_OUR VOYAGE CONTINUED_
On our arrival in a harbour our method was, as last year, to hoist
our blue flag to announce our arrival, to then visit any seriously
sick I could hear of, after which we had evening service in a shed,
stage, or house, and then, last of all, any could come for advice or
assistance. To every family or vessel a good bundle of reading was
given if they wished it, all the literature being selected at home as
healthy and suitable for fishermen. If any wanted God’s Word, that,
too, was to be had for asking for it; while a register was kept of
all the poor, describing as accurately as we could the nature of the
needs and deserts of each case, in order that when, at the end of the
year, we divided up the warm clothing we had brought out, it should
fall into the hands of the most deserving. In this way also we became
possessed of a valuable record for future reference. Thus in one house
when visiting a case, I found my patient to be the mother of a large
family. The poor thing, who, with self-sacrificing courage, had refused
to believe herself ill till she could get about no more, was lying on
one single wood form in a bare and dirty room, her head close to an old
cracked stove, behind which a crowd of shivering urchins were huddled
together. The sickness was acute bronchitis and pleurisy, made worse by
little clothing and less food. A haggard man meanwhile was pacing up
and down, nursing a screaming and hungry baby. I pulled the children
out from behind the stove for inspection; but their rags so failed to
cover them, that each hastened back at once after the ordeal to the
seclusion and warmth behind the old stove. The complete attire of one
bony little mite was an old trouser leg, into which he was packed like
a sack. All were alike barefooted.
Staying here over Sunday, I was the guest of a Labrador fisherman,
rather better off than the majority, an erect, grey-haired man of
about forty-five, standing some six feet two inches. His cottage,
built with his own hands, was a pattern of neatness and cleanliness,
but the bad seasons were compelling even him to desert the harbour,
and try squatting farther along the coast. He was still the fortunate
possessor, however, of a cod-trap (value about £80), by means of which
he still hoped to end the year out of debt. He was the class leader for
the neighbourhood, and had many years been standing on the Lord’s side,
and, indeed, after the Wesleyan Missionary for the Straits, he was the
backbone of the religious life of the place. Such an one, where every
detail of one’s life is known, must indeed be an “Epistle read of all
men,” of which fact he was well aware, as also, that his neighbours,
while unable or undesirous to read God’s word for themselves, measured
the claims of God on their own life very largely by his actions. This
we found to obtain more or less along the whole coast, especially among
these scattered communities, where little or no provision is made for
their spiritual needs. When therefore Sunday morning broke, and a
large iceberg was noticed drifting towards his cod-trap, threatening
to deprive him of his means of earning his daily bread, he at first
decided to go and spend the day working to save his net. But soon he
came back, saying, “I’ve decided not to go, doctor; there are those in
this harbour that only want a pretext for working on the Lord’s Day,
and I’ll not be the one to give it them.” As we climbed the hill to the
little wooden chapel I noticed him standing and greeting the people as
they came along, according to his custom, as if forgetful of the fact
that the mass of ice was at that moment probably robbing him of his
all. We had three _such_ services that day; the Wesleyan missionary,
the Rev. John Sidey, was present, and more than one of our hearts
were full at the evidence of the reality of God’s Spirit among this
out-of-the-way, isolated people. Long before sunrise on Monday, indeed
immediately after midnight, my good host was away in his boat after the
wreck of his cod-trap, and by breakfast had returned, his face radiant
with the same happy smile he always has, saying, “I _knew_ it would be
all right, doctor. The worst of the ice passed outside it; a few hours’
work, and we shall get it all right again.”
[Illustration: Interior of Indian Harbour Hospital.]
In the Straits of Belle Isle we visited all the stations to Old Ford
Island, about 100 miles from the entrance. At L’Anse au Loup, Blanc
Sablon (the boundary between Canada and Newfoundland), and at Bonne
Esperance, we found large stations for fishing, with numbers of men
hard at work at the caplin school. We had quite a number of surgical
and medical cases, including two of true (sailor’s) scurvy from want
of proper food. At one place we were called to operate on the back
of a French settler, at another on the arm of a poor Newfoundland
schooner-man. In this last case I had the assistance of a Roman
Catholic priest who was journeying along the coast.
While visiting in Forteau Bay we passed close to the wreck of H.M.S.
