ON THE ATLANTIC ICE
The dogs had stopped within a dozen feet of the building, but it was
barely distinguishable through the thick clouds of smothering snow
which the wind, risen to a terrific gale, swirled around us as it swept
down in staggering gusts from the invisible hills above. A light
filtered dimly through one of the frost-encrusted windows, and I tapped
loudly upon the glass.
At first there was no response, but after repeated rappings some one
moved within, and in a moment the door opened and a voice called to us,
"Come, come out of the snow. It is a nasty night." Without further
preliminaries we stepped into the shelter of the broad, comfortable
hall. Holding a candle above his head, and peering at us through the
dim light that it cast, was a short, stockily built, bearded man in his
shirt sleeves and wearing hairy sealskin trousers and boots. To him I
introduced myself and Easton, and he, in turn, told us that he was the
Reverend Paul Schmidt, the missionary in charge of the station.
Mr. Schmidt's astonishment at our unexpected appearance at midnight and
in such a storm was only equaled by his hospitable welcome. His broken
English sounded sweet indeed, inviting us to throw off our snow-covered
garments. He ushered us to a neat room on the floor above, struck a
match to a stove already charged with kindling wood and coal, and in
five minutes after our entrance we were listening to the music of a
crackling fire and warming our chilled selves by its increasing heat.
Our host was most solicitous for our every comfort. He hurried in and
out, and by the time we were thoroughly warmed told us supper was ready
and asked us to his living room below, where Mrs. Schmidt had spread
the table for a hot meal. Each mission house has a common kitchen and
a common dining room, and besides having the use of these the separate
families are each provided with a private living room and a sleeping
room.
It is not pleasant to be routed out of bed in the middle of the night,
but these good missionaries assured us that it was really a pleasure to
them, and treated us like old friends whom they were overjoyed to see.
"Well, well," said Mr. Schmidt, again and again, "it is very good for
you to come. I am very glad that you came tonight, for now we shall
have company, and you shall stay with us until the weather is fine
again for traveling, and we will talk English together, which is a
pleasure for me, for I have almost forgotten my English, with no one to
talk it to."
It was after two o'clock when we went to bed, and I verily believe that
Mr. Schmidt would have talked all night had it not been for our hard
day's work and evident need of rest.
When we arose in the morning the storm was still blowing with unabated
fury. We had breakfast with Mr. Schmidt in his private apartment and
were later introduced to Mr. Karl Filsehke, the storekeeper, and his
wife, who, like the Schmidts, were most hospitable and kind. At all of
the Moravian missions, with the exception of Killinek "down to
Chidley," and Makkovik, the farthest station "up south," there is,
besides the missionary, who devotes himself more particularly to the
spiritual needs of his people, a storekeeper who looks after their
material welfare and assists in conducting the meetings.
In Labrador these missions are largely, though by no means wholly,
self-supporting. Furs and blubber are taken from the Eskimos in
exchange for goods, and the proflts resulting from their sale in Europe
are applied toward the expense of maintaining the stations. They own a
small steamer, which brings the supplies from London every summer and
takes away the year's accumulation of fur and oil. Since the first
permanent establishment was erected at Nain, over one hundred and fifty
years ago, they have followed this trade.
During the day I visited the store and blubber house, where Eskimo men
and women were engaged in cutting seal blubber into small slices and
pounding these with heavy wooden mallets. The pounded blubber is
placed in zinc vats, and, when the summer comes, exposed in the vats to
the sun's heat, which renders out a fine white oil. This oil is put
into casks and shipped to the trade.
In the depth of winter seal hunting is impossible, and during that
season the Eskimo families gather in huts, or igloosoaks, at the
mission stations. There are sixty-nine of these people connected with
the Ramah station and I visited them all with Mr. Schmidt. Their huts
were heated with stone lamps and seal oil, for the country is bare of
wood. The fuel for the mission house is brought from the South by the
steamer.
The Eskimos at Ramah and at the stations south are all supposed to be
Christians, but naturally they still retain many of the traditional
beliefs and superstitions of their people. They will not live in a
house where a death has occurred, believing that the spirit of the
departed will haunt the place. If the building is worth it, they take
it down and set it up again somewhere else.
Not long ago the wife of one of the Eskimos was taken seriously ill,
and became delirious. Her husband and his neighbors, deciding that she
was possessed of an evil spirit, tied her down and left her, until
finally she died, uncared for and alone, from cold and lack of
nourishment. This occurred at a distance from the station, and the
missionaries did not learn of it until the woman was dead and beyond
their aid. They are most kind in their ministrations to the sick and
needy.
