Dr. Wilfred Grenfell is an ideal type of peace Scout, and during his
labours as a missionary in Labrador he has had many adventures.
On one occasion he had to visit a sick man at a place two days'
journey from where he lived, and he started off with his sledge and
team of dogs, to cross a frozen arm of the sea, which would save him a
long journey round by land. But it was in the month of April, when the
sea ice was beginning to get treacherous and to break up.
The distance across the ice was about seven miles, with an island
about half-way.
He reached the island all right, and was pushing on from there to the
opposite mainland, when he found that the ice was becoming rotten and
soft--what is called "sish"--that is, pounded ice formed from big
slabs which have been ground together by the action of the sea.
As he found himself sinking in this, together with his sledge, he
slipped off his heavy oilskins and coat, and quickly got out his knife
and cut the traces of his dog-team, winding the leader's trace round
his wrist.
In this way he was himself pulled along by the dogs plunging through
the slush. The leading dog got on to a solid ice-floe, and Grenfell
was gladly hauling himself up to him by the trace, when the dog
slipped all his harness off, and his master was left, sinking among
the other dogs in the "sish."
Then he luckily caught the trace of another, and pulled himself along
that till he managed to get on to the block of ice, on to which he
helped the rest of the dogs.
But it was quite a small block, which would soon break up, so he saw
that the only chance was to struggle on through the "porridge-ice"
till he could reach a bigger floe, which could serve as a raft for
him.
He did not, as some people might have done, give up all hope; he
wasn't going to say die till he was dead.
So he took off his gauntlets and moccasins and packed them on to the
dogs' backs, then he secured their harness so that it could not slip
off, and tied the traces round his wrists so that the team would drag
him through; then he tried to start.
But the dogs did not like facing the danger, and he had to push them
off the block; even then they only struggled to get back, till a
particularly favourite dog understanding him when he threw a bit of
ice on to another "pan" or block? started, and so led the others to
get to it.
In this way, dragging their master after them, the dogs struggled from
pan to pan, till at last they reached one larger than the rest, about
ten feet by twelve in size.
It was not real solid ice, but a block of powdered ice, which might
fall to bits at any time. Still, it was the best they could get, and
with the rising wind and current it soon floated with them on to more
open water, and began to drift away from the shore and down the coast.
So they had no choice but to make the best of a very poor substitute
for a raft.
The cold was intense, and poor Grenfell, like a clever Scout, at once
thought out a plan for making himself a coat. His moccasins were long,
soft boots made of sealskin reaching to the thigh, so he slit these up
with his knife, and, by means of a bit of line, he made them into a
kind of cape to put on his back.
Hours passed, and they kept drifting out from the coast, and night was
approaching.
Then he saw that he must have more clothing, and also that he and the
dogs must have some food the only thing to do was to sacrifice one of
his beloved team. So he made a noose with one of the traces, and
slipped it over a dog's neck, and tied it to his own foot; then,
holding its head down in this way, he threw the dog on its back, and
stabbed it to the heart.
Two more were killed in the same way. Then he skinned them and
stitched their hides together with thin strips of leather, and thus
made himself a coat, with the fur inside.
All the clothes he had had on till then were some old football things
he had come across that morning in his house. A pair of football
shorts and stockings of the Richmond Football Club (red, yellow, and
black), and a flannel shirt and sweater, so he was practically in Boy
Scout's kit rather than what you would expect a missionary-doctor to
be wearing.
But then, you see, he was quite as much a Scout as he was a doctor or
missionary; and we understand from this story how, like a Scout, he
was able to turn his hand to anything and invent for himself the
different means for saving his life although he was all alone with his
dogs on a small lump of rotten ice floating past the coast of
Labrador.
There was one little point in which, perhaps, a Boy Scout could have
helped him had he been there. As darkness came on, he thought he would
light up a flare, which would catch the attention of anyone on shore,
so he frayed out a piece of rope and smeared it with the fat of the
dead dogs, and was about to light it when he found that his matches
had got wet, and in that damp air he could not get them dry.
I wonder whether he thought of the Scout's dodge of drying them in his
hair for a minute or two?
[Illustration: Dr. Grenfell as he appeared on the ice-floe, with a
cloak of dog-skins, and puttees made of flannel taken from a dog's
traces. He used his shirt for a flag, and made a flagstaff of frozen
dogs' legs.]
In order to keep warm he used one of the dead dogs as a seat, with the
other dogs hugged close round him for warmth. His feet being in thin
moccasins, which easily got wet through, were freezing with cold till
he thought of an idea for keeping them warm.
He had seen the Laplanders put a lot of grass into their boots before
pulling them on, and then filling up the legs with as much more grass
as they could cram in.
There was not much grass growing on his ice-floe, so Grenfell had to
invent something to use in place of it; he cut from the dogs' traces
some flannel with which they were lined to prevent chafing, and with
this he stuffed the moccasins, and so made them warmer, and then bound
the remainder round his knees as puttees.
In this way he got sufficient warmth to enable him to sleep. Towards
morning he awoke with the idea that he must make something in the way
of a flag to attract the notice of people on shore, and to show them
that there was someone in distress on the ice.
The question was, how to make a flagstaff? I wonder whether a Boy
Scout could have seen a way?
Grenfell took the frozen legs of the three dead dogs, and bound them
together with strips of raw hide, and thus manufactured a staff, on to
which he then tied his shirt to act as a flag. It worked very well
till the sun rose, and then the legs began to melt a little, and the
flagstaff became a very wobbly one; and, as the Doctor describes it,
"almost tied itself into knots."
Like a true Scout, Grenfell never despaired; he kept thinking out
different ways by which he might survive the danger.
He thought of setting light to some unravelled rope by using a piece
of ice to act as a burning glass. In this way he hoped to attract the
attention of the people on shore by a smoke signal; but, while he was
busy preparing it, he saw the distant sparkle of what looked like an
oar from a boat, presently he saw it again, and soon he could see the
boat itself.
His flag had been seen by the fishermen, and they pushed out in their
boat through the frozen ice till they got him and his faithful dogs
all safely aboard.
One man had seen him the night before just as it was getting dark, and
had spread the news down the coast, so that all the time, though he
did not know it, anxious eyes were watching him.
The only difficulty was to get a boat through the mass of broken
ice-floes and drifting ice, which covered the heaving surface of the
sea between him and the shore, but pluck and strong arms did it.
In the end his rescuers brought him safely ashore, where every man,
woman and child in the settlement was on the beach to welcome him with
cheers and--many of them--with tears of joy.
Doctor Grenfell says that during the whole of this terrible experience
he did not once feel fear. He felt that he would probably lie down and
sleep his last sleep on that ice-floe; the thought did not disturb him
very much.
At the same time, he did feel something of that regret which comes to
all people when dying, and that was the remembrance of how much time
he had wasted (even he!) when he had life and opportunities for doing
good for other people, and how he had let his opportunities slide by
without doing so much as he might have done.
So keep on doing good turns every minute whenever you can get a chance
of doing them, and then when you are face to face with death, you will
be able to say:
"Well, I did my best to do my duty. I did not waste much time on other
things."
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