IN LABRADOR WILDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 June 1938, Page 10

IN LABRADOR WILDS

SIR WILFRED GRENFELL’S GREAT WORK.

Sir Wilfred Grenfell, now in his 74th year, has been warned by his medical advisers that he must stay away from the frozen reaches of Labrador, where .he has worked for 46 years. His heart is affected, and he must spend the rest of his days “outside.” But he says he will carry on his work by correspondence and by writing. He has .asked the board of directors of the Grenfell Association to carry on his life’s work, “into fields of greater usefulness and service.” As a young English doctor, he sacrificed prospects of practice at home to make his first expedition to Labrador in 1892. The first medical man in that country, he established a small hospital, the first of a chain of five, 150 miles apart. Between them he set up nursing stations. Then followed orphanages, schools, an industrial department, hospital and supply ships, agricultural stations, clothing distribution centres, a Seamen’s Institute and even a cooperative lumber mill. Many times Sir Wilfred risked his life on errands of mercy. On Easter Sunday, 1908, he was driving a dogteam, in response to a sick call, sixty miles across the frozen waste. He broke through bad ice while crossing an inlet, and found himself adrift on an ice-floe, with his eight dogs, having managed hurriedly to cut them loose from the sledge. Three times he was plunged into the water, finally taking refuge on a floe no bigger than his operating theatre. He drifted 20 miles through the night, and had to kill three dogs, to use their skins for cover. When all hope appeared gone, he was rescued by Indian runners.