Once Dr. Grenfell visited Ramah and exhibited to the astonished Eskimos
some stereopticon views--photographs that he had taken there in a
previous year. It so happened that one of the pictures was that of an
old woman who had died since the photograph was made, and when it
appeared upon the screen terror struck the hearts of the simple-minded
people. They believed it was her spirit returned to earth, and for a
long time afterward imagined that they saw it floating about at night,
visiting the woman's old haunts.
The daily routine of the mission station is most methodical. At seven
o'clock in the morning a bell calls the servants to their duties; at
nine o'clock it rings again, granting a half hour's rest; at a quarter
to twelve a third ringing sends them to dinner; they return at one
o'clock to work until dark. Every night at five o'clock the bell
summons them to religious service in the chapel, where worship is
conducted in Eskimo by either the missionary or the storekeeper. The
women sit on one side, the men on the other, and are always in their
seats before the last tone of the bell dies out. I used to enjoy these
services exceedingly--watching the eager, expectant faces of the people
as they heard the lesson taught, and their hearty singing of the hymns
in Eskimo made the evening hour a most interesting one to me.
It is a busy life the missionary leads. From morning until night he is
kept constantly at work, and in the night his rest is often broken by
calls to minister to the sick. He is the father of his flock, and his
people never hesitate to call for his help and advice; to him all their
troubles and disagreements are referred for a wise adjustment.
I am free to say that previous to meeting them upon their field of
labor I looked upon the work of these missionaries with indifference,
if not disfavor, for I had been led to believe that they were
accomplishing little or nothing. But now I have seen, and I know of
what incalculable value the services are that they are rendering to the
poor, benighted people of this coast.
They practically renounce the world and their home ties to spend their
lives, until they are too old for further service or their health
breaks down, in their Heaven-inspired calling, surrounded by people of
a different race and language, in the most barren, God-cursed land in
the world.
When their children reach the age of seven years they must send them to
the church school at home to be educated. Very often parent and child
never meet again. This is, as many of them told me, the greatest
sacrifice they are called upon to make, but they realize that it is for
the best good of the child and their work, and they do not murmur.
What heroes and heroines these men and women are! One _must_ admire
and honor them.
There were some little ones here at Ramah who used to climb upon my
knees and call me "Uncle," and kiss me good morning and good night, and
I learned to love them. My recollections of these days at Ramah are
pleasant ones.
Philippus Inglavina and Ludwig Alasua, two Eskimos, were engaged to
hold themselves in readiness with their team of twelve dogs for a
bright and early start for Hebron on the first clear morning. On the
fourth morning after our arrival they announced that the weather was
sufficiently clear for them to find their way over the hills. Mrs.
Schmidt and Mrs. Filsehke filled an earthen jug with hot coffee and
wrapped it, with some sandwiches, in a bearskin to keep from freezing
for a few hours; sufficient wood to boil the kettle that night and the
next morning was lashed with our baggage on the komatik; the Eskimos
each received the daily ration of a plug of tobacco and a box of
matches, which they demand when traveling, and then we said good-by and
started. The komatik was loaded with Eskimos, and the rest of the
native population trailed after us on foot. It is the custom on the
coast for the people to accompany a komatik starting on a journey for
some distance from the station.
The wind, which had died nearly out in the night, was rising again. It
was directly in our teeth and shifting the loose snow unpleasantly. We
had not gone far when one of the trailing Eskimos came running after us
and shouting to our driver to stop. We halted, and when he overtook us
he called the attention of Philippus to a high mountain known as
Attanuek (the King), whose peak was nearly hidden by drifting snow. A
consultation decided them that it would be dangerous to attempt the
passes that day, and to our chagrin the Eskimos turned the dogs back to
the station.
The next morning Attanuek's head was clear, the wind was light, the
atmosphere bitter cold, and we were off in good season. We soon
reached "Lamson's Hill," rising three thousand feet across our path,
and shortly after daylight began the wearisome ascent, helping the dogs
haul the komatik up steep places and wallowing through deep snow banks.
Before noon one of our dogs gave out, and we had to cut him loose. An
hour later we met George Ford on his way home to Nachvak from Davis
Inlet, and some Eskimos with a team from the Hebron Mission, and from
this latter team we borrowed a dog to take the place of the one that we
had lost. Ford told us that his leader had gone mad that morning and
he had been compelled to shoot it. He also informed me that wolves had
followed him all the way from Okak to Hebron, mingling with his dogs at
night, but at Hebron had left his trail.
At three o'clock we reached the summit of Lamson's Hill and began the
perilous descent, where only the most expert maneuvering on the part of
the Eskimos saved our komatik from being smashed. In many places we
had to let the sledge down over steep places, after first removing the
dogs, and it was a good while after dark when we reached the bottom.
