Forty Years for Labrador by Wilfred T. Grenfell

Forty Years For Labrador is an expanded and updated version of Wilfred Grenfell’s earlier autobiography A Labrador Doctor.

There can be few missionaries who have received both a knighthood and are remembered in the liturgy on the Episcopal Church of America by a feast day (Oct. 9th) in recognition of their work. For this reason, I have decided to digitise and upload Redcliffe College’s extensive collection of books by and about this notable missionary to Labrador during October.

My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy of this book to scan. This title is now in the Public Domain.

Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell [1865-1940], Forty Years For Labrador. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1934. Hbk. pp.365. [Download the complete book in PDF]

More books by and about Sir WildredGrenfell can be found here.

Contents

1. On the Sands of Dee
2. At Marlborough College
3. Whitechapel and Wales
4. ‘The London’
5. Off the Dogger Bank
6. North of the Roaring Forties
7. Labrador: The Country and the People
8. The Quest of the Loaves and Fishes
9. White Thunder
10. St. Anthony
11. Bunkers
12. Residuary Legatee
13. Open Sesame
14. Who Hath Desired the Sea?
15. Now It Can Be Told
16. Adrift on a Pan of Ice
17. In Double Harness
18. The Sight of Salt Water Unbounded
19. Light and Shade
20. They That No Business in Great Waters
21. New Ventures
22. ‘The Good Earth’
23. Aesculapius
24. Work as Medicine
25. Labrador Takes a Glimpse at the Orient
26. Honours
27. Service on the Labrador
28. Salaam

Index

Chapter 1: On the Sands of Dee

I must admit to forty years at the helm: 1932-1892 =40. Mathematics is the one and only science which can prove anything. To-day I like to hear that some philosophers are courageous enough to question even that. But even accepting the hypothesis, what of it? Why not regard to-day as the commencement of my second forty years?

Fifteen years have elapsed since A Labrador Doctor was written. As I looked through the index, I was amazed to notice how many friends mentioned in it are among the so-called ‘dead.’ A photograph suggested to me to-day how like the colour of my own hair has become to that of its winter environment; and for the last four years there have been increasing signs of wear in the faithful old pump. Truly, it is time which stays. It is we who fly. [Continue reading]