease. We hauled our firewood out, using half a dozen hauling teams every day.

Every fortnight during the rush of patients at the hospital in summer we could afford to kill a deer. The milk was excellent in quality and sweet, and preserved perfectly well in rubber-capped bottles. The cheese was nourishing and a welcome addition to the local diet. At the close of the fourth year we had a thousand deer.

A paper of the serious standing of the "Wall Street Journal," writing at about that time, under the t.i.tle "Reindeer Venison from Alaska,"

had this to say: "At different times in the past twenty years the Government imported reindeer into Alaska--about twelve hundred in all--in hopes to provide food for the natives in the future. The plan caused some amus.e.m.e.nt and some criticism at the time. Subsequent developments, however, have justified the attempt. The herds have now increased to about forty thousand animals, and are rapidly becoming still more numerous. The natives own about two thirds of the number.

Shipments of meat have been made to the Pacific Coast cities. Last year the sales of venison and skins amounted to $25,000. It is claimed that the vast tundra, or treeless frozen plains of Alaska, will support at least ten million animals. The federal authorities in charge are so optimistic of the future outlook that the prediction is made that within twenty-five years the United States can draw a considerable part of its meat supply from Alaska." What can be done in Alaska can be done in Labrador, and with its better facilities for shipping and handling the product, the greater future ought to be the prize of the latter country.

In the spring of 1912 there were five hundred fawns, and at one time we had gathered into our corral for tagging no less than twelve hundred and fifty reindeer. Of these we sold fifty to the Government of Canada for the Peace River District. There they were lost because they were placed in a flat country, densely wooded with alders, and not near the barren lands. We also sold a few to clubs, in order to try and introduce the deer. These sales would have done the experiment no injury, but with the fifty to Canada went my chief herder and two of my other herders from Labrador. This loss, from which we never recovered, coincided with an outbreak of hostility toward the deer among the resident population, who live entirely on the sea edge. Only long afterwards did we find out that it was partly because they feared that we would force deer upon them and do away with their dogs. The local Government official told me only the other day that the second generation from this would have very little good to say of the short-sightedness of these men who let such a valuable industry fail to succeed.