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Petit Nord, Le

<h1>LE PETIT NORD</h1> <h4>OR</h4> <h3>ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR</h3> <h4>BY</h4> <h3>ANNE GRENFELL AND KATIE SPALDING</h3> <hr /> <h3>FOREWORD</h3> A friend from the Hub of the Universe, in a somewhat supercilious manner, not long ago informed one of our local friends that his own home was hundreds of miles to the southward. "'Deed, sir, how does you manage to live so far off?" with a scarcely perceptible twinkle of one eye, was the answer. If home is the spot on earth where one spends the larger part of one's prime, and where one's family comes into being, then for over a quarter of a century "Le Petit Nord" of this book has been my home. With the authors I share for it and its people the love which alone keeps us here. Necessity has compelled me to perform, however imperfectly, functions usually distributed amongst many and varied professions, and the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As, therefore, I read the amusing experiences herein narrated, I feel that the "other half," who know us not, will love us better even if we are not exactly as they. That is not our fault. They should not live "so far off." The incidents told are all actual, but the name of every single person and place has been changed to afford any hypersensitive among the actors the protection which pseudonymity confers. We here who have been permitted a glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe the authors another debt beyond the love for the people to which they have testified by the more substantial offering of long and voluntary personal service. Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. Labrador, 1919 <h2>LE PETIT NORD</h2> <h3>OR ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR</h3> Off the Narrows, St. John's June 10 Dear Joan <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> The Far North calls and I am on my way:— There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail. There gloom the dark broad seas.       *       *       *       *       * The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks. </div> </div> Why write as if I had taken a lifelong vow of separation from the British Isles and all things civilized, when after all it is only one short year out of my allotted span of life that I have promised to Mission work? Your steamer letter, with its Machiavellian arguments for returning immediately and directly from St. John's, was duly received. Of my unfitness for the work there is no possible doubt, no shadow of doubt whatever, and therein you and I are at one. But you will do me the justice to admit that I put very forcibly before those in charge of the Mission the delusion under which they were labouring; the responsibility now lies with them, and I "go to prove my soul." What awaits me I know not, but except when the mighty billows rocked me, not soothingly with gentle motion, but harshly and immoderately. I have never wavered in my decision; and even at such times it was to the bottom of Father Neptune that I aspired to travel rather than to the shores of "Merrie England." The voyage so far has been uneventful, and we are now swaying luxuriously at anchor in a dense fog. This I believe is the usual welcome accorded to travellers to the island of Newfoundland. There is no chart for icebergs, and "growlers" are formidable opponents to encounter at any time. Therefore it behoves us to possess our souls in patience, and only to indulge at intervals in the right to grumble which is by virtue of tradition ours. We have already been here a day and a half, and we know not how much longer it will be before the curtain rises and the first act of the drama can begin. These boats are far from large and none too comfortable. We have taken ten days to come from Liverpool. Think of that, you who disdain to cross the water in anything but an ocean greyhound! What hardships we poor missionaries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that my fellow passengers arch their eyebrows and look politely amused when I tell them to what place I am bound. I ventured to ask my room-mate if she had ever been on Le Petit Nord. I wish you could have seen her face. I might as well have asked if she had ever been exiled to Siberia! I therefore judge it prudent not to thirst too lustily for information, lest I be supplied with more than I desire or can assimilate at this stage. I shall write you again when I board the coastal steamer, which I am credibly informed makes the journey to St. Antoine once every fortnight during the summer months. Till then, au revoir. Run-by-Guess, June 15 I landed on the wharf at St. John's to be met with the cheering information that the steamer had left for the north two days before. This necessitated a delay of twelve days at least. Will all the babies at the Orphanage be dead before I arrive on the scene of action? Shall I take the next boat back and be in England before the coastal steamer comes south to claim me? Conflicting emotions disturb my troubled soul, but "on and always on!" The island boasts a railroad of which the rural inhabitants are inordinately proud. Just prior to my arrival a daily service had been inaugurated. Formerly the passenger trains ran only three times a week. There are no Sunday trains. As I had so much time to spare, I decided that I could not do better than spend some of it in going across the island and thus see the Southern part of the country, catching my boat at Come-by-Chance Junction on the return journey. Truth compels me to add that I find myself a sadder and wiser woman. I left St. John's one evening at six o'clock, being due to arrive at our destination at eight o'clock the following night. There is no unpleasant "hustle" on this