



Produced by A www.PGDP.net Volunteer, Jeannie Howse, Jessica
Gockley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net






       *       *       *       *       *

    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
    | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
    |                                                           |
    | The appendix contains dialect that has been carefully     |
    | reproduced.                                               |
    |                                                           |
    +-----------------------------------------------------------+

       *       *       *       *       *

      +--------------------------------------+
      |        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