_Lily_. We found here that a Beaver line steamer, the S.S. _Lake
Nepigon_, had recently run ashore. While journeying down the straits
she had struck on a whale-back iceberg, and was sinking head foremost,
like the _Victoria_, when her captain succeeded in grounding her
on one of the few bits of sand for miles. Her screw and rudder were
practically out of water when she took the bottom, with her bows in 27
feet. The doctor aboard had spent three days on shore near, and had
operated on one cancer of the lip and on an old compound dislocation
of the wrist in a young girl. These came to us to have the stitches
removed.
While returning from visiting a patient at Greenly Island in thick
fog, we were unfortunate enough to run the _Princess May_ ashore. It
was as dark as pitch at the time, and we had burnt all our flares out
while threading our way through a quantity of schooners at anchor. Two
men on the bows of the boat, after a long pause to search for some
guidance, had just given the word “all right ahead,” when we ran up on
a flat-topped rock, and found that high, almost perpendicular, cliffs
were only a few yards ahead. Throwing out our dingey, and removing
all superfluous weight from the bows, we succeeded shortly in getting
off; and guided by the stentorian shouts of some men from a schooner,
alternating with their fog-horn, we found our way alongside and made
fast to her. As we were too many even to lie down on the launch I went
aboard the schooner, the hospitable skipper of which insisted on my
turning into his bunk. He was only just back, apparently, with a load
of fish from his traps, and hearing the echo of our voices from the
cliffs had guessed something was wrong. He added, “there is fish to be
had now, and so I don’t turn in at all myself”; and sure enough, after
a shake down and some supper he and his crew disappeared into the foggy
darkness for a fresh load from the trap, while sleep reigned supreme on
board. He turned out to be a green-fish catcher, who was “making” his
fish on his vessel.
Further along the straits, at Bonne Esperance, we met with a more
serious mishap, for while returning from a visit up Salmon River our
propeller refused to rotate, and we had to depend on our sail. The
kindness of the first engineer of a sealing steamer (Mr. William
Crossman) anchored in the harbour set us all right again, however, for
he made us a complete set of new steel screws for our piston-top—our
own had given out, and we neither had means of making new ones, or
replacing them, in Labrador. After one or two other similar mishaps,
but having treated some one hundred and fifty patients, and having
received much kindness and a warm welcome wherever we had been, we
reached Battle Hospital again on the 29th of July. We brought a dying
fisherman the last 80 miles with us, which necessitated his sleeping
three nights in my cabin. He was still in the prime of life, but
pneumonia developed into gangrene of the lungs, and he subsequently
died in Battle Harbour Hospital.
The Sunday passed pleasantly and rapidly among the people here. After
evening service, held by the schoolmaster in the little church, we had
a good “fishermen’s meeting.” Dr. Bobardt was away all day visiting
sick people on a neighbouring island, and holding service among
them. No patients were yet allowed in hospital, though it now only
remained to cover the floors and get the stores in. Sister Carwardine
had therefore arranged for the nursing of one poor woman, on whom an
operation had been necessary, in a room of a cottage near at hand.
As the mail steamer was shortly expected, and would certainly bring
patients for the hospital, the following day was spent by all hands in
rendering the hospital inhabitable; and by evening our first patient
was comfortably located in a room on the ground floor, while the sister
spent her first night in hospital in an arm-chair.
Next day, before leaving for the north, Dr. Bobardt again being away
visiting, I was called on to bury a poor fellow, father of a family
of five, who had died from consumption in a neighbouring cove. The
burial-ground is a small plot at the bottom of a deep ravine on the
seaboard side of the island. On each side rose barren rocky crags,
behind was the bleak island top, while in front lay the great Atlantic,
bearing on its heaving bosom, as far as the eye could see, countless
mighty icebergs. As the sad procession wound along the defile, carrying
in its rude wood covering what was so recently a living, hopeful human
being; as they laid it in its last long resting-place amidst these cold
and desolate surroundings, the craving for something beyond the grave
burnt fiercely in every heart; while the joy of knowing of a Heavenly
Father, who has given us victory even over the grave, was realized as a
priceless possession which the world cannot give—no, nor sell either.