Then, after working the komatik over a mile of rough bowlders from
which the wind had swept the snow, we at length came upon the sea ice
of Saglak Bay, and at eight o'clock drew up at an igloosoak on an
island several miles from the mainland.
This igloosoak was practically an underground dwelling, and the
entrance was through a snow tunnel. From a single seal-gut window a
dim light shone, but there was no other sign of human life. I groped
my way into the tunnel, bent half double, stepping upon and stumbling
over numerous dogs that blocked the way, and at the farther end bumped
into a door. Upon pushing this open I found myself in a room perhaps
twelve by fourteen feet in size. Three stone lamps shed a gloomy half
light over the place, and revealed a low bunk, covered with sealskins,
extending along two sides of the room, upon which nine Eskimos--men,
women and children--were lying. A half inch of soft slush covered the
floor. The whole place was reeking in filth, infested with vermin, and
the stench was sickening.
The people arose and welcomed us as Eskimos always do, most cordially.
Our two drivers, who followed me with the wood we had brought, made a
fire in a small sheet-iron tent stove kept in the shack by the
missionaries for their use when traveling, and on it we placed our
kettle full of ice for tea, and our sandwiches to thaw, for they were
frozen as hard as bullets. One of the old women was half dead with
consumption, and constantly spitting, and when we saw her turning our
sandwiches on the stove our appetite appreciably diminished.
At Ramah I had purchased some dried caplin for dog food for the night.
The caplin is a small fish, about the size of a smelt or a little
larger, and is caught in the neighborhood of Hamilton Inlet and south.
They are brought north by the missionaries to use for dog food when
traveling in the winter, as they are more easily packed on the komatik
than seal meat. The Eskimos are exceedingly fond of these dried fish,
and they appealed to our men as too great a delicacy to waste upon the
dogs. Therefore when feeding time came, seal blubber, of which there
was an abundant supply in the igloo, fell to the lot of the animals,
while our drivers and hosts appropriated the caplin to themselves. The
bag of fish was placed in the center, with a dish of raw seal fat
alongside, with the men, women and children surrounding it, and they
were still banqueting upon the fish and fat when I, weary with
traveling, fell asleep in my bag.
It was not yet dark the next evening when we came in sight of the
Eskimo village at the Hebron mission, and the whole population of one
hundred and eighty people and two hundred dogs, the former shouting,
the latter howling, turned out to greet us. Several of the young men,
fleeter of foot than the others, ran out on the ice, and when they had
come near enough to see who we were, turned and ran back again ahead of
our dogs, shouting "Kablunot! Kablunot!" (outlanders), and so, in the
midst of pandemonium, we drew into the station, and received from the
missionaries a most cordial welcome.
Here I was fortunate in securing for the next eighty miles of our
journey an Eskimo with an exceptionally fine team of fourteen dogs.
This new driver--Cornelius was his name--made my heart glad by
consenting to travel without an attendant. I was pleased at this
because experience had taught me that each additional man meant just so
much slower progress.
No time was lost at Hebron, for the weather was fine, and early morning
found us on our way. At Napartok we reached the "first wood," and the
sight of a grove of green spruce tops above the snow seemed almost like
a glimpse of home.
It was dreary, tiresome work, this daily plodding southward over the
endless snow, sometimes upon the wide ice field, sometimes crossing
necks of land with tedious ascents and dangerous descents of hills,
making no halt while daylight lasted, save to clear the dogs' entangled
traces and snatch a piece of hard-tack for a cheerless luncheon.
Okak, two days' travel south of Hebron, with a population of three
hundred and twenty-nine, is the largest Eskimo village in Labrador and
an important station of the Moravian missionaries. Besides the chapel,
living apartments and store of the mission a neat, well-organized
little hospital has just been opened by them and placed in charge of
Dr. S. Hutton, an English physician. Young, capable and with every
prospect of success at home, he and his charming wife have resigned all
to come to the dreary Labrador and give their lives and efforts to the
uplifting of this bit of benighted humanity.
We were entertained by the doctor and Mrs. Hutton and found them most
delightful people. The only other member of the hospital corps was
Miss S. Francis, a young woman who has prepared herself as a trained
nurse to give her life to the service. I had an opportunity to visit
with Dr. Hutton several of the Eskimo dwellings, and was struck by
their cleanliness and the great advance toward civilization these
people have made over their northern kinsmen. We had now reached a
section where timber grows, and some of the houses were quite
pretentious for the frontier--well furnished, of two or three rooms,
and far superior to many of the homes of the outer coast breeds to the
south. This, of course, is the visible result of the century of
Moravian labors. Here I engaged, with the aid of the missionaries,
Paulus Avalar and Boas Anton with twelve dogs to go with us to Nain,
and after one day at Okak our march was resumed.
