I had once spent a fortnight at St. Anthony, having taken refuge there in the Princess May 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[ToC]
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.