St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1889-09-05

SlOnS the people are called together
for services and for most other pur-
poses by flag displayed from the
highest eminence near. l visited an
afternoon service at one of the Mora
Wan missions. Perhaps $50 people
were present, and the collection of
sealskins was something remarkable
to behold. Their possessors were all
very demure and attentive on these
occasions. The music, for indeed the
entire service seemed to be one inter
minable chant, was strikingly pecu-
liar Several women formed a choir,
and bravely sang with all their lungs
and power. A half-dozen men were
playing the violin; two were at work
upon French horns; and two others
crowded quavering threnodies out of
wheezy accordeons. The members of
this strange choir seemed to realize
what devolved upon them, and
bounded over the passages so vigor-
ously that all were in a violent state
of enthusiasm and perspiration. All
the congregation sang. There was
not musical, voice to be heard. A
cultural gasp, in which the Eskimo
took" and chuck" were uppermost,
was all that could be recognized. At
Hopedale there is ground enough to
permit of a little cemetery but near
" all Labrador interments are made
between clefts of rocks, as a prOtec-
ton against wolves. 1t is not very
comfortable country where soil
enough cannot be had to cover ones
bones, or where such gruesome pro-
vision is necessary.
If there be anything like social or
home life in Labrador, it exists eXclu-
sively in the long, frozen night of the
winter. Then the entire inhabitants
retire from the bowling COD to Win
ter quarters within the trifling shell
ter of spruce forests and protecting
river crags, and from their burrows
of sod, hut and ice, sally forth in their
sledges or cometiques to visit" each
other in their storm-swept settle
ments for distances of hundreds of
miles. These trips are made over the
glistening snow at the rate of 60 to
hundred miles day, by the aid of
their gaunt and ferocious dogs, which
are kept in submission by that cruel
est and deadliest of all drivers
scourges, the Eskimo whip. It's han
die is not foot long, but the lash is
often 40 feet in length, and the driv
ers are so skilled in it's use that a
piece can be struck out of Leader"
or "guide'' dogs ear at distance of
from 80 to 40 feet. These dogs, full
ly $50 of which saw at Hopedale,
are simply a species of partly domes
ticated wolves. They are fed on fish
once each day. In the summer they
are sources of endless terror about
the coast settlements; but life would
be impossible here without their use
in winter These visiting tours are
marked by the most prodigal hospi-
tally and a good deal of rude pleas
ure, indeed all these far-away humans
in any manner secure, is enjoyed.
But Labradorian life is an endless
round of inane, sodden fruitlessness
at best. The summer is passed in a
scourging effort for winters provi-
sion. Winter brings its struggle to
prevent death by cold and hunger.
These human animals seem simply
born to exist, be robbed and to die.
one turns from the slightest glimpse
of land and people, heartsick from
irrevocability of the hopelessness of
both. Labrador can never be else
than what Jacques Cartier truly
termed it in 1884, ''the land given to
CAV, ~