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    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
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    | The appendix contains dialect that has been carefully     |
    | reproduced.                                               |
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      +--------------------------------------+
      |        By Wilfred T. Grenfell        |
      |                                      |
      |  THE ADVENTURE OF LIFE.              |
      |  ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN. Illustrated.  |
      |                                      |
      |       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY       |
      |         BOSTON AND NEW YORK          |
      +--------------------------------------+




ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN

  [Illustration: (signed) Wilfred Grenfell]




ADRIFT ON AN
ICE-PAN

BY
WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL
M.D. (OXON), C.M.G.

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BY DR. GRENFELL AND OTHERS




BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY




COPYRIGHT 1909
BY WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PUBLISHED JUNE 1909




CONTENTS


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH                                            ix

ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN                                            1

APPENDIX                                                       59




ILLUSTRATIONS


WILFRED THOMASON GRENFELL, M.D. (OXON), C.M.G      _Frontispiece_

THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. ANTHONY                                   2

ON A JOURNEY FROM ST. ANTHONY                                   4

TRAVELLING ON BROKEN ICE                                        8

PART OF DR. GRENFELL'S TEAM                                    12

DR. GRENFELL AND JACK                                          20
  WITH THE JACKET MADE FROM MOCCASINS

DOC                                                            30

MEMORIAL TABLET, ST. ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL, NEWFOUNDLAND          54




BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH


  "MOST NOBLE VICE-CHANCELLOR, AND YOU, EMINENT PROCTORS:

"A citizen of Britain is before you, once a student in this
University, now better known to the people of the New World than to
our own. This is the man who fifteen years ago went to the coast of
Labrador, to succor with medical aid the solitary fishermen of the
northern sea; in executing which service he despised the perils of the
ocean, which are there most terrible, in order to bring comfort and
light to the wretched and sorrowing. Thus, up to the measure of human
ability, he seems to follow, if it is right to say it of any one, in
the footsteps of Christ Himself, as a truly Christian man. Rightly
then we praise him by whose praise not he alone, but our University
also is honored. I present to you Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, that he
may be admitted to the degree of Doctor in Medicine, HONORIS CAUSA."

Thus may be rendered the Latin address when, in May, 1907, for the
first time in its history, the University of Oxford conferred the
honorary degree in medicine. With these fitting words was presented a
man whose simple faith has been the motive power of his works, to whom
pain and weariness of flesh have called no stay since there was
discouragement never, to whom personal danger has counted as nothing
since fear is incomprehensible. "As the Lord wills, whether for wreck
or service, I am about His business." On November 9th of the preceding
year, the King of England gave one of his "Birthday Honors" to the
same man, making him a Companion of St. Michael and St. George
(C.M.G.).

Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, second son of the Rev. Algernon Sydney
Grenfell and Jane Georgiana Hutchinson, was born on the twenty-eighth
day of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-five, at Mostyn House
School, Parkgate, by Chester, England, of an ancestry which laid a
firm foundation for his career and in surroundings which fitted him
for it. On both sides of his inheritance have been exhibited the
courage, patience, persistence, and fighting and teaching qualities
which are exemplified in his own abilities to command, to administer,
and to uplift.

On his father's side were the Grenvilles, who made good account of
themselves in such cause as they approved, among them Basil Grenville,
commander of the Royalist Cornish Army, killed at Lansdown in 1643 in
defence of King Charles.

    "Four wheels to Charles's wain:
    Grenville, Trevanion, Slanning, Godolphin slain."

There was also Sir Richard Grenville, immortalized by Tennyson in "The
Revenge," and John Pascoe Grenville, the right-hand man of Admiral
Cochrane, who boarded the Spanish admiral's ship, the Esmeralda, on
the port side, while Cochrane came up on the starboard, when together
they made short work of the capture. Nor has the strain died out, as
is demonstrated in the present generation by many of Dr. Grenfell's
cousins, among them General Francis Wallace Grenfell, Lord Kilvey, and
by Dr. Grenfell himself on the Labrador in the fight against disease
and disaster and distress along a stormy and uncharted coast.

On his mother's side, four of her brothers were generals or colonels
in the trying times of service in India. The eldest fought with
distinction throughout the Indian Mutiny and in the defence of
Lucknow, and another commanded the crack cavalry regiment, the
"Guides," at Peshawar, and fell fighting in one of the turbulent North
of India wars.

Of teachers, there was Dr. Grenfell's paternal grandfather, the Rev.
Algernon Grenfell, the second of three brothers, house master at Rugby
under Arnold, and a fine classical scholar, whose elder and younger
brothers each felt the ancestral call of the sea and became admirals,
with brave records of daring and success.