Our next object was to visit the coast up to Indian Harbour, calling
for coal and a few supplies left for us half-way up by the _Albert_, at
a place called Bateau. In making a narrow inlet called Francis Harbour,
we found much difficulty in getting in; for after long searching for
the entrance, it proved to be blocked with ice, and a circuitous method
inside an island was unknown to us. However, once inside the warmth
of our welcome made up for the suspense outside, and after service
in the neat and commodious parlour of the agent’s (Mr. Penny) house,
we had a _levée_ of sick visitors till midnight. We next entered a
deep narrow cleft in a high mountain, running parallel with the sea,
nowhere wider than a stone’s throw. It is very deep, and high hills of
bright red rocks rise abruptly on both hands. On the outer side are
perched houses and fishing stages. This is known as Venison Tickle. The
agent (Mr. Hawker) received us most warmly, and being himself doctor,
parson, planter, and all combined, took me round at once to the various
sick and injured. One poor old fisherman, suffering from apoplectic
paralysis, we sent to hospital at Battle, though we learnt from a
schooner that already it was nearly full.
Landing on a low island as we passed north, we found the eider-duck
nesting in considerable numbers, while in the little pools among the
rocks were young ducks and young gulls in numbers. Of the latter we
caught several for our stew-pot. We steamed thence fifteen miles to
Boulter’s Rock Harbour by a long narrow channel inside two enormous
islands, the passage being known as Squasho Run. Fog succeeded fog all
along this part of the coast, and it was only by the help of volunteer
local pilots we succeeded in finding many of the harbours.
One dark night, unable to find our way further, we dropped our anchor
inside some outlying islands called Seal Islands. It seemed to us that
we had hardly got straight and settled down for the night’s rest before
we heard a boat bumping against our side. In such a lonely place, and
in a thick drizzly fog at night, a superstitious person might well
have started. Soon we heard the soft tread of a mocassin over the
half-inch boarding which, covered with painted canvas, served us as a
roof; then a bustling at the hatchway door, and soon the broad face of
a half-breed Eskimo peered into the cabin. It appeared he had a very
sick daughter at his hut on the island, near which no doctor ever went.
He had heard of the _Princess May_ being about; and seeing our cabin
lights shining as he chanced to pass in his boat homewards, he had come
in search of assistance. Soon, swathed in oilskins, I was sitting in
the stern of his boat, while he swiftly rowed away into the darkness.
Landing, and following closely behind him over broken rock for some
quarter mile, brought me to his cottage, which, in true Labrador
fashion, was well filled with inhabitants. Among them I found two
seriously ill, one a young man of eighteen, the other a young married
woman of about thirty. On this poor woman it was necessary to operate
on our way south in order to save life even for the time; but as we
had no hospital open in winter, she had to be left in that crowded hut
to the tender mercies of the most unskilled of nurses, and though any
communication with the island has been impossible since, I fear she
will not have survived the winter.[15]
[Footnote 15: 1895. She has perfectly recovered, in the most marvellous
manner.—W. T. G.]
I was one day asked, a little further north, to visit a woman reported
to have been ill in bed for three months, and who was living up a bay
fully ten miles from any fishing station. At length, dropping our
anchor off the spot indicated, which was the mouth of a large salmon
river, we blew our whistle repeatedly to try and attract her husband’s
attention. After some time a small boat put out with one man sculling
in the stern. He seemed to approach warily, and the man piloting me
took in the situation in a moment. As soon as the small boat was
alongside, he greeted the oarsman with “It’s all up; come aboard and
surrender quietly, or you will be shot down.” The condemning reply came
back, “Indeed, sir, the river isn’t barred. It couldn’t be barred. No
nets would hold across it. It never has been barred. I wouldn’t bar
the river. You can come and see for yourself.” We got into his boat,
and he started with us to the shore, when I asked him if the launch
was safe at her anchorage, as darkness was coming on. The prompt reply
was that she would be aground on rocks at low water, and that we had
better steam across the inlet and anchor the other side, where it was
soft and good holding ground, at which our engineer at once proceeded
to get steam again. On landing, I asked for the sick woman, and was
shown into the most miserable dark hovel I ever saw. By a wretched
tin chimneyless lamp I examined my patient. She was lying clad in one
old petticoat on a few sacks spread over a kind of built-up bunk. Her
bodily ailments were fortunately not great, but as she told me, and I
believe truthfully, having no clothes to get up in, she was obliged to
stay where she was. Turning to go out, I stumbled over our boatman, who
at once commenced most profuse apologies. It appears he was just off
to destroy his “bar,” when my pilot had told him I was not an excise
officer, and the _Princess May_ was not a gunboat. So he went off to
tell the engineer the anchorage was good enough, I fear that is not the
only barred salmon river in Labrador.
