Dr. Grenfell looked for another field, for yet another need, and found it on that barren and inhospitable coast the Labrador, whose only harvest field is the sea.

Six hundred miles of almost barren rock with outlying uncharted ledges,—worn smooth by ice, else still more vessels would have found wreckage there; a scant, constant population of hardy fishermen and their families, pious and God-fearing, most of them, but largely at the mercy of the local traders, who took their pay in fish for the bare necessities of living, with a large account[xxiv] always on the trader's side; with such medical aid and ministration as came only occasionally, by the infrequent mail boat, and not at all in the long winter months when the coast was firm beset with ice,—to such a place came Dr. Grenfell in 1892 to cast in his lot with its inhabitants, to live there so long as he should, to die there were it God's will.

As it stands to-day the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, which Dr. Grenfell represents, administers, and animates on the Labrador coast, not only brings hope, new courage, and spiritual comfort to an isolated people in a desolate land, but cares for the sick and injured, in its four hospitals and dispensary, provides house visitation by means of[xxv] dog-sledge journeys covering hundreds of miles in a year, teaches wholesome and righteous living, conducts coöperative stores, provides for orphans and for families bereft of the bread-winners by accidents of the sea, encourages thrift, and administers justice, and adds to the wage-earning capacity and therefore food-obtaining power by operating a sawmill, a schooner-building yard, and other productive industries.