Wilfred Grenfell’s A Labrador Doctor
This is probably the book Sir Wilfred Grenfell is best remembered for, telling of his life as a missionary on the Labrador coast. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy to scan. This book is the Public Domain.
Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell [1865-1940], A Labrador Doctor, 11th ed., 1938. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1920. Hbk. pp.351. [Download complete volume in PDF]
Contents
- Early Days
- School Life
- Early Work In London
- At The London Hospital
- North Sea Work
- The Lure of the Labrador
- The People of Labrador
- Lecturing and Cruising
- The Seal Fishery
- Three Years’ Work in the British Isles
- First Winter at St. Anthony
- The Co-Operative Movement
- The Mill and the Fox Farm
- The Children’s Home
- Problems of Education
- “Who Hath Desired the Sea?”
- The Reindeer Experiment
- The Ice-Pan Adventure
- They That Do Business in Great Waters
- Marriage
- New Ventures
- Problems On Land and Sea
- A Month’s Holiday in Asia Minor
- The War
- Forward Steps
- The Future of the Mission
- My Religious Life
- Ten Years After
Index
Preface
I have long been resisting the strong pressure from friends that would force me to risk having to live alongside my own autobiography. It seems still an open question whether it is advisable, or even whether it is right-seeing that it calls for confessions. In the eyes of God the only alternative is a book of lies. Moreover, sitting down to write one’s own life story has always loomed up before my imagination as an admission that one was passing the post which marks the last lap; and though it was a justly celebrated physician who told us that we might profitably crawl upon the shelf at half a century, that added no attraction for me to the effort, when I passed that goal.
Thirty-two years spent in work for deep-sea fishermen, twenty-seven of which years have been passed in Labrador and northern Newfoundland, have necessarily given me some experiences which may be helpful to others. I feel that this alone justifies the writing of this story.
To the many helpers who have co-operated with me at one time or another throughout these years, I owe a debt of gratitude which will never be forgotten, though it has been impossible to mention each one by name. Without them this work could never have been. [Continue reading]