railway, and you may wait leisurely and humbly for a solid hour while your very simple meal is prepared. If you do not happen to be hungry, this is only a delightful interlude in the incessant rush of modern life, but if perchance Nature has endowed you with a moderate appetite, that one hour seems incurably long. All went well the first night, or at least my fellow passengers showed no signs of there being anything unusual, so like Brer Rabbit, I lay low and said nothing. At noon the following day a slightly bigger and more prolonged jolt caused the curious among us to look from the window. The engine, tender, and luggage van were derailed. As the speed of the trains never exceeds twenty-five miles an hour, such little contretemps which occur from time to time do not ruffle the serenity of those concerned. Resigning myself to a delay of a few hours, I determined to alight and explore the country. But alas! I had no mosquito veiling, and to stand for a moment outside without this protection was to risk disfigurement for life. So I humbly yielded to adverse circumstances and returned to try and read, the previous bumping having made this out of the question. But the interior was by this time a veritable Gehenna, and no ventilation could be obtained, as the Company had not thought it necessary to provide their windows with screens. For twenty-five hours we remained in durance vile, until at last the relief train lumbered to our rescue and conveyed us to Run-by-Guess, our destination. Northward Bound. On board June 25 If you could have been present during the return journey from Run-by-Guess your worst prophecies would have seemed to you justified. The railroad is of the genus known as narrow-gauge; the roadbed was not constructed on the principles laid down by the Romans. In a country where the bones of Mother Earth protrude so insistently, it is beating the devil round the stump to mend the bed with fir branches tucked even ever so solicitously under the ties. That, nevertheless, was an attempt at "safety first" which I saw. Towards morning a furious rain and wind storm broke over us. Before many minutes I noticed that my berth was becoming both cold and damp. Looking up I made out in the dim dawn a small but persistent stream pouring down upon me. I had had the upper berth pushed up so as to get the air! Again the train came to an unscheduled stop. By this time assorted heads were emerging from behind the curtains, and from each came forcible protests against the weather. There was nothing to be done but to sit with my feet tucked up and my arms around my knees, occupying thus the smallest possible space for one of my proportions, and wait developments. Ten minutes later, after much shouting outside my window, a ladder was planted against the car, and two trainmen in yellow oilskins climbed to the roof. I noted with satisfaction that they carried hammers, tacks, and strips of tin. A series of resounding blows and the almost immediate cessation of the descending floods told how effective their methods had proved. Directly afterwards the startled squeak of the engine whistle, as if some one had trodden on its toe, warned us that we were off once more. We landed (you will note that the nautical phraseology of the country has already gripped me) in the same storm at Come-by-Chance Junction. But the next morning broke bright and shining, as if rain and wind were inhabitants of another planet. It is quite obvious that this land is a lineal descendant of Albion's Isle. Now I am aboard the coastal steamer and we are nosing our way gingerly through the packed floe ice, as we steam slowly north for Cape St. John. Yes, I know it is Midsummer's Day, but as the captain tersely put it, "the slob is a bit late." The storm of two days ago blowing in from the broad Atlantic drove the great field of leftover pans before it, and packed them tight against the cliffs. If we had not had that sudden change in the weather's mind yesterday, we should not be even as far along as we now find ourselves. You can form no idea of one's sensations as the steamer pushes her way through an ice jam. For miles around, as far as the eye can reach, the sea is covered with huge, glistening blocks. Sometimes the deep-blue water shows between, and sometimes they are so tightly massed together that they look like a hummocky white field. How any one can get a steamer along through it is a never-ending source of amazement, and my admiration for the captain is unstinted. I stand on the bridge by the hour, and watch him and listen to the reports of the man on the cross-trees as to the prospects of "leads" of open water ahead. Every few minutes we back astern, and then butt the ice. If one stays below decks the noise of the grinding on the ship's side is so persistent and so menacing that I prefer the deck in spite of its barrels and crates and boxes and smells. Here at least one would not feel like a rat in a hole if a long, gleaming, icy, giant finger should rip the ship's side open down the length of her. As we grate and scrape painfully along I look back and see that the ice-pan channel we leave behind is lined with scarlet. It is the paint off our hull. The spectacle is all too suggestive for one who has always regarded the most attractive aspect of the sea to be viewed from the landwash. Of course the scenery is beautiful—almost too trite to write—but the beauty is lonesome and terrifying, and my city-bred soul longs for some good, homely, human "blot on the landscape." There are no trees on the cliffs now. I understand, however, that Nature is not responsible for this oversight. The people are sorely in need of firewood, and not being far-seeing enough to realize what a menace it is to the country to denude it so unscientifically, they have razed every treelet. Nature has done her