when I was supposed to be lost by those who were
cut off from communication with us. I had also looked in there each
summer to see a few patients. My original idea was to get a winter
place established for our Indian Harbour staff, and I proposed opening
up there each October when Indian Harbour closed, and closing in June
when navigation was reopened, Battle Harbour again accessible, and
when the man-of-war doctors are more on this section of the coast.

The snow was deep on the ground long before our voyage ended. There is
always a romantic charm about cruising in the fall of the year on the
Labrador. The long nights and the heavy gales add to the interest of
the day's work. The shelter of the islands becomes a positive joy; the
sense of safety in the harbours and fjords is as real a pleasure as
the artificial attractions of civilization. The tang of the air, the
young ice that makes every night, the fantastic midnight dances of the
November auroras in the winter sky, all make one forget the petty
worries of the daily round.

As Beattie agreed to stay with me it was with real keenness to sample
a sub-arctic winter that in November we disembarked from the Julia
Sheriden. We made only the simplest preparations, renting a couple of
rooms in the chief trader's house and hiring my former guide as
dog-driver.

CHAPTER XI

FIRST WINTER AT ST. ANTHONY

Not one of the many who have wintered with us in the North has failed
to love our frozen season. To me it was one long delight. The
dog-driving, the intimate relationships with the people on whom one
was so often absolutely dependent, the opportunity to use to the real
help of good people in distress the thousand and one small things
which we had learned--all these made the knowledge that we were shut
off from the outside world rather a pleasure than a cause for regret.

Calls for the doctor were constant. I spent but three Sundays at home
the whole time, and my records showed fifteen hundred miles covered
with dogs.

The Eskimo dog is so strong and enduring that he is the doyen of
traction power in the North, when long distances and staying qualities
are required. But for short, sharp dashes of twenty to thirty miles
the lighter built and more vivacious Straits dog is the speedier and
certainly the less wolfish. We have attempted crossbreeding our
somewhat squat-legged Eskimo dogs with Kentucky wolf hounds, to
combine speed with endurance. The mail-carrier fro