Le Petit Nord Part 1

Le Pet.i.t Nord.

by Anne Elizabeth Caldwell.

FOREWORD

A friend from the Hub of the Universe, in a somewhat supercilious manner, not long ago informed one of our local friends that his own home was hundreds of miles to the southward. "'Deed, sir, how does you manage to live so far off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of one eye, was the answer.

If home is the spot on earth where one spends the larger part of one's prime, and where one's family comes into being, then for over a quarter of a century "Le Pet.i.t Nord" of this book has been my home.

With the authors I share for it and its people the love which alone keeps us here. Necessity has compelled me to perform, however imperfectly, functions usually distributed amongst many and varied professions, and the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As, therefore, I read the amusing experiences herein narrated, I feel that the "other half," who know us not, will love us better even if we are not exactly as they. That is not our fault. They should not live "so far off."

The incidents told are all actual, but the name of every single person and place has been changed to afford any hypersensitive among the actors the protection which pseudonymity confers. We here who have been permitted a glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe the authors another debt beyond the love for the people to which they have testified by the more substantial offering of long and voluntary personal service.

WILFRED T. GRENFELL, M.D.

_Labrador, 1919_

LE PEt.i.t NORD

OR

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

_Off the Narrows, St. John's_

_June 10_

DEAR JOAN

The Far North calls and I am on my way:-- There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail.

There gloom the dark broad seas.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks.

Why write as if I had taken a lifelong vow of separation from the British Isles and all things civilized, when after all it is only one short year out of my allotted span of life that I have promised to Mission work? Your steamer letter, with its Machiavellian arguments for returning immediately and directly from St. John's, was duly received. Of my unfitness for the work there is no possible doubt, no shadow of doubt whatever, and therein you and I are at one. But you will do me the justice to admit that I put very forcibly before those in charge of the Mission the delusion under which they were labouring; the responsibility now lies with them, and I "go to prove my soul."

What awaits me I know not, but except when the mighty billows rocked me, not soothingly with gentle motion, but harshly and immoderately. I have never wavered in my decision; and even at such times it was to the bottom of Father Neptune that I aspired to travel rather than to the sh.o.r.es of "Merrie England."

The voyage so far has been uneventful, and we are now swaying luxuriously at anchor in a dense fog. This I believe is the usual welcome accorded to travellers to the island of Newfoundland. There is no chart for icebergs, and "growlers" are formidable opponents to encounter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge at intervals in the right to grumble which is by virtue of tradition ours. We have already been here a day and a half, and we know not how much longer it will be before the curtain rises and the first act of the drama can begin.

These boats are far from large and none too comfortable. We have taken ten days to come from Liverpool. Think of that, you who disdain to cross the water in anything but an ocean greyhound! What hardships we poor missionaries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that my fellow pa.s.sengers arch their eyebrows and look politely amused when I tell them to what place I am bound. I ventured to ask my room-mate if she had ever been on Le Pet.i.t Nord. I wish you could have seen her face. I might as well have asked if she had ever been exiled to Siberia! I therefore judge it prudent not to thirst too l.u.s.tily for information, lest I be supplied with more than I desire or can a.s.similate at this stage. I shall write you again when I board the coastal steamer, which I am credibly informed makes the journey to St.

Antoine once every fortnight during the summer months. Till then, _au revoir_.

_Run-by-Guess, June 15_

I landed on the wharf at St. John's to be met with the cheering information that the steamer had left for the north two days before.

This necessitated a delay of twelve days at least. Will all the babies at the Orphanage be dead before I arrive on the scene of action? Shall I take the next boat back and be in England before the coastal steamer comes south to claim me? Conflicting emotions disturb my troubled soul, but "on and always on!"

The island boasts a railroad of which the rural inhabitants are inordinately proud. Just prior to my arrival a daily service had been inaugurated. Formerly the pa.s.senger trains ran only three times a week. There are no Sunday trains. As I had so much time to spare, I decided that I could not do better than spend some of it in going across the island and thus see the Southern part of the country, catching my boat at Come-by-Chance Junction on the return journey.

