Romance of the Labrador by Sir Wilfred Grenfell

Sir Wilfred Grenfell’s history of the land and peoples of Labrador in Canada. My thanks to Redcliffe College for providing me with a copy to scan. This book is now in the Public Domain.

Sir Wilfred T. Grenfell [1865-1940], The Romance of Labrador. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1934. Hbk. pp.306. [Click to download complete book in PDF]

Contents

Prologue

1. The Pageant of the Rocks (The Stage Is Set)
2. The Pageant of the Indians (The Curtain Rises)
3. The Pageant of the Eskimo (The “Innuit” Arrive)
4. The Pageant of the Vikings (“Winged Hats And Dragon Ships”)
5. The Pageant of the Big Four (The Kaleidoscope Shifts) Columbus, Cabot, Cortereal, and Cartier)
6. The Pageant of the French (“Le Coq Se Trouve Dans Le Nouveau Monde”)
7. The Pageant of the English Occupation (The Lion’s Share)
8. The Pageant of the Unitas Fratrum (Peaceful Penetration)
9. The Undersea Pageant. (“Oh, Ye Whales and All That Move in the Waters”
10. The Pageant of the Three Kings (Of Sub-Arctic Waters)
11. The Pageant of the Soil (Phanerogams and Cryptogams)
12. The Pageant of the Animals (“The ‘Little Brothers’ of the ‘Labourer’s Land’ “)
13. The Pageant of the Air (Winged Victory)
14. The Pageant of Forty Years and After

Prologue

This book is an attempt to record the scientific and historic facts about Labrador, as far as they are known. It is the “audi alteram partem” of a medical man, who has spent much of the past forty years on those coasts, and who admires greatly Mussolini’s dictum,” We must not be proud of our country for its history, but for what we are making of it to-day.”

When the word ” Labrador ” is mentioned, men shrug their shoulders and shiver as automatically as, when the definition of a spiral staircase is asked, they twist their right forefinger up into ascending whirls. [Continue reading]