64 LIFE AND NATURE IN SOUTHERN LABRADOR. 



Greenland seas with the majority of our party. Our 

 tent, provisions, and baggage becoming soaked with the 

 rain and dampness, two days after, we moved over to 

 Caribou Island and built a house of Canada clapboards, 

 kindly loaned for the purpose by the Rev. C. C. Car- 

 penter, missionary to Southern Labrador, for whom a 

 large frame house, sheltering under its roof a chapel, 

 study, and living-rooms, was building. 



A Canadian clapboard is twelve inches long and six 

 inches wide ; with these and a few joists two of the 

 party built a house twelve feet square, which sheltered 

 us from the sun and the black flies, and only leaked 

 when it stormed, which happened regularly twice a 

 week, usually Wednesdays and Sundays. Six berths 

 were put up on the north side (the seventh man was 

 accommodated in the mission-house) ; a wide board 

 placed on two flour-barrels at the west end served as a 

 dining and study table, and in the southeast corner a 

 little stove, not over fifteen inches square, with a funnel 

 whose elbow, projecting out-of-doors, had to be turned 

 with every change of wind, was the focus, the modern- 

 ized hearthstone, over which hung our Lares and 

 Penates, sundry hams and pieces of dried beef, piices-de- 

 resistance of our meals, often alleviated by game and 

 fish, clams and scallops or pussels (JPectenmagellanicus^, 

 with entries of seal and whale flesh. How we college 

 boys cooked and ate, rambled and slept in those seven 

 weeks of subarctic life is a subject of pleasant memory. 

 They were days of rare pleasure, of continuous health, 

 and formed an experience whose value lasted through 

 our future lives. We made hunting, ornithological, 

 entomological, botanical, and dredging expeditions in all 



