Life on the French shore has been a struggle with too many families to keep off actual starvation. For instance, one winter at St. Anthony a man with a large family, and a fine, capable, self-respecting fellow, was nine days without tasting any flour or bread, or anything besides roast seal meat. Others were even worse off, for this man was a keen hunter, and with his rickety old single-barrel, boy's muzzle-loading gun used to wander alone far out over the frozen sea, with an empty stomach as well, trying to get a seal or a bird for his family. At last he shot a square flipper seal and dragged it home. The rumour of his having killed it preceded his arrival, and even while skinning it a crowd of hungry men were waiting for their share of the fat. Not that any was due to them, but here there is a delightful semi-community of goods. Fish was then only fetching two or three dollars a hundredweight, salted and dried. The price of necessities depended on the conscience of the individual supplier and the ignorance of the people. The truck system was universal; thrift at a discount--and the sin of Ananias an all too common one; that is, taking supplies from one man and returning to him only part of the catch. The people in the north end of Newfoundland and Labrador were very largely illiterate; the sectarian schools split up the grants for teachers--as they still most unfortunately do--and miserable salaries, permitting teachers only for a few months at a time, were the rule. I had once spent a fortnight at St. Anthony, having taken refuge there in the Princess May when I was supposed to be lost by those who were cut off from communication with us. I had also looked in there each summer to see a few patients. My original idea was to get a winter place established for our Indian Harbour staff, and I proposed opening up there each October when Indian Harbour closed, and closing in June when navigation was reopened, Battle Harbour again accessible, and when the man-of-war doctors are more on this section of the coast. The snow was deep on the ground long before our voyage ended. There is always a romantic charm about cruising in the fall of the year on the Labrador. The long nights and the heavy gales add to the interest of the day's work. The shelter of the islands becomes a positive joy; the sense of safety in the harbours and fjords is as real a pleasure as the artificial attractions of civilization. The tang of the air, the young ice that makes every night, the fantastic midnight dances of the November auroras in the winter sky, all make one forget the petty worries of the daily round. As Beattie agreed to stay with me it was with real keenness to sample a sub-arctic winter that in November we disembarked from the Julia Sheriden. We made only the simplest preparations, renting a couple of rooms in the chief trader's house and hiring my former guide as dog-driver. CHAPTER XI FIRST WINTER AT ST. ANTHONY