to
encounter a series of misadventures that should call for the exercise
of all our fortitude and manhood.

III. ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS

The island of the White Bear group upon which is situated the
settlement of Indian Harbour is rocky and barren. The settlement
consists of a trader's hut and a few fishermen's huts built of frame
plastered over with earth or moss, and the buildings of the Royal
National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, a non-sectarian institution
that maintains two stations on the Labrador coast and one at St.
Anthony in Newfoundland, each with a hospital attached. The work of the
mission is under the general supervision of Dr. Wilfred T. Grenfell,
who, in summer, patrols the coast from Newfoundland to Cape Chidley in
the little floating hospital, the steamer Strathcona, and during the
winter months, by dog team, visits the people of these inhospitable
shores. The main station in Labrador is at Battle Harbour, and at this
time Dr. Cluny Macpherson was the resident physician.

Dr. Simpson, a young English physician and lay missionary, was in
charge of the station at Indian Harbour. This station, being
maintained primarily for the benefit of the summer fishermen from
Newfoundland, is closed from October until July. Dr. Simpson had a
little steamer, the Julia Sheridan, which carried him on his visits to
his patients among the coast folk. We were told by the captain of the
Virginia Lake that the Julia Sheridan would arrive at Indian Harbour on
the afternoon of the day we reached there; that she would immediately
steam to Rigolet and Northwest River with the mails, and that we
undoubtedly could arrange for a passage on her. This was the reason
that Hubbard elected to get off at Indian Harbour.

The trained nurse, the cook, and the maid-of-all-work connected with
the Indian Harbour hospital ("sisters," they call them, although they
do not belong to any order) boarded the Virginia Lake at Battle Harbour
and went ashore with me in the ship's boat, when I landed with the
baggage. Hubbard and George went ashore in our canoe. A line of
Newfoundlanders and "livyeres" stood ready to greet us upon our
arrival. "Livyeres" is a contraction of live-heres, and is applied to
the people who live permanently on the coast. The coast people who
occasionally trade in a small way are known as "planters." In Hamilton
Inlet, west of Rigolet, all of the trappers and fishermen are called
planters. There