Truth compels me to add that I find myself a sadder and wiser woman. I left St. John's one evening at six o'clock, being due to arrive at our destination at eight o'clock the following night. There is no unpleasant "hustle" on this railway, and you may wait leisurely and humbly for a solid hour while your very simple meal is prepared. If you do not happen to be hungry, this is only a delightful interlude in the incessant rush of modern life, but if perchance Nature has endowed you with a moderate appet.i.te, that one hour seems incurably long.

All went well the first night, or at least my fellow pa.s.sengers showed no signs of there being anything unusual, so like Brer Rabbit, I lay low and said nothing. At noon the following day a slightly bigger and more prolonged jolt caused the curious among us to look from the window. The engine, tender, and luggage van were derailed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds twenty-five miles an hour, such little _contretemps_ which occur from time to time do not ruffle the serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight and explore the country. But alas! I had no mosquito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside without this protection was to risk disfigurement for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse circ.u.mstances and returned to try and read, the previous b.u.mping having made this out of the question. But the interior was by this time a veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be obtained, as the Company had not thought it necessary to provide their windows with screens. For twenty-five hours we remained in durance vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our rescue and conveyed us to Run-by-Guess, our destination.

_Northward Bound. On board_ _June 25_

If you could have been present during the return journey from Run-by-Guess your worst prophecies would have seemed to you justified.

The railroad is of the genus known as narrow-gauge; the roadbed was not constructed on the principles laid down by the Romans. In a country where the bones of Mother Earth protrude so insistently, it is beating the devil round the stump to mend the bed with fir branches tucked even ever so solicitously under the ties. That, nevertheless, was an attempt at "safety first" which I saw.

Towards morning a furious rain and wind storm broke over us. Before many minutes I noticed that my berth was becoming both cold and damp.

Looking up I made out in the dim dawn a small but persistent stream pouring down upon me. I had had the upper berth pushed up so as to get the air! Again the train came to an unscheduled stop. By this time a.s.sorted heads were emerging from behind the curtains, and from each came forcible protests against the weather. There was nothing to be done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my arms around my knees, occupying thus the smallest possible s.p.a.ce for one of my proportions, and wait developments. Ten minutes later, after much shouting outside my window, a ladder was planted against the car, and two trainmen in yellow oilskins climbed to the roof. I noted with satisfaction that they carried hammers, tacks, and strips of tin. A series of resounding blows and the almost immediate cessation of the descending floods told how effective their methods had proved. Directly afterwards the startled squeak of the engine whistle, as if some one had trodden on its toe, warned us that we were off once more.

We landed (you will note that the nautical phraseology of the country has already gripped me) in the same storm at Come-by-Chance Junction.

But the next morning broke bright and shining, as if rain and wind were inhabitants of another planet. It is quite obvious that this land is a lineal descendant of Albion's Isle. Now I am aboard the coastal steamer and we are nosing our way gingerly through the packed floe ice, as we steam slowly north for Cape St. John. Yes, I know it is Midsummer's Day, but as the captain tersely put it, "the slob is a bit late."

The storm of two days ago blowing in from the broad Atlantic drove the great field of leftover pans before it, and packed them tight against the cliffs. If we had not had that sudden change in the weather's mind yesterday, we should not be even as far along as we now find ourselves.

You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly ma.s.sed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. I stand on the bridge by the hour, and watch him and listen to the reports of the man on the cross-trees as to the prospects of "leads" of open water ahead. Every few minutes we back astern, and then b.u.t.t the ice. If one stays below decks the noise of the grinding on the ship's side is so persistent and so menacing that I prefer the deck in spite of its barrels and crates and boxes and smells. Here at least one would not feel like a rat in a hole if a long, gleaming, icy, giant finger should rip the ship's side open down the length of her. As we grate and sc.r.a.pe painfully along I look back and see that the ice-pan channel we leave behind is lined with scarlet. It is the paint off our hull. The spectacle is all too suggestive for one who has always regarded the most attractive aspect of the sea to be viewed from the landwash.

