Le Petit Nord
Le Petit Nord
or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour
If home is the spot on earth where one spends the larger part of one's prime, and where one's family comes into being, then for over a quarter of a century "Le Petit Nord" of this book has been my home. With the authors I share for it and its people the love which alone keeps us here. Necessity has compelled me to perform, however imperfectly, functions usually distributed amongst many and varied professions, and the resultant intimacy has become unusual. As, therefore, I read the amusing experiences herein narrated, I feel that the "other half," who know us not, will love us better even if we are not exactly as they. That is not our fault. They should not live "so far off."The incidents told are all actual, but the name of every single person and place has been changed to afford any hypersensitive among the actors the protection which pseudonymity confers. We here who have been permitted a glimpse of these pages feel that we really owe the authors another debt beyond the love for the people to which they have testified by the more substantial offering of long and voluntary personal service.
Book Excerpt
ula a prey to ice and winds and fog. The people, too, have felt the influence of this discrimination of Nature. There is a line of demarcation between those who have been able to enjoy the benefits of the southern island, and those who have had to cope with the recurrent problems of the northland. I cannot help thinking of the change this shore must have been from their beloved and smiling Brittany to those first eager Frenchmen. The names on the map reveal their pathetic attempts to stifle their nostalgie by christening the coves and harbours with the familiar titles of their homeland.
I fear in my former letter I made some rather disparaging remarks about certain ocean liners, but I want to take them all back. Life is a series of comparisons and in retrospect the steamer on which I crossed seems a veritable floating palace. I offer it my humble apologies. Of one thing only I am certain--I shall never, never have the courage to face the return journey.
The time for the steamer to make
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