LABRADOR GARDENS 



While we were directing the people at the snow- 

 clearing, we followed their example, and wore dark 

 goggles to protect our eyes. The old Eskimo custom 

 was to wear a strip of wood with a narrow slit cut 

 in it over each eye ; but smoked glasses are so cheap 

 and easy to get, that the old fashion has gone out. 

 The Eskimos have not big enough noses to wear the 

 ordinary spectacles ; at the least jolt the spectacles 

 slip down into the wearer's mouth ; so they stitch the 

 glasses into a strip of black cloth, and bind it round 

 their heads. 



Every spring, after the return of the reindeer 

 hunters, we had our meat-tinning time. The 

 hunters were very willing to bring legs of meat at a 

 reasonable price, and the washing, roasting, cutting 

 up, and tinning of the meat made quite a busy week. 

 We put up enough reindeer steaks to last us two or 

 three dinners a week for a twelvemonth, and though 

 we were only amateurs the meat was always whole- 

 some. After the tinning came the gardening. This 

 sounds a remarkable thing, gardening in that pro- 

 verbially bleak and barren place, Labrador ; but by 

 care and hard work the missionaries of years ago 

 have made gardens, and we reap the benefit of their 

 labours. There is not much soil; the spade soon 

 comes on clay and rock, and probably those old 

 missionaries had to carry soil in barrows and build it 

 into gardens before they could get their vegetables 

 to take root and thrive. Six or seven feet down the 

 ground is permanently frozen, as they discovered at 

 Nain a few years ago, when they were digging a hole 

 for a flagstaff. The thick blanket of snow that 

 covers the soil in the winter preserves some of the 

 roots; our English rhubarb used to come up year 



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