Wilfred Grenfell

I'd like to meet:

Anyone interested in extreme outdoor adventure or even anyone interested in the experience of being outdoors, particularly how to keep yourself alive there when your komatik sinks and the ice pan you are on is drifting out to sea.

Because of my faithful dogs Moodie, Watch and Spy whose lives were given for mine on April 21, 1908 I would also like to meet anyone who works with or loves sled dogs.

Because of the many heart wrenching and soul challenging experiences that befell me while living and working on the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador the people of that place have a special significance for me. I want to share my story with as many of them as possible. In particular the descendents of the brave men who saved my life: George Davis, George Andrews, George Reid and Mr. Reid’s two sons.

Many men and women have given of themselves to serve the Grenfell Association and work through the Grenfell Hospital system and St. Anthony for the people of northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador. It always interests me to meet such souls. And for them I hope this story will have a particular resonance.

The Quotable Grenfell“Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from the praise of men, but from doing something worthwhile.”
“The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not ‘to have and to hold’ but ‘to give and serve.’ There can be no other meaning.”
“Kindness is more Christlike than righteousness.”
“The remedy for unrest is work.”
“The value of a man’s religion must be measured by what it has enabled him to do.”
“For the most part I felt very sleepy, and the idea was then very strong in my mind that I should soon reach the solution of the mysteries that I had been preaching about for so many years.”Grenfell on his narrow escape from the ice
“Except for my friends, I had nothing I could think of to regret whatever.”
“I must have been a weird sight as I stepped ashore, tied up in rags, stuffed out with oakum, wrapped in the bloody skins of dogs, with no hat, coat, or gloves besides, and only a pair of short knickers. It must have seemed to some as if it were the old man of the sea coming ashore.”
“I had learned on the pan many things, but chiefly that the one cause for regret, when we look back on a life which we think is closed forever, will be the fact that we have wasted its opportunities.” Adrift on an Ice Pan Credits
Chris Brookes is the voice of Wilfred Grenfell - Jay Roberts is the voice of George Andrews, one of Grenfell’s rescuers - acting direction and additional narration by Janis Spence - violin Christina Smith - recorded and produced by Chris Brookes at Battery Radio, St. John’s - images of Sir Wilfred Grenfell’s dogs are from the collection of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador (PANL), back cover dog (PANL VA 93-31), dog team (PANL VA 93-72) - the monument to Moodie, Watch and Spy was reproduced from the 1909 Houghton Mifflin print edition of Adrift on an Ice Pan on which this recording was based - cover photograph Merrill Francis - design John Andrews
The following hymns were selected and performed by Christina Smith:
Welcome Happy Morning words Fortunatus (6th c.) translated Rev. John Ellerton, tune Hermas - Eternal Father Strong to Save (peril on the sea) words William Whiting 1860, tune Melita - From Every Stormy Wind That Blows words Canon Hugh Stowell 1828, tune Retreat - Glory to Thee Who Safe Hast Kept words Bishop Thos. Ken 1692, music Thomas Tallis c. 1567 - Fling Out the Banner words Bishop G.W. Doane 1848, tune Truro - Rescue the Perishing words Francis J. van Alstyne 1870, tune Rescue - My God My Father While I Stray words Charlotte Elliott 1834, tune Herbert - Be Thou my Vision words ancient Irish, trans. Mary Byrne, tune Irish traditional - Not all the Blood of Beasts (The Heavenly Lamb) Isaac Watts, n.d. tune Ben Rhydding - Safe Home Joseph the Hymnographer, 9th cent. free tr. by John Mason Neale, 1818 - 66. music by Sir Arthur Sullivan



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Music:

About Adrift on an Ice Pan
How does a man save his own life?
In 1908 Dr. Wilfred Grenfell, a medical missionary in northern Newfoundland, was traveling by dog team to treat a patient. In his haste Grenfell took a short cut across the sea ice. A change of wind and ice conditions left the doctor and his dogs stranded on an ice pan, their komatik and provisions lost. Grenfell came close to perishing.
Adrift on an Ice Pan is Grenfell’s own account of this near-fatal misadventure. He survived dauntingly cold and seemingly hopeless conditions through an inventive presence of mind and by sacrificing and skinning three of his dogs to clothe himself against the elements. Because of his tenacity and quick thinking and that of his rescuers, Grenfell endured.
First published by Houghton Mifflin in 1909; audio version by Rattling Books, 2004

Books:

