_DO PEOPLE LIVE IN LABRADOR?_
Do people live in Labrador? There is a resident white population of
some 5,000 at least, scattered along the south and east coasts. They
call themselves “Livyeres.” North of these are Eskimos, and in the
interior Indians, known locally as “Mountaineers,” but actually they
are different branches of the old Algonquin race. The last returns were
as follows:—
White population of St. Lawrence coast 4,411
White population of Atlantic coast 2,416
Eskimo on the coast 1,700
Indians of the interior 4,000
——————
Total 12,527
——————
These Indians, who once held North America from the “Rockies” to the
sea, have steadily decreased in numbers. As they live by hunting only,
the extensive forest fires, and depletion of fur-bearing animals,
have driven them further and further west. Whole encampments have
been reported “found dead from starvation.” Only occasionally do they
visit the coast, bringing furs with them to trade with the Hudson Bay
Company. They never take to sea fishing.
The Eskimo, of Mongolian origin, at one time were as far south as
Newfoundland. In 1780 a tribe 500 strong still dwelt along the Straits
of Belle Isle. Now almost all are north of Hamilton inlet; of these I
shall speak later.
Whence do the whites come? Some are said to be descendants of those
who fled the old country in press-gang days. In 1780 we hear of a crew
of convicts sent out there. Some are descendants of sailors wrecked
on the coast, or of Newfoundland and other fishermen who have been
left there. More come from those who have gone out in the service of
the Hudson Bay Company, while some few have emigrated directly there.
The largest settlement consists of about 100 persons, and with the
people of neighbouring coves numbers about 350. It is here where the
mission has built the first hospital ever known in Labrador. In May or
June every year the coast is visited by from 20 to 25,000 fishermen,
women and children. These arrive as soon as the ice is blown off the
coast by westerly winds. Most are from Newfoundland, some from Canada,
with occasional Americans buying fish. They come in every variety of
vessel—small and large, good, bad and indifferent—mostly of the
schooner type. They number about 1,000. Besides the crew, which varies
from five to ten men, with one or two women, most Newfoundland vessels
bring a number of people called “freighters.” These are landed at
various harbours, where they have left mud huts and boats the previous
year, and where they will fish all summer. The fish is “made” or cured
in Labrador, and sent in large vessels to the Mediterranean, Brazilian,
or English markets. Meanwhile, the schooner has gone further north in
search of a “fare” of fish. If successful, the fish will be salted,
and brought home “wet,” so that these vessels are called “green-fish
catchers.” As they come south they call for their “freighters,” with
their goods and chattels, who pay 25 cents per head per cwt. of fish
caught in return for their passage. The overcrowding on some of these
vessels returning is very great, and is made worse by the fact that
every year more vessels go than return. Besides the cargo of fish,
casks of oil, nets, boats, and general goods, perhaps thirty, forty,
or fifty men and women will be crowded into these small vessels, at
times with only room to lie down in the hold between the deck and the
cargo. On one small schooner of nineteen tons we counted fifty people,
thirty-four men and sixteen women. The women, many of whom have
children with them, are often very bad sailors. As a rule, they are
not allowed on deck except in port, and this voyage is a nightmare all
summer to numbers. They are pillars of pluck, many of these women. They
can handle an oar and sail a small boat with the best, and among them
are “Grace Darlings” only wanting an opportunity. They work chiefly at
cleaning fish and keeping the huts for the men, though some, I think
very wrongly, form part of the crews of the green fish catchers. The
Canadian schooners are larger—carry about eighteen men and no women.
The people consider Labrador very healthy, which I attribute to their
comparative immunity there from epidemic diseases. The damp mud huts,
often filled with snow till the very day they go in, the entire absence
of any sanitary provisions, combined always with either cold draughts
or too little ventilation, have, without any doubt, an ill effect on
the people, but more especially on the women, who occupy them.
[Illustration: Fields of Fish Drying—Emily Harbour.]