best to rectify their mistake, and the rocky hills are covered with jolly bright mosses and lichens. Naturally, there are compensations for even this kind of voyage, for no swell can make itself felt through the heavy ice pack. We steam along for miles on a keel so even that only the throb of our engines, and the inevitable "ship-py" odour, remind one that the North Atlantic rolls beneath the staunch little steamer. The "staunch little steamer's" whistle has just made a noise out of all proportion to its size. It reminded me of an English sparrow's blatant personality. We have turned into a "tickle," and around the bend ahead of us are a handful of tiny whitewashed cottages clinging to the sides of the rocky shore. I cannot get used to the quaint language of the people, and from the helpless way in which they stare at me, my tongue must be equally unintelligible. A delightful camaraderie exists; every one knows every one else, or they all act as if they did. As we come to anchor in the little ports, the men from the shore lash their punts fast to the bottom of the ship's ladder, and clamber with gazelle-like agility over our side. If you happen to be leaning curiously over the rail near by, they jerk their heads and remark, "Good morning," or, "Good evening," according as it is before or after midday. This is an afternoon-less country. The day is divided into morning, evening, and night. Their caps seem to have been born on their heads and to continue to grow there like their hair, or like the clothing of the children of Israel, which fitted them just as well when they came out of the wilderness as when they went in. But no incivility is meant. You may dissect the meaning and grammar of that paragraph alone. You have had long practice in such puzzles. Seventy-five miles later We are out of the ice field and steaming past Cape St. John. This was the dividing line between the English and French in the settlement of their troubles in 1635. North of it is called the French or Treaty Shore, or as the French themselves so much more quaintly named it, "Le Petit Nord." It is at the north end of Le Petit Nord that St. Antoine is located. The very character of the country and vegetation has changed. It is as if the great, forbidding fortress of St. John's Cape cut off the milder influences of southern Newfoundland, and left the northern peninsula a prey to ice and winds and fog. The people, too, have felt the influence of this discrimination of Nature. There is a line of demarcation between those who have been able to enjoy the benefits of the southern island, and those who have had to cope with the recurrent problems of the northland. I cannot help thinking of the change this shore must have been from their beloved and smiling Brittany to those first eager Frenchmen. The names on the map reveal their pathetic attempts to stifle their nostalgie by christening the coves and harbours with the familiar titles of their homeland. I fear in my former letter I made some rather disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, but I want to take them all back. Life is a series of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on which I crossed seems a veritable floating palace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing only I am certain—I shall never, never have the courage to face the return journey. The time for the steamer to make the journey from Come-by-Chance to St. Antoine is from four to five days, but when there is much ice these days have been known to stretch to a month. The distance in mileage is under three hundred, but because of the many harbours into which the boat has to put to land supplies, it is really a much greater distance. There are thirty-three ports of call between St. John's and St. Antoine, most of which are tiny fishing settlements consisting of a few wooden houses at the water's edge. This coast possesses scores of the most wonderful natural harbours, which are not only extremely picturesque, but which alone make the dangerous shore possible for navigation. As the steamer puts in at Bear Cove, Poverty Cove, Deadman's Cove, and Seldom-Come-By (this last from the fact that, although boats pass, they seldom anchor there), out shoot the little rowboats to fetch their freight. It is certainly a wonderfully fascinating coast, beautifully green and wooded in the south, and becoming bleaker and barer the farther north one travels. But the bare ruggedness and naked strength of the north have perhaps the deeper appeal. To those who have to sail its waters and wrest a living from the harvest of the sea, this must be a cruel shore, with its dangers from rocks and icebergs and fog, and insufficient lighting and charting. Apart from the glory of the scenery the journey leaves much to be desired, and the weather, being exceedingly stormy since we left the ice field behind, has added greatly to our trials. The accommodations on the boat are strictly limited, and it is crowded with fishermen going north to the Labrador, and with patients for the Mission Hospital. As they come on in shoals at each harbour the refrain persistently runs through my head, "Will there be beds for all who come?" But the answer, alas, does not fit the poem. Far from there being enough and to spare, I know of two at least of my fellow passengers who took their rest in the hand basins when not otherwise wanted. Tables as beds were a luxury which only the fortunate could secure. Almost the entire space on deck is filled with cargo of every description, from building lumber to live-stock. While the passengers number nearly three hundred, there are seating accommodations on four tiny wooden benches without backs, for a dozen, if packed like sardines. Barrels of flour, kerosene, or molasses provide the rest. Although somewhat hard for a succession