The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador: A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell

by Dillon Wallace

Fine, active games of competition like baseball, football, basketball and boxing, give nerve, self-confidence and poise. Through them the hand learns instinctively, and without a moment's hesitation, to do the thing the brain tells it to do.

Down on The Labrador they say that Grenfell has always been "lucky" in getting out of tight places and bad corners. But we all know, 'way down in our hearts, that there is no such thing as "luck." "God helps them that help themselves." That's the secret of Grenfell's getting out of such tight corners as this one that he had now run into in the fog. He was trained in the school of courage. He helped himself, and he knew how. He was unafraid.

So it was now as always afterward. Grim danger was threatening the Princess May on every side. Each moment Grenfell and his companions expected to feel the shock of collision and hear the fatal crunching and splintering of the vessel's timbers upon the rocks. All of Grenfell's experiences on the Sands of Dee and in the hills of Wales and out on the estuary came to his rescue. He did not lose his head for a moment. That would have been fatal. He had acquired courage and resourcefulness in that out-of-door school he had attended when a boy. The situation called for all the grit and good judgment he and his crew possessed.

Under just enough steam to give the vessel steerageway, they wound in and out between protruding rocks and miniature islands amidst the white foam of breakers that pounded upon the rocks all around them. At length they were headed about. Then cautiously they threaded their way into the open sea and safety.

This was to be but an incident in the years of labor that lay before Grenfell on The Labrador. He was to have no end of exciting experiences, some of them so thrilling that this one was, in comparison, to fade into insignificance. Labrador is a land of adventures. The man who casts his lot in that bleak country cannot escape them. Adventure lurks in every cove and harbor, on every turn of the trail, ready to spring out upon you and try your mettle, and learn the sort of stuff you are made of.

Later in the evening they again felt their way landward through the fog. To their delight they presently found themselves in a harbor, and that night they rested in a safe and snug anchorage sheltered from wind and pounding sea.

There was adventure enough on that voyage to satisfy anybody. The sun did not set that the voyagers had not experienced at least one good thrill during the daylight hours. On the seventh day from St. Johns the Princess May crossed the Straits of Belle Isle, and drew alongside the Albert at Battle Harbor.

The new hospital was nearly ready to receive patients, the first of the hospitals to be built as a result of the visit to the Albert the previous summer of the ragged man in the rickety boat. The other hospital was in course of building at Indian Harbor, and Doctor Grenfell dispatched the Albert, with Doctor Curwin and Miss Williams to assist in preparing it for patients, while Doctor Bobart and Miss Cawardine remained in charge of the Battle Harbor hospital.

Away Doctor Grenfell steamed again in the Princess May nothing daunted by his many difficulties with the little craft in his voyage from St. John's. It was necessary that he know the headlands and the harbors, the dangerous places and the safe ones along the whole coast. The only way to do this was by visiting them, and the quickest and best way to learn them was by finding them out for himself while navigating his own craft. Now, light houses stand on two or three of the most dangerous points of the coast, but in those days there were none, and there were no correct charts. The mariner had to carry everything in his head, and indeed he must still do so. He must know the eight hundred miles of coast as we know the nooks and corners of our dooryards.

Doctor Grenfell wished also to make the acquaintance of the people. He wished to visit them in their homes that he might learn their needs and troubles and so know better how to help them. He was not alone to be their doctor. He was to clothe and feed the poor so far as he could and to put them in a way to help themselves.