The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador

Story of Grenfell of the Labrador,
by Dillon Wallace

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Title: The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador A Boy's Life of Wilfred T.
Grenfell
Author: Dillon Wallace
Release Date: October 7, 2005 [EBook #16809]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's

Note: Throughout the whole book, St. | | John's (Newfoundland) is
spelled St. Johns. A list | | of typos fixed in this text are listed at the end.
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THE STORY OF GRENFELL OF THE LABRADOR
[Illustration: THE PHYSICIAN IN THE LABRADOR]

The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador
A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell
By DILLON WALLACE, Author of "Grit-a-Plenty," "The Ragged
Inlet Guards," "Ungava Bob," etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK CHICAGO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON
AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1922, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. London:
21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street

Foreword
In a land where there was no doctor and no school, and through an evil
system of barter and trade the people were practically bound to serfdom,
Doctor Wilfred T. Grenfell has established hospitals and nursing
stations, schools and co-operative stores, and raised the people to a
degree of self dependence and a much happier condition of life. All this

has been done through his personal activity, and is today being
supported through his personal administration.
The author has lived among the people of Labrador and shared some of
their hardships. He has witnessed with his own eyes some of the
marvelous achievements of Doctor Grenfell. In the following pages he
has made a poor attempt to offer his testimony. The book lays no claim
to either originality or literary merit. It barely touches upon the field.
The half has not been told.
He also wishes to acknowledge reference in compiling the book to old
files and scrapbooks of published articles concerning Doctor Grenfell
and his work, to Doctor Grenfell's book Vikings of Today, and to
having verified dates and incidents through Doctor Grenfell's
Autobiography, published by Houghton Mifflin & Company, of
Boston.
D.W.
Beacon, N.Y.

Contents
I. THE SANDS OF DEE 11
II. THE NORTH SEA FLEETS 26
III. ON THE HIGH SEAS 31
IV. DOWN ON THE LABRADOR 39
V. THE RAGGED MAN IN THE RICKETY BOAT 52
VI. OVERBOARD! 61
VII. IN THE BREAKERS 68

VIII. AN ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE 74
IX. IN THE DEEP WILDERNESS 83
X. THE SEAL HUNTER 99
XI. UNCLE WILLY WOLFREY 109
XII. A DOZEN FOX TRAPS 116
XIII. SKIPPER TOM'S COD TRAP 126
XIV. THE SAVING OF RED BAY 135
XV. A LAD OF THE NORTH 146
XVI. MAKING A HOME FOR THE ORPHANS 158
XVII. THE DOGS OF THE ICE TRAIL 171
XVIII. FACING AN ARCTIC BLIZZARD 183
XIX. HOW AMBROSE WAS MADE TO WALK 193
XX. LOST ON THE ICE FLOE 203
XXI. WRECKED AND ADRIFT 213
XXII. SAVING A LIFE 219
XXIII. REINDEER AND OTHER THINGS 225
XXIV. THE SAME GRENFELL 233

ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE

The Physician in the LABRADOR Title
The LABRADOR "LIVEYERE" 40
"Sails North to Remain Until the End of Summer, Catching Cod" 46
The Doctor on a Winter's Journey 84
"The Trap is Submerged a Hundred Yards or so from Shore" 130
"NEXT" 172
"Please Look at My Tongue, Doctor" 172
The Hospital Ship, STRATHCONA 220
"I Have a Crew Strong Enough to Take You into My District" 234

I
THE SANDS OF DEE
The first great adventure in the life of our hero occurred on the
twenty-eighth day of February in the year 1865. He was born that day.
The greatest adventure as well as the greatest event that ever comes
into anybody's life is the adventure of being born.
If there is such a thing as luck, Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, as his
parents named him, fell into luck, when he was born on February
twenty-eighth, 1865. He might have been born on February
twenty-ninth one year earlier, and that would have been little short of a
catastrophe, for in that case his birthdays would have been separated by
intervals of four years, and every boy knows what a hardship it would
be to wait four years for a birthday, when every one else