I come to, I knowed I had ta do somethin quick! I picked some juniper boughs, boiled ’em, and mixed ’em wit bread ta make a poultice. I put ’em on yer open cuts an bandaged ya up. I did dat fer t’ree or four days, till de steamer come and took ya ta Cartwright ta de hospital.”
Sarah Holwell, a Spotted Island resident who was working in the Cartwright hospital at the time, had come home for a short visit. She was asked to accompany me to Cartwright, about 60 miles away. We travelled on Dr. Forsyth’s schooner, the SS Unity. He was the resident doctor living in Cartwright then.
“What kind of shape was I in?” I asked Sarah many years later.
“Ya was some sick, my dear,” she said, “but ya was alert. Ya didn’t jus lie there. I changed yer dressing in Table Bay when we stopped fer the night and yer head looked terrible! We didn’t have any medicines or anythin! But ya didn’t cry much atall, just whimpered a little through de night. I’d seen dog bites before, but yers was de worst I’d ever seen.”
“How long was I in the hospital?”
“Oh … bout a month, I tink, but ya was a tough little girl. And I remember yer beautiful blond hair. Dey took a razor an shaved it all off.”
According to the story, when I arrived at the hospital in Cartwright, the doctor discovered my mother had done such a good job of dressing and treating my wounds that they couldn’t sew up the badly torn flesh. It had healed too well, so they decided to treat them as they were. Dr. Forsyth told Mom that my skull was too exposed and that a skin graft was needed to cover it.
“I’ll never ferget when ya come home. Ya looked so cute in yer little red-and-white polka-dot dress,” Mom told me years later. “But I was broken-hearted because all yer blond ringlets was gone. Jus gone! And now yer hair was real short an dark. Ya looked so different. Not at all like my little blond, curly-haired girl from a mont ago!”
My mother loved to reminisce about our reunion. “Even though ya was spoiled by de nurses,” she used to say, “we was happy ta have ya back home.” Then her tears would flow freely. Every time we had a visitor in our home, she’d gently pull up my hair to expose the terrible scars. Using her index and forefinger, she’d rub along my skull, feeling the deep grooves left by the bites.
“Dese rips on yer head was wider den two fingers,” she told me. “Dere was several teet marks as well as de two big ones dat went right round de back of yer head, but dere was no udder bites on yer body. No one could understan why de dogs only tore up de back of yer head.”
Later, while visiting Spotted Island on his regular trip along the coast, Dr. Forsyth told my mother the details. “The wound that came closest to killing Josie was the fang puncture behind her left ear that pinned her earlobe to her head. And there’s one spot where there’s a piece of skull missing. Both these areas will be susceptible to pain. However she’s a very tough and extremely lucky little girl.”
The community had to destroy nine dogs that had blood on them. Once a husky has tasted blood they can’t be trusted, so everyone knew they had to be shot.
As with children everywhere, accidents were common. The difference in our isolated communities was the difficulty in getting medical care. Often a home remedy had to suffice.
My mother used to tell of the time I fell from Aunt Lucy’s bridge, or verandah, into the slop hole. “Ya was foolin around out on de bridge, maid, an ya fell off an broke yer collarbone in two places.” She shrugged at the inevitability of childhood foolishness.
“What did you do?” I asked her.
“I took an ol’ sheet, tore it inta strips, an wrapped ya up till ya was healed.”
In later years my older siblings painted a picture of their life as it was before my memory. Their recollections offer glimpses into the primitive life of our family.
My sister, Marcie, recalled my father’s gift for song. “One of my favourite memories, when we was small, was Daddy lyin back on de settle. He’d sing ta us from suppertime till bedtime. I loved ta hear him talkin ta his dogs as he was drivin along. He’d talk an sing to ’em de whole time.”
Our winter home of Roaches Brook held special memories for Marcie. “When we moved inta Roaches Brook in de fall, de grass would be all grown up real tall over our heads. We would go an pick de moss from de bogs round de ponds an let it dry. Den we would use it ta stuff de seams of de cabin ta keep out de snow an cold.”
Marcie remembered one day when a hunt went very badly. “One day me an brother Sam was after a squirrel, an de squirrel bit his finger. It held on an woulden let go! He was screamin. De blood was flyin everywhere! I was toddlin long behind him scared ta death! Prob’ly screamin my head off, too!”
My mother and Marcie used to tell me often that Marcie fainted when she was hurt. Once I asked her if it was true. She laughed. “Yeh, ever time I hurt meself I’d faint. De first time I fainted, I was standin on de kitchen table. My finger was all gathered [infected and swollen]. I caught holda it, started squeezin real hard, and said, ‘It don’t hurt, it don’t hurt.’ De next ting I remember is wakin up in Daddy’s arms. After dat, every scrape an bump I got, I fainted.”
I asked about our brother, Sammy, who drowned tragically when he was 19. “Sammy was a good hunter even when he was small,” Marcie told me. When I asked what he hunted (besides squirrels!), Marcie said, “Mice. I member seein a pile a mouse skins on de windowsill. Dey’d be swarmin an he’d catch ’em, skin ’em, dry ’em, an sell ’em fer five cents each.”
I was intrigued by Marcie’s stories and wanted to know more about our home before I was big enough to remember. “Tell me about our mommy,” I asked her once.
“Mom was a good hunter, too. She used ta take off in de mornin wit her short little .22 rifle, an she always come back wit tree or four partridges, or tree or four rabbits. I used ta be lookin up at de hills, an lookin up at de treetops showin up against de white snow on de hillside, and thought dey was de partridges Mom used ta get.”
I asked Marcie if she was allowed to go ice fishing as a child. “Sometimes,” she answered. “I member me firs trout. Minnie Rose [a neighbour] an me went down to de steady [a quiet place in the brook] where we used ta get water. I caught a trout, an was I ever glad! I brought me trout home, cleaned it, an split it meself. Den I hung it up ta dry. I musta been on’y four years ol’ at de time. We had a lot a fun, us little ones growin up.”
And so it is with children everywhere. Even when our parents are struggling to keep the family alive, children can still find fun.
As a supplement to the winter’s food supply, wild berries were as vital to a Labrador diet as fresh fish and wild game. With bandanas tied snugly under their chins to ward off flies, rubber boots to keep feet dry, and tin cans and buckets in hand, Labradorians roamed the marshes, traipsed through bogs, and huffed and puffed over rocky hills, picking berries.
Although there were several types of berries that ripened at different times during the summer, bakeapples, also known as cloudberries, were the favourite. The time between ripening and rotting on the stems was only a few weeks. Although berries grew in abundance on Spotted Island (our summer home), it was the day trip by boat that yielded the most bakeapples. It was important to us to get out to the little islands where we had discovered favourite
