The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1885-11-11
THE PEOPLE OF LABRADOR.
UNIQUE PHASES OF LIFE IN THE
FAR NORTH.
Rough EEOmes Perched on Bare
ROckS-W winters Eight Months
LOng-A Dreary Existence.

ROckS-Winters Eight Months
LOng-A Dreary Existence.
If environment molds a people, then
the Labradoreans should have strong
traits. The climate, the unique features
of the country, the undisputed supre-
macy of the sea, the isolation from the
world-all their circumstances, indeed
are so strongly marked as to be irresist-
ible. The population of the Canadian
part of the coast-down to the boundary
line at Blanc Sabon-is of French origin,
Canadian and Acadian; the Newfound-
land part of Labrador-the Strait of
Belle Isle and the Atlantic COASTS in
habited by English speaking people.
Moravians and EsquimauX are found in
the far North. The French Canadians
consist of two classes; a part of them
come here every spring to fish for the
merchants, and return every fall TO their
families and small homesteads between
Quebec and Gaspe; Others live here per-
manently, own little isolated establish
ments, and fish on their own account.
The Acadians have collected in two
principal settlements, EsquimauX Point
and Natashquan, where they have their
schools, priests, churches, and some
other features of village life.
was fortunate in being storm stayed
at few of these French Canadian
homes, where found now and then
person able to give me some account of
the summer and winter life of the peo-
pie. To begin with external and ma
terial things, the average home of Labra.
dor generally consists of rough board
dwelling, with two rooms and garret,
a small dock and storehouse for receiv-
ing, cleaning, curing and storing fish,
and two or three open fishing boats. All
these buildings perch like anxious water
fowls on the bare rocks; they never i'm
press me as homes, for they make for
themselves no niche or place in the sur
face of the earth; you expect them to be
washed or blown away at the next gale
AS they sometimes are. For the sake
of being near the fishing grounds these
shelters are generally established on
some outlying island offering a mooring
or else a beach for the boats: they seem
to be banished from the earth as far as
possible seaward. They stand up gaunu,
stark naked IN the gales, in the midst of
a desert of sea and rocks.
In the best places there may be in hol-
low little sand, enriched with dscaying
fish, where few turnips and cabbages
manage to show themselves during a brief
season. You get CLEAN of hope and
horror on beholding a gaunt scaffold
about eighteen feet high; but it is not
gallows for the ending of life, only a
platform for keeping the frozen fish for
dog meat. The interior of these homes
is not quite so distressing as their hard
surroundings, for the human hand in
doors can make its mark, which is not
always clean one. The furniture, diet.
costumes, are rough and common place :;
but the people are courteous and kind,
and they observe we'll their religious
rites. Their isolation is such that they
keep the run of time by marking the
days of the week on the door post. An
exception to this dreariness is to be met
here and there, at light house, or at the
home of a merchant l asked an intelli-
gent fisherman how he could content
himself in such place.
"Well, sir, expect we're fools to stay
here. The worst of il is, our children
arc growing up as ignorant as we are
just like the dogs. Hardly any OF us can
read or write. Our houses are too far
apart to get the children together for
school, excepting at Esquimaux Point,
Natashquan and Mutton bay. Then, too,
we can't see the'priest more than once or
twice year, and that's very inconvenint
about dying, for pleurisy and consump-
ton are very headstrong. And there is
no doctor at all, nor any roots or herbs
for medicines. We keep alive on pain
killer and salts that the traders SELL It's
a hard life. and we don't live to be very
old. We have to do all our own work
jack f,all-trades, you know. When
we came here to live, my vile and cut
all the timber in the winter for building
these houses, sawed it by hand in pit,
and in the spring RATED it down the
river"
The social season of Labrador is the
winter. There is no fishing then to keep
people at home; cutting wood and little
hunting are the only occupations. Winter
lasts about eight months; when the
channels among the islands and the bays
are frozen over, dog teams can run up
and down the coast for three hundred
miles-from Mingan to Bonne Esperance.
People then go visiting: they carry no
provisions, for everybody keeps open
house, and the little cabins are often
packed with people and dogs. The
winter homes, as a rule, are back some
miles from the coast, where wood is
handy. Several families who fish at
Whale Head live on a swamp in winter,
where the tread of man along the
street shakes every house. The Abbe
Ferland says that in his time-about fifty
years ago-the hospitality of the coast
was such the people on going away from
home used to leave food, and sometimes
even money, on the table, and the doors
unlocked, that needy travellers might
enter and help themselves. But the ad-
vent of more travellers in these days has
led to more caution and less generosity.
These fishermen are not behind other
seafaring men in either the number of
their superstitions or the faith they re-
IN, tbar,, ntrf / ohpaAnr IN,