Labrador Memoir of Dr Harry Paddon, 1912-1938

Book excerpt: Dr Harry Paddon's memoir is an extensive account of life in Labrador prior to its entry into Confederation. As the Grenfell Mission's principal physician for over twenty-five years, Dr Paddon travelled extensively throughout Labrador by both dog team and boat. Through his journals he fashions a portrait of Labrador society in accord with the traditional rhythms of trapping and fishing, as it was before the onset of industrial development. He also chronicles the demands of northern medicine in response to pervasive threats such as tuberculosis and deficiency diseases, including a moving description of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918-19. Paddon's memoir gives the reader a sense of the resident Innu, Inuit, and settler communities, as well as the prevailing institutions of non-governmental authority: the Hudson's Bay Company, the Moravian Mission, and the International Grenfell Association. At a time when Labrador is undergoing further industrial development and social change, his writings, carefully edited and annotated by Ronald Rompkey, the biographer of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, capture the heart of the region and its people.