I owe a great deal to my friends Dora (Eagles) Learning and Dr. Doris (Martin) Saunders (now deceased) and all the other family and friends from Cartwright and the Sandwich Bay area who gave me tidbits of information. I thank all who encouraged me along the 10-year journey of writing this book. You know who you are.
I want to acknowledge the help of my son, Mark Penny, who was able to scan hundreds of pages back into my computer after losing them all in a crash. Luckily, I’d printed the pages out. Thank you, Mark!
Last but certainly not least, I want to thank my husband, Keith (now married 49 years!). Over the decade it’s taken to complete this book, he’s been interested, supportive, not interested, and indifferent. At one point he wanted me to self-publish and he even thought about starting his own publishing and book-binding company. And when I whined about the printer or computer not working, he was patient with me.
All in all, this book has been an experience I’ll never forget! It has enlightened my life beyond all understanding.
Introduction The Wild Land That Is My Home
When I tell new acquaintances I’m from Labrador, I always get the same response. They tell me they’ve never met anyone from there before. I always reply with pride, “That’s because there are so few of us on Earth.”
In the far eastern section of the Canadian Shield, Labrador is 112,000 square miles and has a 700-mile coastline. When we think about this vast area in relation to its population of only 35,000, we can easily see that it’s one of the most sparsely inhabited regions of Canada. As he approached Labrador’s rugged terrain, immense mountain ranges, and stark coastal plains in 1534, Jacques Cartier is said to have remarked that it looked like “the land God gave to Cain.”
Labrador is where the navy blue of the ocean is in stark contrast to the majestic icebergs that score the seabed as they make their way through the North Atlantic. Although tourists admire the icebergs, fishermen find them a problem. Icebergs are a hazard to fishing boats, destroy expensive fishing gear, and can even block passage to the open sea.
The thousands of islands off the coast are home to millions of seabirds that cling to the rocky ledges on cliffs that shoot straight up from the sea. The barren coastline is bare of trees except for sheltered crevices where bushes are dwarfed from the constant battering of ocean storms. Farther inland, tall, resilient trees stand like giant arrows piercing the clear blue sky. One can still kneel and drink the cool, fresh water from Labrador’s thousands of rivers and streams as they wind through the mountains to the North Atlantic. The majestic Mealy Mountains are home to one of the largest caribou herds in the world. And sports fishermen flock to Labrador’s many rivers to enjoy fishing beyond all expectations.
We are a people of mixed race. I am Métis, as are many Native Labradorians. When immigrants from the British Isles and France arrived on the shores of Labrador by ship, they married indigenous people. Living in isolation with two or three heritages in a family has given Native Labradorians a rich, unique culture and has created my branch of the Métis.
Our racial heritage comes from the Inuit people in the north, the Naskapi in the interior north, and the Montagnais who lived inland and farther south. These peoples, together with the French, English, Scottish, and Irish, produced Métis who are often short in stature, olive-skinned, and dark, usually with startling blue or hazel eyes. In my own family, Inuit features predominate, as do blue and hazel eyes. In the dialect of the Native Labradorian, we refer to ourselves as Livyers. The origin of the word is lost, but one can surmise that it has come down through time from the phrase, “living here,” or perhaps “living here for years.”
Strangers to our shores — Faranners — frequently speak of the kind and friendly nature of our people. When you arrive in Labrador, you can’t help but notice the pride of its inhabitants. The Labrador flag is flown on many houses throughout the communities and is knit into many garments of clothing. It’s also painted or displayed on garbage containers built to keep out wild animals and on coach boxes used to pull relatives behind snowmobiles. Dog teams have long since disappeared.
The survival of Native Labradorians is the story of a race’s endurance. Through my memories I can share the life experiences of a people. My purpose in writing is twofold. I want to inform our children, who were raised in Happy Valley–Goose Bay, Labrador, about their roots. And I want to enlighten our grandchildren, who were born and raised in Ontario. I want them all to gain insight into the unique and authentic lifestyles of their Labrador ancestors. But as I write I realize I have a wider purpose: to give voice to the struggles of the people who lived in this harsh land, a people whose daily lives were often heroic, a people whose roots reach into the prehistory of this continent, long before European contact.
Life on the coast of Labrador has always been a day-to-day existence. Up until the 1950s we lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle. Everything we needed was shifted out of the bay each fall and moved outside again to the fishing grounds in the spring. These tough, well-adapted people lived off the land, and food had to be found. Therefore, mealtime was a constant concern, and the threat of starvation for our people always loomed as a possibility. There was very little cash in hand for anyone. Store-bought food such as flour, molasses, tea, beans, salt pork, and salt beef was bartered or traded for during square-up time. Squaring-up was done with furs in the spring and dried cod in the fall.
To some degree, coastal Labradorians still enjoy the freedom of hunting and fishing. Although fishing and hunting quotas and weapons are all stringently registered and controlled now, our people can still gather enough wildlife to help with the rising cost of living. One is sure to find wild game tucked away in freezers, unlike during my childhood when scaffolds were built high off the ground to keep game frozen and away from dogs. Snowmobiles have supplanted dog teams, and store-bought clothing has replaced the homemade garments of the past. Television and computers are now in most homes along the coast and have changed the lifestyles of our people forever.
During the past 40 years, much has changed in Labrador. Since the twin towns of Wabush and Labrador City developed in the 1950s, and Churchill Falls in the 1960s, new people have come to live and a new generation of Labradorians has sprung up. Those one-company towns constructed permanent, comfortable housing for its residents, and people enjoy all the modern amenities of a well-designed northern community. Happy Valley–Goose Bay, built during the Second World War to accommodate the hundreds of planes en route to Europe, is located at the bottom of Hamilton Inlet in central Labrador. And though it’s accessible to the ocean, it isn’t included in the coastal region.
My memories are of life on the coast of Labrador. My perceptions of my life as I saw it during the time period of this book are just that, personal perceptions, and aren’t neccessairly how other people would see it.
Some of our people find it difficult to adapt to the new ways. Many fishermen have had to relinquish their salmon licences, and regulations dictating that cod can’t even be caught for personal consumption are hard to take for a people who have known no other way. Without television and computers Labrador would still be “a world apart,” as National Geographic described it. Although some people were concerned about the effects of the new roads connecting Labrador, for the most part the results have been positive. The new roads have brought the cost of goods and services in line with the rest of Canada and have deterred merchants from price gouging.
Many of my people wonder if the serenity and peace of Labrador can be sustained in this modern world. I would think not, but having been born and raised in this wonderful land I would hate to think that inconsiderate, uncaring people could deface such a pristine environment. Some Labradorians still try to reclaim the old lifestyle, and others are too stubborn to let it go entirely. It is the hope of our people that we keep our rich culture and maintain our integrity.
I hope, through my story, the reader will be able to form a picture of the way we lived and see how our people have survived against all odds.