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

1. Early Days
2. School Life
3. Early Work In London
4. At The London Hospital
5. North Sea Work
6. The Lure of the Labrador
7. The People of Labrador
8. Lecturing and Cruising
9. The Seal Fishery
10. Three Years’ Work in the British Isles
11. First Winter at St. Anthony
12. The Co-Operative Movement
13. The Mill and the Fox Farm
14. The Children’s Home
15. Problems of Education
16. “Who Hath Desired the Sea?”
17. The Reindeer Experiment
18. The Ice-Pan Adventure
19. They That Do Business in Great Waters
20. Marriage
21. New Ventures
22. Problems On Land and Sea
23. A Month’s Holiday in Asia Minor
24. The War
25. Forward Steps
26. The Future of the Mission
27. My Religious Life
28. 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]