Books by Wilfred Grenfell

Vikings of To-day, or, Life and Medical Work Among the Fishermen of Labrador, London: Marshall, 1895
The Harvest of the Sea: A Tale of Both Sides of the Atlantic, New York: F.H. Revell, 1905
Adrift on an Ice Pan, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909
What Will You Do with Jesus Christ, Boston: The Pilgrim press, 1910
Down North on the Labrador, New York: F.H. Revell, 1911
What Can Jesus Christ Do with Me, Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1912
Immortality, London: J. Nisbet, 1913
The Attractive Way, Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1913
The Prize of Life, Boston, Pilgrim Press, 1914
A Labrador Doctor: The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell, London: Hodder and Stroughton, 1919
Northern Neighbors: Stories of the Labrador People, Boston: Houghton, 1923
A Man's Faith, Boston: The Pilgrim Press, 1926
Religion in Everyday Life, Chicago: American Library Association, 1926
Labrador looks at the Orient; Notes of Travel in the Near and the Far East, London: Jarrolds, 1928
The Challenge of Labrador, Boston: The International Grenfell Association, 1928
A Labrador Logbook, Boston: Little, Brown, 1938
Yourself and Your Body, New York: C. Scribner's, 1946
What Christ Means to Me, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1956
Off the Rocks; Stories of the Deep-sea Fisherfolk of Labrador, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970
Labrador Days; Tales of the Sea Toilers, Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press,1971Books about Wilfred Grenfell
Comber, Winifred M., Wilfred Grenfell, the Labrador Doctor, London: Lutterworth Press, 1951
Cuthbert, Lee, With Dr. Grenfell in Labrador, New York: Neale Pub. Co., 1914
Evans, Alec Richard, Wilfred Grenfell, London: Oliphants, 1954
Forbush, William Byron, Pomiuk: A Prince of Labrador: A Brave Boy's Life for Brave Boys, London: Marshall Brothers, 1903
Fox, Genevieve May, Sir Wilfred Grenfell, New York: Crowell, 1942
Gordon, Henry, A Servant of Christ: A Study of the Religious Outlook of Sir Wilfred Grenfell,London: Grenfell Association of Great Britain and Ireland, 1966
Hayes, Ernest Henry, Forty Years on the Labrador: The Life-Story of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, K.C.M.G., New York: Fleming H. Revell co., 1930
Hall, A. Gratten, Doctor Wilfred Grenfell, London: Morgan & Scott, 1919
Hayes, Ernest Henry, Grenfell: The Labrador Pioneer, London: Livingstone Press, 1928
Johnston, James, Grenfell of Labrador, London: S.W. Partridge, 1910
Kerr, James Lennox, Wilfred Grenfell, His Life and Work, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1959
Martin, R.G., Knight of the Snows: The Story of Wilfred Grenfell, Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1974
Mathews, Basil Joseph, Wilfred Grenfell, the Master-Mariner: A Life of Adventure on Sea and Ice, London: S.W. Partridge, 1924
McEvoy, Cuthbert, Grenfell of Labrador, London: Carey Press, 19--?
McNeer, May Yonge, Armed with Courage, New York: Abingdon Press, 1957
Miller, Basil William, Wilfred Grenfell Labrador's Dogsled Doctor, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1948
Moore, Tom, Wilfred Grenfell, Don Mills, ON: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1980
O'Brien, Patricia, The Grenfell obsession: An Anthology, St. John's, NL: Creative, 1992
Piggott, William Charter, Wilfred T. Grenfell: The Doctor of Labrador, London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1922
Pumphrey, George H., Grenfell of Labrador, London: Harrap, 1958
Reason, Jeremiah, Deep-Sea Doctor, New York: Friendship Press, 1942
Richards, J.T., Snapshots of Grenfell, St. John's, NL: Creative, 1989
Rompkey, Ronald, Grenfell of Labrador: A Biography Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992
Ryan, D.W.S., Grenfell and Christmas in Northern Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's, NL: Jesperson, 1991
Shannahan, Colleen, Mission!: The Extraordinary Adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, St. John's, NL: Belle Isle Press, 2006
Smith, Alex A., The Grenfell I knew, St. John's, NL: Flanker Press, 2003
Strowbridge, Nellie P., Far from Home: Dr. Grenfell's Little Orphan, St. John's, NL: Pennywell Books, 2004
Waldo, Fullerton, Grenfell: Knight-Errant of the North, Philadelphia, PA: G.W. Jacobs & Co., 1924
Wallace, Archer, Blazing New Trails, Toronto: Musson, 1928
Wallace, Dillon, Grenfell of Labrador: A Story of His Life for Boys, Toronto: McClelland, 1946
Wilson, Dorothy, Grenfell's Adventures in Northern Seas, London: Congregational Union of England and Wales, 1922