of days, these latter are saved from the deadly ill of monotony by the fact that as they are discharged and fresh taken on, such vantage-points have to be secured anew from day to day; and one learns to regard with equanimity if not with thankfulness what the gods please to send. There are many sad, seasick souls strewn around. If cleanliness be next to godliness, then there is little hope of this steamer making the Kingdom of Heaven. One habit of the men is disgusting; they expectorate freely over everything but the ocean. The cold outside is so intense as to be scarcely endurable, while the closeness of the atmosphere within is less so. These are a few of the minor discomforts of travel to a mission station; the rest can be better imagined than described. If, to the Moslem, to be slain in battle signifies an immediate entrance into the pleasures of Paradise, what should be the reward of those who suffer the vagaries of this northern ocean, and endure to the end? <div class="fig">> <ANTIMG border="0" src="images/imagep020.png" width-obs="85%" alt="Sad Seasick Souls strewn around" /> Sad Seasick Souls strewn around </div> My trunk is lost. In the excitement of carpentering incidental to the cloudburst, the crew of the train omitted to drop it off at Come-by-Chance. I am informed that it has returned across the country to St. John's. If I had not already been travelling for a fortnight, or if Heaven had endowed me with fewer inches so that my clothing were not so exclusively my own, the problem of the interim till the next boat would be simpler. I have had my first, and I may add my last, experience of "brewis," an indeterminate concoction much in favour as an article of diet on this coast. The dish consists of hard bread (ship's biscuit) and codfish boiled together in a copious basis of what I took to be sea-water. "On the surface of the waters" float partially disintegrated chunks of fat salt pork. I am not finicking. I could face any one of these articles of diet alone; but in combination, boiled, and served up lukewarm in a soup plate for breakfast, in the hot cabin of a violently rolling little steamer, they take more than my slender stock of philosophy to cope with. Yet they save the delicacy for the Holy Sabbath. The only justification of this policy that I can see is that, being a day of rest, their stomachs can turn undivided and dogged attention to the process of digestion. Did I say "day of rest"? The phrase is utterly inadequate. These people are the strictest of Sabbatarians. The Puritan fathers, whom we now look back upon with a shivery thankfulness that our lot did not fall among them, would, and perhaps do, regard them as kindred spirits. But they are earnest Christians, with a truly uncomplaining selflessness of life. By some twist of my brain that reminds me of a story told me the other day which brings an old legend very prettily to this country. It is said that when Joseph of Arimathea was hounded from place to place by the Jews, he fled to England taking the Grail with him. The spot where he settled he called Avalon. When Lord Baltimore, a devout Catholic, was given a huge tract of land in the south of this little island, he christened it Avalon in commemoration of Joseph of Arimathea's also distant journey. To the disgrace of the Protestants, the Catholic exiles arrived in the "land of promise" only to discover that the spirit of persecution was rampant in this then far-off colony. Evidently the people of the country think that every man bound for the Mission is a doctor, and every woman a nurse. If my Puritan conscience had not blocked the way, I could have made a considerable sum prescribing for the ailments of my fellow passengers. One little thin woman on board has just confided to me, "Why, miss, I found myself in my stomach three times last week"—and looked up for advice. As for me, I was "taken all aback," and hastened to assure her that nothing approaching so astonishing an event had ever come within the range of my experience. I hated to suggest it to her, but I have a lurking suspicion that the catastrophe had some not too distant connection with the "brewis." By the way, all right-minded Newfoundlanders and Labradormen call it "bruse." Also by the way, it is incorrect to speak of Newfoundland. It is Newfoundland. Neither do you go up north if you know what you are about. You go "down North"; and your friend is not bound for Labrador. She is going to "the Labrador," or, to be more of a purist still, "the Larbadore." Having put you right on these rudiments—oh! I forgot another: "Fish" is always codfish. Other finny sea-dwellers may have to be designated by their special names, but the unpretentious cod is "t' fish"; and the salutation of friends is not, "How is your wife?" or, "How is your health?" But, "How's t' fish, B'y?" I like it. It is friendly and different—a kind of password to the country. I am glad that I am not coming here as a mere traveller. The land looks so reserved that, like people of the same type, you are sure it is well worth knowing. So when, perhaps, I have been able to discover a little of its "subliminal self," the tables will be turned, and you will be eager to make its acquaintance. Then it will be my chance to offer you sage and unaccepted advice as to your inability to cope with the climate and its entourage. I too shall be able to prophesy unheeded a shattered constitution and undermined nerves. To be sure, old Jacques Cartier had such a poor opinion of the coast that he remarked it ought to have been the land God gave to Cain. But J.C. has gone to his long rest. After the length of this letter I judge that you envy him that repose, so I release you with my love. August 19 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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