The fishermen are tall men, and broad to match, born to the sea,
and are accustomed, from their training at the seal fishery on the
ice, to be quick and active. No lighthouse, no buoy, no landmark aid
navigation on the Labrador coast. The charts are old, bad, incorrect,
incomplete and unreliable, while north of Hamilton inlet, _where
nearly all the schooners go for green fish_, there is practically no
chart at all, most of the surveying having been done by the keels and
bilges of devoted fishing schooners. Streams of icebergs, floating
all the summer to the southward before the polar current, render it
always unwise to stay at sea at night. With sudden calms and baffling
winds from high perpendicular cliffs, making a harbour without a tug
is always hard enough; but here, in addition, the constant and dense
fogs make it often impossible, without any kind of guide, even to
find a harbour at all; for in places shoals and ledges run out twenty
miles to seaward. Yet for all this shameful neglect on the part of the
Newfoundland Government, the weak defence is constantly made, “Not
many lives are lost.” That I know to be due solely to the consummate
seamanship and daring perseverance of the fishermen. Among many good
vessels, many are bad, and, worse still, are provided with but bad
tackle and holding-gear. The latter is an absolute essential, with the
liability that exists to sudden hurricanes, and I believe more vessels
are lost in Labrador from this one cause than all others put together.
Moreover many, as I have already pointed out, are greatly overcrowded.
More than once we saw vessels drifting to destruction, and once, when
holding on ourselves for all we were worth, we had the pleasure of
saving a comrade by running him a coir hawser, and so holding him on
the verge of the rocks after his own tackle had given out and the crew
had received brief notice to quit through the boiling surf.
It must be remembered that Newfoundland, our oldest colony, exists
solely by its fishery; that one-third of its entire revenue is now
derived from this very Labrador fishery, that is some one-and-a-half
million dollars, and that in no other way could this harvest be reaped.
Moreover almost every man in Labrador may be called a fisherman, and
yet nothing is done for all their returns. Here is another method of
interpreting the value of the industry. It is said seventeen tons of
fish contain the nutritive value of 50 head of cattle, or 300 sheep.
Now the average yield for fifty years from the French and English
Fisheries is 2,300,000 cwt., that is 338,235 cattle, or 2,029,410 sheep.
The summer Labrador settlements are on islands or outside headlands,
and here both Newfoundlanders and “Livyeres” dwell, the latter retiring
up the bays and inlets, to be nearer wood and game, when the former
return to Newfoundland. There are about a dozen well recognised central
stations in Labrador, where agents representing the various merchants’
firms are stationed to collect the fish from the fishermen dealing with
their firm, and to ship it thence to market. These men have far better
houses than the rest, generally also a store from which the general
wants of their men are supplied. As a rule, advances are made of all
needful appliances and food to some better known fishermen.
These men are known as “Planters,” and employ under them so many men
and women on “share” or wages. Occasionally, also, the agent has some
men of his own, working for settled wages, who may be made to fish for
cod, to pack salmon, to load vessels, or do any work they are told.
When seven men fish one trap or seine net, the total catch is divided
into fourteen shares—seven for the planter and seven for the men.
That is one share each; a few dollars on the hundred quintals being
allowed the skipper of the “crew.” Or when a man fishes his own net
with four men, I saw the value divided into twelve shares—four for
the master, four for the trap, and one each for the men, so that each
man gets every twelfth fish. When hand-lining begins, and two men have
charge of each boat, every other fish belongs to the men, the owner
taking two out of four. A girl’s wages are £6 to £7 currency for the
season, and her keep. Each planter has his own hut, but his men often
live together. The huts are of logs with the chinks filled with moss
and covered with sods. Entrance is by a low doorway, and there is a
small window placed low down to prevent escape of heat. Warmth and
ventilation cannot co-exist in so small a space. A man a little over
a fathom long once visited Sir Donald Smith, when an agent on that
coast. To accommodate his legs at night a hole had to be cut in the
wall, and a box lined with dogskin fixed up outside. I saw one day a
fisherman moving house. The house was first wedged up on piles, then a
rope was put round it, and, with the help of a few neighbours, it was
dragged higher up the hill. Another house I saw had been dragged over
the harbour on the ice “to be nearer the fishing ground.” An American
stove, or more often an open fireplace (the smoke going out of a huge
chimney like in an Irishman’s cabin), serves for warmth and cooking.
