E. B. Delabarre, Ph. D. 155 



Grenfell, and the work of the mission of which he is super- 

 intendent. This is the Labrador Medical Mission, a branch 

 of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. 



TJie Labrador Medical Mission. — Nothing could be more 

 practical and truly helpful than the way this mission sets to 

 work. It is purely non-sectarian and reaches and is warmly 

 welcomed by Catholics and Protestants alike. Its aim is not 

 primarily the preaching of religion, though strong religious 

 influences of the best sort emanate from it in the most 

 efifective way possible, through the example and unselfish 

 helpfulness of its tireless workers. The direct object at 

 which it aims, and toward which it is making large progress, 

 is the uplifting of the people, both native and white, to a 

 higher grade of hygienic, social, economic, intellectual, and 

 moral development. 



The first task attempted by this mission was that of pro- 

 viding medical and surgical aid. In this direction it has ac- 

 complished a great deal. It has now two hospitals with 

 doctors and nurses on the Labrador coast, one at Battle 

 Harbor and one at Indian Harbor. These are insufficient 

 for all needs, and a third will soon be established. Besides 

 these, a floating hospital is maintained on the "Strathcona,"* 



* The following description of this steamer, from the London Graphic 

 of July 27th, I take from the organ of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, 

 Toilers of the Deep, September, 1901, p. 223 : — 



"The S. S. 'Strathcona' is a steel steamer with sufficient sail area to 

 enable her to be handled without her propeller, being ketch-rigged after 

 the manner of English trawlers. She is eighty-four tons capacity, and 

 is fitted with a hospital amidships. She was designed and built at Dart- 

 mouth, England, and came out under her own steam to Newfoundland. 

 Though a small boat for so long a journey, she only took ten and a half 

 days from the Fastnet Light to North Newfoundland, and so economical 

 is she with coal that her deck cargo of coal almost sufficed to cross the 

 Atlantic with, in spite of the heavy westerly winds she had to encounter 