Further north we steamed up Sandwich Bay, and visited, among other
places, Cartwright, now a Hudson Bay post, but founded about 1790 by
an English trader of that name. Here again we had a serious case to
deal with. A girl of fourteen had been ill with internal abscess for
between two and three years. She was sent to hospital after a trifling
operation, and remained there a month. When I returned south I found
her well and happy, and she told me she was only sorry she could not
live in hospital.
I was interested in examining at Cartwright a marble tomb, raised,
as the inscription proclaimed, “to commemorate the piety and zeal of
the founder of this colony.” Some humble lichens had, in the course
of time, grown in between the slabs, and with irresistible power had
forced them open, revealing to the prying eye within not the crumbling
dust of the departed trader, but a mighty demijohn of rum, no doubt
made mellow by long years of waiting. Alas! that there are those to-day
whose memory would be most aptly treasured by such an epigram, whom in
life, for their riches’ sake, a blinded world “delights to honour.”
We were now only two hands on the launch, the engineer and myself, for
our steward had returned to Battle Hospital. We were therefore anxious
to push ahead, and on August 10th we were glad to run into Indian
Harbour, and again “bring to” alongside the _Albert_. We found to our
sorrow that bad weather had prevented the landing of our hospital
till a month after we had expected; and, though all available hands
had been at work, it was found impossible to occupy it this season.
We therefore decided, as soon as the shell was finished and all done
that could be without cutting the chimneys, to board up the windows,
store the property in it, and leave it for the winter under care of
the nearest “Livyere.” Meanwhile Dr. Curwen and Nurse Williams would
remain on the _Albert_, and use it as their hospital. This place is
the centre of a very large number of stations, and they had already
found ample scope for work. Just before we left in the _Princess May_,
both doctor and sister were summoned over the island to treat a woman
on whom a fish stage had fallen, while they already had in the ship’s
hospital a young girl dying of consumption. The condition in which some
of our patients were when first admitted was horrible; the condition of
the women from the green-fish catchers especially; for with scarcely
any privacy, and scarcely any opportunities for washing, it was not to
be wondered at that vermin often abounded. The experience of both our
nurses tallied in this respect, and a good wash, clean clothes, and a
few days’ nursing always appeared to work marvels, even in apparently
hopeless cases. When it became evident that this poor girl must die,
she expressed her determination to go home by the first opportunity,
that, if possible, she might reach her family in Newfoundland before
the end came.
It was ten o’clock at night, and a blustering evening in Cape Webeck
Harbour, when we next met the mail steamer going south. With much
difficulty we got our poor patient into the boat, wrapped over and over
in clean blankets; two of us in the stern sheets holding the large
bundle in our arms, while Captain Trezise and his men rowed us down the
harbour. Getting her up the steamer’s side was, however, a still less
easy task, but was at last accomplished, and she was soon ensconced in
a bunk in the saloon. Fortunately we had decided that Nurse Williams
should now return to Battle Harbour to help Nurse Carwardine, for
the hospital there was now overflowing into huts around, and our
in-patients could be kept down to one or two. The nurse therefore was
able to tend to her wants during the journey down. Eventually she
reached St. Johns, where the Rev. Dr. Harvey most kindly met her,
got her to the train and off to her home; so that her last wish was
gratified, and she passed away peacefully among her loved ones.
At Cape Harrison we had a really hot Sunday, the flat cabin reflecting
the sun so fiercely from the water that our very paint began to
blister. Such a chance was not to be lost, and the fisherfolk gathered
from far and near. One company, who journeyed from their schooner in
King’s Arm, must have travelled some ten miles to us, rowing first to
Sloop Harbour, then walking over the high cape, and then rowing again
to Webeck Island; while even as we went to and fro from the meetings,
which, owing to the numbers, we were obliged to hold on the shore, we
heard sounds of hymns and praying from some of the mud huts we passed.
It was a day indeed to be remembered. Our longest single expedition
during this time had been to the Hudson Bay post of Rigoulette, up
Hamilton inlet, some fifty miles from the entrance. Here we had several
patients; and especially one little lad with a diseased bone in the
leg—part of this it was necessary to remove. At the operation we were
ably helped by the wife of the agent (Mr. Wilson), who proved herself
a most able nurse and assistant. The difference of temperature up this
long inlet is very marked, and we found the children of the house
actually picnicing outside the hut in a canvas tent. [Illustration:
The S.S. _Princess May_ in Merchantman Harbour.]