The stove, anyhow, is a movable chattel, and accompanies its master to
his winter hut in the fall. Clothes are so expensive and so scanty that
every man is his own wardrobe, and he who puts his clothes in a drawer
must himself go naked. Thus a block of furniture is obviated. Bunks are
put up for the men or a partition boarded off, while the girls sleep in
a “lean-to,” called a “bunk-house,” or have a part partitioned off, or
hang an old curtain in front of their bunk in the smaller huts.
Some Newfoundland planters and agents provide boarded huts for their
“crowd,” but in all the arrangements are much the same. The Livyeres’
families have all their separate huts. Each “crew” has a fish stage,
alongside which the fish are brought in the boats. These stages
are built out on piles driven into the mud. Long poles, known as
“rounders,” are laid side by side across the tops of these, and form a
kind of flooring. The whole is then roofed in with poles and sods, in
order that fish-curing may proceed at night by costers’ lamps, or in
bad weather. Up the middle of the stage runs a table for splitting the
fish on. The green fish are hove up on to the stage with pitchforks,
seized by a woman who cuts off the head—“the header,” and passed
on to one who opens the throat—“the throater.” She passes it to a
man—“the splitter.” He, with great dexterity, cuts out the backbone
and flings the flesh into a tub of water for the “washer.” I have timed
a man split thirteen fish in one minute. It takes the tyro nearer
thirteen minutes to split one well. The offal is thrown through a hole
in the floor into the sea below, where every variety of scavenger fish
congregates. In Norway, and by Messrs. Munn of Newfoundland, the skins
and bones are made into a splendid glue, while the rest of the offal
is preserved for fish manure. The washed fish is next laid in pile
and salted. The “salter” is also a skilled mechanic. It is easy to
undersalt and easy to “saltburn,” or oversalt, whereby much valuable
salt is wasted. This salt comes all the way from Cadiz by the same
vessels that take the fish away. Next the fish is spread in the sun.
A fine day is waited for, and all hands turn to. Many a slip exists
between the cup and the lip, however. If the fish has lain too long,
it will be sodden, and go grey or dun. If the sun is too hot, it will
be sun-burnt. If rain comes, and it is wet and dry again, too often it
will be injured. It must be turned and returned. At last it is gathered
up into circular “piles,” back up, and tail to the centre. These piles
are covered over with birch rinds, and a few stones placed on the top
to keep the whole together till it is time to ship them away. They
are weighed into the ship, two quintals at a time, a “culler” looking
over them as they pass in and classifying them; and according to this
classification they are paid for. The receipt handed to the fishermen
runs thus:—
Received from..............
Large }
Medium} Merchantable fish
Small }
Madeira Merchantable fish
West India Merchantable fish
Talqual Merchantable fish
Inferior Merchantable fish
Damp Merchantable fish
Dun Merchantable fish
Slimy Merchantable fish
Labrador Merchantable fish
And also ...... casks of ...... gallons of oil.
There is always a great race to get first to market, for the first
cargo always fetches a higher price. One fish planter ships his own
fish to England, and thus is able to get at times a better price than
that offered in St. Johns. On the other hand, he runs the risks of the
freight, insurance, etc.
No railway, public building, roads, drains, or such like things
exist in Labrador, and every man is a fisherman first, a handy man
after—boat or house-builder, blacksmith, cooper, curer, as the case
may be. Only three harbours do I know where liquor is sold: in one of
these two poor fellows were drowned through its influence last year.
No jail or police exist on the coast. A small revenue schooner, with a
justice of the peace on board, is responsible for maintaining the law
and preventing smuggling. The people are, as a rule, law-abiding; but
crimes, especially among the half-breeds and Eskimo, go unpunished.
In one settlement a lay reader and school teacher are established; in
another an aspirant to the Methodist ministry, while settlements up two
long inlets enjoy similar privileges. These men are all doing excellent
work, as is a Presbyterian student from Dalhousie University in the
Straits of Belle Isle.
Most school work can be done in winter, for in summer only those too
young to work can be spared; and if they are old enough to journey
alone to and from the school, they are old enough to do something at
the fishery. Only a small percentage of Livyeres can read or write.
