Newfoundland is a fascinating place.
It was once the home of the Beothuk people, and European settlement on the island dates back farther than anywhere else in Canada.
In the British Empire, Newfoundland once stood on equal footing with Canada as its own dominion. It had its own currency, prime minister and anthem until it voluntarily voted its government out of existence.
Throughout the month of January, I am going to delve deeper into Newfoundland’s history with four fascinating stories starting with one about a man with endless energy who spent his life trying to help people and make a difference.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx.
Today, we are sailing into the life of Sir Wilfred Grenfell!
Our story begins far from the shores of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Wilfred Grenfell was born in Parkgate, England on Feb. 28, 1865, to Reverend Algernon Wilfred Grenfell and Jane Hutchison.
The village was an important port from the start of the 18th century, because it’s on the banks of the River Dee which has a much longer history.
It had been a shipping route to the Roman city of Deva later known as Chester until the Dee silted up and then Parkgate became a popular seaside resort. During these shifting times is when Wilfred Grenfell was born and from the start he was surrounded by religion.
His father was headmaster of Mostyn House School which has its own fascinating story.
In 1854 the school was originally established 24 miles away in Tarvin, and moved to Parkgate a year later into what had been The Mostyn Arms Hotel with Edward Price as Headmaster,
By 1861 Algernon Sidney Grenfell, Mrs. Price’s nephew, and Wilfred’s father was invited to Parkgate to take over the school.
Algernon took over the boarding school and made it his life’s work to provide a place for young men to become upstanding members of society.
It remained in the Grenfell family until it closed in 2010.
In 1879, 14-year-old Wilfred was sent to Marlborough College, a new boarding school, almost 200 miles away.
It had been founded as Marlborough School in 1843 by the Dean of Manchester, George Hull Bowers, for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy and was commended at the time for its focus on masculinity.
Wilfred loved it there, but his father believed it was not challenging him intellectually.
Two years later, his father set up a private tutor for him and as he approached his 18th birthday, like with many young people, Wilfred started to question what he wanted to do with his life.
He gave some consideration to the army.
At the time, Britain was in the heart of its Victorian Age, and many young men chose to emulate British heroes like the Duke of Wellington, who famously defeated Napoleon at Waterloo decades earlier.
Thousands of young men dreamed of being a great general and serving the interests of the British Empire across the world.
In hindsight, the army’s strict focus on rules, routine and order would have never worked for Wilfred because he was headstrong and refused to listen to anyone beyond his parents.
Grenfell considered following in his father’s footsteps into the church, but that didn’t seem right for him either.
As would happen many times in his life, a conversation with someone he respected led him down the best path for him and while speaking with a village doctor Wilfred suddenly realized he wanted to be a doctor as well.
Soon after, he enrolled at the London Hospital Medical College.
But just as Wilfred’s life was unfolding in front of him, his fathers were ending.
As Wilfred enrolled in medical school, his father was breaking under the stress of managing the boarding school.
To relieve the pressure, Wilfred’s father leased Mostyn House to the Reverend William F. Barratt and accepted a position as the chaplain at London Hospital.
While the move brought him closer to his son, the reunion was not a happy one.
Wilfred’s father continued to decline.
By 1885, he was in an asylum where he remained for two years.
Soon after his father was institutionalized, Wilfred went out for a walk and came across a tent and saw a man inside preaching to a crowd about living a simple life to be closer to God.
The man was Dwight Moody, a prominent evangelist who toured the United States and British Isles with his message.
He saw the world as a wrecked ship. His goal was to save people by putting them into a lifeboat of simple Christian living.
Wilfred Grenfell was immediately taken with this.
And then on Aug. 18, 1887, his father ended his own life.
The loss hit Wilfred hard.
To distract himself, he turned to his schooling.
But studying could only occupy so many hours and Wilfred had far too much energy to sit still.
When classes ended, he could be found playing cricket, rowing on the Thames, playing football or crashing into others in a game of rugby.
He also managed a gymnasium and operated a Sunday School.
Wilfred tried to make sure every moment of his waking life was filled to the brim.
But he still wondered if he was making the right choice.
Was being a doctor in his future?
Then he remembered Dwight Moody’s teaching and realized his mission was to be the doctor that Jesus would have been.
To help him achieve this he turned to his mentor Sir Frederick Treves
Wilfred Grenfell met Sir Frederick Treves at London Hospital.
Treves was only in his 40s but he was already a legend of 19th Century British medicine.
In 1888, he performed the first appendectomy in England.
But you may have heard of Treves because was also friends with Joseph Merrick.
Treves first encountered Merrick, who was known as the Elephant Man, while he was being exhibited by showman Tom Norman in a shop across the road from the London Hospital.
Merrick suffered from severe physical deformities and Treves brought Merrick to the London Hospital in about 1886, having him live there until his death in April 1890 and it is more than likely he also interacted with Wilfred Grenfell because.
Wilfred worshiped Treves.
A day after earning his medical licence, Wilfred met with his mentor and spoke to him about his future.
Treves told him about an organization that could use his help.
The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
It had been established in 1881 by Ebenezer Joseph Mather after he visited fishing communities along the coast of Britain over the previous decade.
He had seen the terrible living conditions fishermen and their families lived in and was particularly shocked by The Eyemouth “Black Friday” disaster on October 14, 1881, when a sudden and violent storm drowned 189 fishermen caught at sea, leaving 78 widows and 182 fatherless children.
