CHAPTER VI 



THE PEOPLE OF THE COAST 

 BY W. T. GRENFELL 



THE fishery as it exists in Labrador at the present day 

 is confined practically to Newfoundlanders, Labrador 

 settlers, or "livyeres," as they are called, Eskimo, Americans 

 from Massachusetts and Maine, and a few Canadians from 

 the Maritime provinces. Of the Basques only a few tiled 

 floors, and the debris of the bones of whales captured by 

 those people, remain. These bones are still fished up at Red 

 Bay in the Strait of Belle Isle and are used for dog-sledge 

 shoes. Biscay ans and Bretons are represented by a wild 

 growth of the small leek or hive, which once flourished 

 in their well-cared-for vegetable patches. Jean Jacques 

 and Antoine Perrault still fish on the coast, but speak the 

 homeliest Labrador and are innocent of anything French, 

 even as on the Canadian Labrador Rob Roy McGregor and 

 Angus McNab know nothing but French patois. 



The Canadians are represented by their telegraph lines, 

 lighthouses, and steam tenders. An occasional sick French 

 Canadian finds his way to the small hospitals on the coast. 

 Germany has at Nain a consul, a Moravian missionary 

 bishop, whom, in 1907, a man-of-war came in and saluted. 

 Words lacking in the Eskimo language have been supplied 

 from the German. Tosten Andersens and Donald Cam; 



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