Every summer it is usual for a Roman Catholic priest, a Methodist
minister, and an Anglican clergyman to visit as many stations as they
can on the first 400 miles of coast. They are passed along in boats
from place to place by the too willing people, who, irrespective of
creed, extend their kindly hospitality to all alike. In places wood
buildings have been put up voluntarily by the men in their spare time,
for Sunday services, conducted usually by one of themselves. Our own
gatherings, at times too large for the _Albert’s_ hold or these little
buildings, were held in fish stores ashore, cleared for the purpose, or
in the open air, one of the countless boulders serving for a natural
rostrum. I have seen the same place serve in the morning for Church of
England, in the afternoon for Wesleyan, in the evening for Salvation
Army, and pretty much the same congregation attending each. I have
known a Methodist meeting house on Sunday reconsecrated for Mass on
Monday. This absence of conventionality, this socialism on a basis of
kindly generosity, is most congenial to one from the old world.
Fresh meat and vegetables are alike hard to procure. No cow or horse
exists. The domestic animal world is represented only by the inevitable
dog; the vegetable by the stringy cabbage or struggling turnip, whose
leaves alone attain to economic value. To prevent scurvy in winter,
when fresh fish is not attainable, salt meat must be avoided, even
if they can afford to buy it. The following recipe is invented with
that end: “Dry the cod in the sun till it is so hard none can go
bad. In winter powder this, rub it up with fresh seal oil, and add
cranberries if you have any.” This dainty is known as “Pipsey.” These
people neither need nor expect luxuries; sugar and milk are very rarely
used—tinned milk being too expensive, molasses being cheaper than
sugar, and also margarine than butter. White rabbits, white grouse and
sea-birds help to eke out the winter’s diet.
But to be accurate, in two harbours I saw a pig, brought by the
Newfoundlanders. When they arrived the dogs were banished to a desert
island near. In one harbor we listened to much wailing. Two pigs
had been isolated on an island near, the fishermen enjoying daily
the bliss of anticipation. But alas! here the dogs proved equal to
the occasion. An on-shore wind had brought them the joyful news, and
that very morning the pigs disappeared, only a few blood-stained
bristles remaining to tell the story of the crime. In one harbour a
planter had brought a sheep, but its isolation had so developed its
affection for its owner that it followed him everywhere, and he could
not make up his mind to kill it. Goats fare a little better: they have
horns. Yet in one place three nights in succession a goat had been
missed. A team of runaway dogs was roaming near, but only approached
the houses under cover of night. All these animals are, however, the
perquisites of affluence, and belong almost entirely to the planters
from Newfoundland. Some few bring fowls, which eke out a perilous
existence on suffrance of the dogs. At the Hudson Bay Company’s station
of Rigolette, Mr. Wilson, the chief factor, told me that two of his
dogs got into his well-enclosed yard, and in four minutes killed eight
hens and tore four goats to pieces. Among all these people no resident
doctor exists, nor is skilled aid of any kind to be obtained in case
of need; for the few minutes in the summer that the mail steamer
stays in any harbour, and the irregular times of her calls, gives the
doctor on board no opportunity to render effective aid. When sickness
falls on the people no one knows what it is, or how to treat it. Not
knowing they are ill, men work on till a trifling ailment becomes a
matter of life and death. A slight accident with no “first aid” at
hand, permanently cripples a limb or destroys a valuable function,
such as sight. Bleeding unchecked from a simple wound deprives a
dependent family of the father and breadwinner. Many are the piteous
stories I have learnt of such cases since first, in 1892, the Gospel
Hospital-ship _Albert_ was sent out by warm hearts in Old England to
their brothers and sisters in this “region beyond.”
After all this description of Labrador, do you ask, as I do, why do
people stay here, when the fair farm lands of Canada are offered free
to all? There is a story that a solitary old woman in the wilds of
North America was one day visited by a gentleman from that “hub of
the universe,” Boston city. She asked him, “Where do you live?” “Oh,
hundreds of miles away—in Boston.” “How do you manage to live so far
away?” was the reply. To begin with, every one has a lingering belief
in his “ain countree.” The wild life to which these people are born has
a certain charm to others besides themselves. Sailors they are born
and bred. What else can they do? Some have been taken by the Canadian
Government to the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence—the Arcady
of Longfellow—and yet have found eventually their way back. The fact
remains—here is an increasing English-speaking colony.