Dr. Grenfell's father, after a brilliant career at Rugby School and at
Balliol College, Oxford, became assistant master at Repton, and later,
when he married, head master of Mostyn House School, a position which
he resigned in 1882 to become Chaplain of the London Hospital. "He was
a man of much learning, with a keen interest in science, a remarkable
eloquence, and a fervent evangelistic faith."

Mostyn House School still stands, enlarged and modernized, in the
charge of Dr. Grenfell's elder brother, and in it his mother is still
the real head and controlling genius.

Parkgate, at one time a seaport of renown, when Liverpool was still
unimportant, and later a seaside health resort to which came the
fashion and beauty of England, had fallen, through the silting of the
estuary and the broadening of the "Sands of Dee," to the level of a
hamlet in the time of Dr. Grenfell's boyhood. The broad stretch of
seaward trending sand, with its interlacing rivulets of fresh and
brackish water, made a tempting though treacherous playground,
alluring alike in the varied forms of life it harbored and in the
adventure which whetted exploration. Thither came Charles Kingsley,
Canon of Chester, who married a Grenfell, and who coupled his verse
with scientific study and made geological excursions to the river's
mouth with the then Master of Mostyn House School. In these excursions
the youthful Wilfred was a participant, and therein he learned some of
his first lessons in that accuracy of observation essential to his
later life work.

Here in this trained, but untrammeled, boyhood, with an inherited
incentive to labor and an educated thirst for knowledge, away from the
thrall of crowded communities, close to the wild places of nature,
with the sea always beckoning and a rocking boat as familiar as the
land, it is small wonder that there grew the fashioning of the purpose
of a man, dimly at first, conceived in a home in which all, both of
tradition and of teaching, bred faith, reverence, and the sense of
thanksgiving in usefulness.

From the school-days at Parkgate came the step to Marlborough College,
where three years were marked by earnest study, both in books and in
play, for the one gained a scholarship and the other an enduring
interest in Rugby football. Matriculating later at the University of
London, Grenfell entered the London Hospital, and there laid not only
the foundation of his medical education, but that of his friendship
with Sir Frederick Treves, renowned surgeon and daring sailor and
master mariner as well. With plenty of work to the fore, as a hospital
interne, the ruling spirit still asserted itself, and the young
doctor became an inspiration among the waifs of the teeming city; he
was one of the founders of the great Lads' Brigades which have done
much good, and fostered more, in the example that they have set for
allied activities. Nor were the needs of his own bodily machine
neglected; football, rowing, and the tennis court kept him in
condition, and his athletics served to strengthen his appeals to the
London boys whom he enrolled in the brigades. He founded the
inter-hospital rowing club at Putney and rowed in the first
inter-hospital race; he played on the Varsity football team, and won
the "throwing the hammer" at the sports.

A couple of terms at Queen's College, Oxford, followed the London
experience, but here the conditions were too easy and luxurious for
one who, by both inheritance and training, had within him the
incentive to the strenuous life. Need called, misery appealed, the
message of life, of hope, and of salvation awaited, and the young
doctor turned from Oxford to the medical mission work in which his
record stands among the foremost for its effectiveness and for the
spirituality of its purpose.

Seeking some way in which he could satisfy his medical aspirations, as
well as his desire for adventure and for definite Christian work, he
appealed to Sir Frederick Treves, a member of the Council of the Royal
National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, who suggested his joining the
staff of the mission and establishing a medical mission to the
fishermen of the North Sea. The conditions of the life were onerous,
the existing traffic in spirituous liquors and in all other
demoralizing influences had to be fought step by step, prejudice and
evil habit had to be overcome and to be replaced by better knowledge
and better desire, there was room for both fighting and teaching, and
the medical mission won its way. "When you set out to commend your
gospel to men who don't want it, there's only one way to go about
it,--to do something for them that they'll be sure to understand. The
message of love that was'made flesh and dwelt amongst men' must be
reincarnate in our lives if it is to be received to-day." Thus came
about the outfitting of the Albert hospital-ship to carry the message
and the help, by cruising among the fleets on the fishing-grounds,
and the organization of the Deep Sea Mission; when this work was done,
"when the fight had gone out of it," Dr. Grenfell looked for another
field, for yet another need, and found it on that barren and
inhospitable coast the Labrador, whose only harvest field is the sea.

Six hundred miles of almost barren rock with outlying uncharted
ledges,--worn smooth by ice, else still more vessels would have found
wreckage there; a scant, constant population of hardy fishermen and
their families, pious and God-fearing, most of them, but largely at
the mercy of the local traders, who took their pay in fish for the
bare necessities of living, with a large account always on the
trader's side; with such medical aid and ministration as came only
occasionally, by the infrequent mail boat, and not at all in the long
winter months when the coast was firm beset with ice,--to such a place
came Dr. Grenfell in 1892 to cast in his lot with its inhabitants, to
live there so long as he should, to die there were it God's will.

