The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador Part 6

At every place the Doctor visited he made a record of the people.

After the names of the poorer and dest.i.tute ones was listed the things of which they were most in need.

In one poor little cabin the mother of a large family had, though ill, kept to her duties in and out of the house until she could stand on her feet no longer, and when Doctor Grenfell entered the cabin he found her lying helpless on a rough couch of boards, with scarce enough bed clothing to cover her. Some half-clad children shivered behind a miserable broken stove, which radiated little heat but sent forth much smoke. The haggard and worn out father was walking up and down the chill room with a wee mite of a baby in his arms, while it cried pitifully for food. Like all the family the poor little thing was starving.

The mother was suffering with an acute attack of bronchitis and pleurisy. All were suffering from lack of food and clothing. The children were barefooted. One little fellow had no other covering than an old trouser leg drawn over his frail little body. The man's fur hunt had failed the previous winter. Sickness prevented fishing. There was nothing in the house to eat and the family were helpless. Doctor Grenfell came to them none too soon.

In every harbor and bay and cove there was enough for Doctor Grenfell to do. His heart and hands were full that summer as they have ever been since. His skill was constantly in demand. Here was some one desperately ill, there a finger or an arm to be amputated, or a more serious operation to be performed.

The hospitals were soon filled to overflowing. Doctor Grenfell afloat, and his two a.s.sistants with the nurses in the hospitals were busy night and day. The best of it all was many lives were saved. Some who would have been helpless invalids as long as they lived were sent home from the hospitals strong and well and hearty. An instance of this was a girl of fourteen, who had suffered for three years with internal absesses that would eventually have killed her. She was taken to the Battle Harbor Hospital, operated upon, and was soon perfectly well. To this day she is living, a robust contented woman, the mother of a family, and, perchance, a grandmother.

Grenfell was happy. Here was something better than jogging over English highways behind a horse and visiting well-to-do grumbling patients. He was out on the sea he loved, meeting adventure in fog and storm and gale. That was better than a gig on a country road. He was helping people to be happy. He prized that far more than the wealth he might have acc.u.mulated, or the reputation he might have gained at home, as a famous physician or surgeon. There is no happiness in the world to compare with the happiness that comes with the knowledge that one is making others happy and helping them to better living and contentment.

Without knowing it, Grenfell was building a world-fame. If he had known it, he would not have cared a straw. He was working not for fame but for results--for the good he could do others. Nothing else has ever influenced him. Every day he was doing endless good turns without pay or the thought of pay. In this he was serving not only G.o.d but his country. And he never neglected his athletics, for it was necessary that he keep his body in the finest physical condition that his brain might always be keen and alert. Grenfell could not have remained a year in the field if he had neglected his body, and he was still an athlete in the pink of condition.

IX

IN THE DEEP WILDERNESS

Imagine, if you will, a vast primeval wilderness spreading away before you for hundreds of miles, uninhabited, grim and solitary. None but wild beasts and the roving Indians that hunt them live there. None but they know the mysteries that lie hidden and guarded by those trackless miles of forests and barren reaches of unexplored country.

And so this wilderness has lain since creation, unmarred by the hand of civilized man, clean and unsullied, as G.o.d made it. The air, laden with the perfume of spruce and balsam, is pure and wholesome. The water carries no germs from the refuse of man, and one may drink it freely, from river and brook and lake, without fear of contamination.

There is no sound to break the silence of ages save the song of river rapids, the thunder of mighty falls, or the whisper or moan of wind in the tree tops; or, perchance, the distant cry of a wolf, the weird laugh of a loon or the honk of the wild goose.

There are no roads or beaten trails other than the trails of the caribou, the wild deer that make this their home. The nearest railroad is half a thousand miles away. Automobiles are unknown and would be quite useless here. Great rivers and innumerable emerald lakes render the land impa.s.sable for horses. The traveler must make his own trails, and he must depend in summer upon his canoe or boat, and in winter upon his snowshoes and his sledge, hauled by great wolf dogs.

With his gun and traps and fishing gear he must glean his living from the wilderness or from the sea. If he would have a shelter he must fell trees with his axe and build it with his own skill. He has little that his own hands and brain do not provide. He must be resourceful and self-reliant.

I venture to say there is not a boy living--a real red-blooded boy or red-blooded man either for that matter--who has not dreamed of the day when he might experience the thrill of venturing into such a wilderness as we have described. This was America as the discoverers found it, and as it was before the great explorers and adventurers opened it to civilization. This was Labrador as Grenfell found Labrador, and as it is to-day--the great "silent peninsula of the North." It occupies a large corner of the North American continent, and much of it is still unexplored, a vast, grim, lonely land, but one of majestic grandeur and beauty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE DOCTOR ON A WINTER'S JOURNEY"]

The hardy pioneers and settlers of Labrador, as we have seen, have made their homes only on the seacoast, leaving the interior to wandering Indian hunters. They do, to be sure, enter the wilderness for short distances in winter when they are following their business as hunters, but none has ever made his home beyond the sound of the sea.

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 a.s.sume 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 b.u.mpo 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 a.s.sistance.

As stated before, the liveyeres and others than the Indians, build their cabins on the coast, usually on the sh.o.r.es 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 ill.u.s.trations 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 acc.u.mulations of furs as they are caught. Fat salt pork, flour, baking powder or soda, salt, tea and Barbadoes mola.s.ses 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 enc.u.mbers 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 sh.o.r.es 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.