It is a hundred miles from Okak to Nain and on the way the Kiglapait
Mountain must be crossed, as the Atlantic ice outside is liable to be
shattered at any time should an easterly gale blow, and there is no
possible retreat and no opportunity to escape should one be caught upon
it at such a time, as perpendicular cliffs rise sheer from the sea ice
here.
We had not reached the summit of the Kiglapait when night drove us into
camp in a snow igloo. The Eskimos here are losing the art of
snow-house building, and this one was very poorly constructed, and,
with a temperature of thirty or forty degrees below zero, very cold and
uncomfortable.
When we turned into our sleeping bags Paulus, who could talk a few
words of English, remarked to me: "Clouds say big snow maybe. Here
very bad. No dog feed. We go early," and pointing to my watch face
indicated that we should start at midnight. At eleven o'clock I heard
him and Boas get up and go out. Half an hour later they came back with
a kettle of hot tea and we had breakfast. Then the two Eskimos, by
candlelight read aloud in their language a form of worship and sang a
hymn. All along the coast between Hebron and Makkovik I found morning
and evening worship and grace before and after meals a regular
institution with the Eskimos, whose religious training is carefully
looked after by the Moravians.
By midnight our komatik was packed. "Ooisht! ooisht!" started the dogs
forward as the first feathery flakes of the threatened storm fell
lazily down. Not a breath of wind was stirring and no sound broke the
ominous silence of the night save the crunch of our feet on the snow
and the voice of the driver urging on the dogs.
Boas went ahead, leading the team on the trail. Presently he halted
and shouted back that he could not make out the landmarks in the now
thickening snow. Then we circled about until an old track was found
and went on again. Time and again this maneuver was repeated. The
snow now began to fall heavily and the wind rose.
No further sign of the track could be discovered and short halts were
made while Paulus examined my compass to get his bearings.
Finally the summit of the Kiglapait was reached, and the descent was
more rapid. At one place on a sharp down grade the dogs started on a
run and we jumped upon the komatik to ride. Moving at a rapid pace the
team, dimly visible ahead, suddenly disappeared. Paulus rolled off the
komatik to avoid going over the ledge ahead, but the rest of us had no
time to jump, and a moment later the bottom fell out of our track and
we felt ourselves dropping through space. It was a fall of only
fifteen feet, but in the night it seemed a hundred. Fortunately we
landed on soft snow and no harm was done, but we had a good shaking up.
The storm grew in force with the coming of daylight. Forging on
through the driving snow we reached the ocean ice early in the forenoon
and at four o'clock in the afternoon the shelter of an Eskimo hut.
The storm was so severe the next morning our Eskimos said to venture
out in it would probably mean to get lost, but before noon the wind so
far abated that we started.
The snow fell thickly all day, the wind began to rise again, and a
little after four o'clock the real force of the gale struck us in one
continued, terrific sweep, and the snow blew so thick that we nearly
smothered. The temperature was thirty degrees below zero. We could
not see the length of the komatik. We did not dare let go of it, for
had we separated ourselves a half dozen yards we should certainly have
been lost.
Somehow the instincts of drivers and dogs, guided by the hand of a good
Providence, led us to the mission house at Nain, which we reached at
five o'clock and were overwhelmed by the kindness of the Moravians.
This is the Moravian headquarters in Labrador, and the Bishop, Right
Reverend A. Martin, with his aids, is in charge.
It was Saturday night when we reached Nain, and Sunday was spent here
while we secured new drivers and dogs and waited for the storm to blow
over.
Every one was so cordial and hospitable that I almost regretted the
necessity of leaving on Monday morning. The day was excessively cold
and a head wind froze cheeks and noses and required an almost constant
application of the hand to thaw them out and prevent them from freezing
permanently. Easton even frosted his elbow through his heavy clothing
of reindeer skin.
During the second day from Nain we met Missionary Christian Schmitt
returning from a visit to the natives farther south, and on the ice had
a half hour's chat.
That evening we reached Davis Inlet Post of the Hudson's Bay Company,
and spent the night with Mr. Guy, the agent, and the following morning
headed southward again, passed Cape Harrigan, and in another two days
reached Hopedale Mission, where we arrived just ahead of one of the
fierce storms* so frequent here at this season of the year, which held
us prisoners from Thursday night until Monday morning. Two days later
we pulled in at Makkovik, the last station of the Moravians on our
southern trail.
* Since writing the above I have learned that a half-breed whom I met
at Davis Inlet, his wife and a young native left that point for
Hopedale just after us, were overtaken by this storm, lost their way,
and were probably overcome by the elements. Their dogs ate the bodies
and a week later returned, well fed, to Davis Inlet. Dr. Grenfell
found the bones in the spring.