As it stands to-day the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, which Dr.
Grenfell represents, administers, and animates on the Labrador coast,
not only brings hope, new courage, and spiritual comfort to an
isolated people in a desolate land, but cares for the sick and
injured, in its four hospitals and dispensary, provides house
visitation by means of dog-sledge journeys covering hundreds of miles
in a year, teaches wholesome and righteous living, conducts
cooeperative stores, provides for orphans and for families bereft of
the bread-winners by accidents of the sea, encourages thrift, and
administers justice, and adds to the wage-earning capacity and
therefore food-obtaining power by operating a sawmill, a
schooner-building yard, and other productive industries.

To accomplish this, to make of the scattered settlements a united and
independent people, to safeguard their future by such measures as the
establishment of a Seamen's Institute at St. John's, Newfoundland, and
the insurance of communication with the outside world, and to raise,
by personal solicitation, the money needed for these enterprises,
requires an unusual personality. Faith, courage, insight, foresight,
the power to win, and the ability to command,--all of these and more
of like qualities are embodied and portrayed in Dr. Grenfell.

          CLARENCE JOHN BLAKE.




ADRIFT ON AN ICE-PAN


It was Easter Sunday at St. Anthony in the year 1908, but with us in
northern Newfoundland still winter. Everything was covered with snow
and ice. I was walking back after morning service, when a boy came
running over from the hospital with the news that a large team of dogs
had come from sixty miles to the southward, to get a doctor on a very
urgent case. It was that of a young man on whom we had operated about
a fortnight before for an acute bone disease in the thigh. The people
had allowed the wound to close, the poisoned matter had accumulated,
and we thought we should have to remove the leg. There was obviously,
therefore, no time to be lost. So, having packed up the necessary
instruments, dressings, and drugs, and having fitted out the
dog-sleigh with my best dogs, I started at once, the messengers
following me with their team.

My team was an especially good one. On many a long journey they had
stood by me and pulled me out of difficulties by their sagacity and
endurance. To a lover of his dogs, as every Christian man must be,
each one had become almost as precious as a child to its mother. They
were beautiful beasts: "Brin," the cleverest leader on the coast;
"Doc," a large, gentle beast, the backbone of the team for power;
"Spy," a wiry, powerful black and white dog; "Moody," a lop-eared
black-and-tan, in his third season, a plodder that never looked behind
him; "Watch," the youngster of the team, long-legged and speedy, with
great liquid eyes and a Gordon-setter coat; "Sue," a large, dark
Eskimo, the image of a great black wolf, with her sharp-pointed and
perpendicular ears, for she "harked back" to her wild ancestry;
"Jerry," a large roan-colored slut, the quickest of all my dogs on her
feet, and so affectionate that her overtures of joy had often sent me
sprawling on my back; "Jack," a jet-black, gentle-natured dog, more
like a retriever, that always ran next the sledge, and never looked
back but everlastingly pulled straight ahead, running always with his
nose to the ground.

  [Illustration: THE SETTLEMENT AT ST. ANTHONY]

It was late in April, when there is always the risk of getting wet
through the ice, so that I was carefully prepared with spare outfit,
which included a change of garments, snow-shoes, rifle, compass, axe,
and oilskin overclothes. The messengers were anxious that their team
should travel back with mine, for they were slow at best and needed a
lead. My dogs, however, being a powerful team, could not be held back,
and though I managed to wait twice for their sleigh, I had reached a
village about twenty miles on the journey before nightfall, and had
fed the dogs, and was gathering a few people for prayers when they
caught me up.

During the night the wind shifted to the northeast, which brought in
fog and rain, softened the snow, and made travelling very bad,
besides heaving a heavy sea into the bay. Our drive next morning would
be somewhat over forty miles, the first ten miles on an arm of the
sea, on salt-water ice.

  [Illustration: ON A JOURNEY]

In order not to be separated too long from my friends, I sent them
ahead two hours before me, appointing a rendezvous in a log tilt that
we have built in the woods as a halfway house. There is no one living
on all that long coast-line, and to provide against accidents--which
have happened more than once--we built this hut to keep dry clothing,
food, and drugs in.

The first rain of the year was falling when I started, and I was
obliged to keep on what we call the "ballicaters," or ice barricades,
much farther up the bay than I had expected. The sea of the night
before had smashed the ponderous covering of ice right to the
landwash. There were great gaping chasms between the enormous blocks,
which we call pans, and half a mile out it was all clear water.

An island three miles out had preserved a bridge of ice, however, and
by crossing a few cracks I managed to reach it. From the island it was
four miles across to a rocky promontory,--a course that would be
several miles shorter than going round the shore. Here as far as the
eye could reach the ice seemed good, though it was very rough.
Obviously, it had been smashed up by the