Part 1 (1/2)

Le Pet.i.t Nord.

by Anne Elizabeth Caldwell.

FOREWORD

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 Pet.i.t 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_

LE PEt.i.t NORD

OR

ANNALS OF A LABRADOR HARBOUR

_Off the Narrows, St. John's_

_June 10_

DEAR JOAN

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.

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 sh.o.r.es 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 hards.h.i.+ps we poor missionaries endure! Incidentally I want to tell you that my fellow pa.s.sengers 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 Pet.i.t 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 l.u.s.tily for information, lest I be supplied with more than I desire or can a.s.similate 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.