Of course the scenery is beautiful--almost too trite to write--but the beauty is lonesome and terrifying, and my city-bred soul longs for some good, homely, human "blot on the landscape." There are no trees on the cliffs now. I understand, however, that Nature is not responsible for this oversight. The people are sorely in need of firewood, and not being far-seeing enough to realize what a menace it is to the country to denude it so unscientifically, they have razed every treelet. Nature has done her best to rectify their mistake, and the rocky hills are covered with jolly bright mosses and lichens.

Naturally, there are compensations for even this kind of voyage, for no swell can make itself felt through the heavy ice pack. We steam along for miles on a keel so even that only the throb of our engines, and the inevitable "ship-py" odour, remind one that the North Atlantic rolls beneath the staunch little steamer.

The "staunch little steamer's" whistle has just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant personality. We have turned into a "tickle," and around the bend ahead of us are a handful of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the sides of the rocky sh.o.r.e.

I cannot get used to the quaint language of the people, and from the helpless way in which they stare at me, my tongue must be equally unintelligible. A delightful _camaraderie_ exists; every one knows every one else, or they all act as if they did. As we come to anchor in the little ports, the men from the sh.o.r.e lash their punts fast to the bottom of the ship's ladder, and clamber with gazelle-like agility over our side. If you happen to be leaning curiously over the rail near by, they jerk their heads and remark, "Good morning," or, "Good evening," according as it is before or after midday. This is an afternoon-less country. The day is divided into morning, evening, and night. Their caps seem to have been born on their heads and to continue to grow there like their hair, or like the clothing of the children of Israel, which fitted them just as well when they came out of the wilderness as when they went in. But no incivility is meant.

You may dissect the meaning and grammar of that paragraph alone. You have had long practice in such puzzles.

_Seventy-five miles later_

We are out of the ice field and steaming past Cape St. John. This was the dividing line between the English and French in the settlement of their troubles in 1635. North of it is called the French or Treaty Sh.o.r.e, or as the French themselves so much more quaintly named it, "Le Pet.i.t Nord." It is at the north end of Le Pet.i.t Nord that St. Antoine is located.

The very character of the country and vegetation has changed. It is as if the great, forbidding fortress of St. John's Cape cut off the milder influences of southern Newfoundland, and left the northern peninsula a prey to ice and winds and fog. The people, too, have felt the influence of this discrimination of Nature. There is a line of demarcation between those who have been able to enjoy the benefits of the southern island, and those who have had to cope with the recurrent problems of the northland. I cannot help thinking of the change this sh.o.r.e must have been from their beloved and smiling Brittany to those first eager Frenchmen. The names on the map reveal their pathetic attempts to stifle their _nostalgie_ by christening the coves and harbours with the familiar t.i.tles of their homeland.

I fear in my former letter I made some rather disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, but I want to take them all back. Life is a series of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on which I crossed seems a veritable floating palace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing only I am certain--I shall never, never have the courage to face the return journey.

The time for the steamer to make the journey from Come-by-Chance to St. Antoine is from four to five days, but when there is much ice these days have been known to stretch to a month. The distance in mileage is under three hundred, but because of the many harbours into which the boat has to put to land supplies, it is really a much greater distance. There are thirty-three ports of call between St.

John's and St. Antoine, most of which are tiny fishing settlements consisting of a few wooden houses at the water's edge. This coast possesses scores of the most wonderful natural harbours, which are not only extremely picturesque, but which alone make the dangerous sh.o.r.e possible for navigation. As the steamer puts in at Bear Cove, Poverty Cove, Deadman's Cove, and Seldom-Come-By (this last from the fact that, although boats pa.s.s, they seldom anchor there), out shoot the little rowboats to fetch their freight. It is certainly a wonderfully fascinating coast, beautifully green and wooded in the south, and becoming bleaker and barer the farther north one travels. But the bare ruggedness and naked strength of the north have perhaps the deeper appeal. To those who have to sail its waters and wrest a living from the harvest of the sea, this must be a cruel sh.o.r.e, with its dangers from rocks and icebergs and fog, and insufficient lighting and charting.