Labrador shore, that I have had to crawl
on my knees to get at a patient, after climbing down through the main
hatch. These craft are quite unfitted for a rough night at sea,
especially as there always are icebergs or big pans about, which if
touched would each spell another "vessel missing." So the craft all
creep North and South in the spring and fall along the land, darting
into harbours before dark, and leaving before dawn if the night
proves "civil." Yet many a time I have seen these little vessels with
their precious cargoes becalmed, or with wind ahead, just unable to
make anchorage, and often on moonless nights when the barometer has
been low and the sky threatening. As there were no lights on the land,
it would have been madness to try and make harbours after sundown.

I have known the cruel, long anxiety of heart which the dilemma
involved. It has been our great pleasure sometimes to run out and tow
vessels in out of their distress. I can still feel the grip of one
fine skipper, who came aboard when the sea eased down. The only
harbour available for us had been very small, and the water too deep
for his poor gear. So when he started to drift, we had given him a
line and let him hold on to us through the night, with his own stern
only a few yards from the cliffs under his lee, and all his loved
ones, as well as his freighters, a good deal nearer heaven than he
wished them to be.

We had frequently written to the Government of this neglect of lights
for the coast. But Labrador has no representative in the Newfoundland
Parliament, and legislators who never visited Labrador had
unimaginative minds. Year after year went by and nothing was done. So
I spoke to many friends of the dire need for a light near Battle
Harbour Hospital. Practically every one of the Northern craft ran
right by us many times as they fished first in the Gulf and later on
the east coast, and so had to go past that corner of land. I have seen
a hundred vessels come and anchor near by in a single evening. When
the money was donated, our architect designed the building, and a
friend promised to endow the effort, so that the salary of the
light-keeper might be permanent. The material was cut and sent North,
when we were politely told that the Government could not permit
private ownership of lights--a very proper decision, too. They told us
that the year before money had been voted by the House for lights, and
the first would be erected near Bat