It devastated the coastal community and to help Mather founded the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
Wilfred saw working for the mission as something that could not only challenge him mentally and physically but also help his personal mission of spreading Christian gospel.
It was clear to the Mission Council that Wilfred was the perfect man for their organization, and they eagerly accepted him.
Within a year, he was promoted to superintendent and put in charge of the maintenance of the fleet.
After visiting fishing communities like Yarmouth Wilfred saw that people needed more than a doctor and Christian gospel.
They needed schools, hospitals, libraries and, most importantly, someone to help lift them out of poverty.
Wilfred knew that the way to get things done was through publicity and he offered to write for Toilers of the Deep, a periodical out of London and give Britons a look into the lives of the men who risked their lives for their catch of the day..
As a bonus, he could use the money earned from the articles to help fund construction of facilities people so desperately needed.
During his first years with the mission, Wilfred made a name for himself for his love of fieldwork, and little desire to be behind a desk.
In other words, he liked to get his hands dirty.
But that didn’t always align with the mission council who wanted someone who followed the rules and got permission before making decisions.
This was doubly true when it came to spending the mission’s funds.
Wilfred had no time for rules or procedures, and he rarely asked the council for anything.
They may not have loved his methods, but Wilfred got the job done and did it well.
If the council thought, he was a thorn in their side it was only going to get worse [PAUSE]
In 1891, the Newfoundland government wanted someone to investigate the working and living conditions of the island’s fishing industry.
At the time, it was the most important industry in the Dominion of Newfoundland, but it came at a price.
Men worked in dangerous conditions on the high seas to meet quotas, which meant no sick days, and no time off beyond Sundays.
Small fishing communities dotted the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador where families lived in tiny homes in dire need of repair.
Social services, including medical care, were nearly non-existent.
Like with North Sea fishermen, The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen wanted to help and they sent Francis John Stephens Hopwood, in 1891.
He was astonished by what he found.
Things were especially bad in Labrador where 25,000 people, including children, lived in poverty.
In his report, Hopwood suggested that a hospital ship be sent each summer to provide medical care in Labrador.
In London, England, his report was met with action.
Wilfred Grenfell was asked by the council to cross the ocean and offer his services as the doctor on the hospital ship.
Wilfred was dynamic and energetic and loved adventure, so he couldn’t have accepted faster.
On June 15, 1892, Wilfred sailed from England about The Albert, a ship owned by the mission, and reached St. John’s harbour a few weeks later.
He was met by the devastation left behind by one of the worst fires in the city’s history.
Only days earlier, on July 8, 1892, The Great Fire of St. John’s levelled two-thirds of the city and left 15,000 homeless. I’ll be going into the details of that story later this month.
And Wilfred didn’t stay in St. John’s thick clouds of smoke because his ship was headed to Labrador to travel up and down the coast to visit communities and treat residents.
By October, he had seen nearly 1,000 patients and their living conditions were dire.
Most everyone seemed to live in extreme poverty and heavily in debt to companies and the government.
Boats were leaky and clothes were made from flour sacks.
Shelters were nothing more than shacks.
Tuberculosis, rickets and even scurvy were found in nearly every home.
If the living conditions didn’t kill them then the work sure tried.
Fishing was incredibly dangerous. Some men never made it home, others suffered life-changing injuries.
Grenfell wrote,
“One man told me that he had both his legs broken, and eventually cut off, by being nipped between two pieces of ice.”
There were also no modern medical services.
For many, the only healthcare was folklore cures passed down through generations.
To ward off diphtheria, you wore a cod’s head around their neck.
Charms made from deer teeth were used to keep away other diseases.
A simple cut could become infected and if neglected it could lead to a long and painful death.
The suffering he saw had a deep impact on him. He wrote to his mother quote.
“The women seem to me to be ill from one cause or another.” end quote.
In Labrador Wilfred felt his destiny calling for him to do more. As soon as he was back in St. John’s, he pressured the Newfoundland government, as well as leading businessmen, to donate money to help.
Within a year, two hospitals were built and the Newfoundland government established a yearly grant to pay for their maintenance.
He returned to England to meet with the council to ask them to extend his mission in Newfoundland so he could continue to help people.
It was approved and, in the summer of 1893, he returned to Labrador with two nurses and two doctors.
They were stationed at the two new hospitals built on Battle Harbour and Indian Harbour. Now when I say hospitals, I’m not talking about large buildings with surgical rooms, intensive care or maternity wards.
These were simple buildings, housing a few beds and maybe a room that doubled for surgery and births.
It wasn’t much, but it was more than the people in these remote coastal communities ever had.
Once the hospitals were up and running, Wilfred took the Princes May ship up the coast to visit other communities and then he was supposed to head back to England to focus on his work with North Sea fishermen.
Instead, as he would so often do throughout his life, Wilfred did what he wanted, when he wanted.
Upon completion of his mission in Labrador, Wilfred Heading went to larger cities including Montreal and Toronto, to raise money and established a pattern that would exist for much of his life.
He would spend months in Newfoundland and Labrador helping people in coastal communities, followed by an extended period of time on fundraising tours in Canada and the United States.
He met with the Canadian government, and they rejected a plan to build a hospital along the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Most likely because the government saw the problem as a Newfoundland’s issue, and not one the dominion was responsible for
He was shocked but he hoped that he would get a better response from the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen council.
He did not.
The council was unhappy with how much time he was spending across the ocean.
They did not provide him with further funds because Wilfred’s endeavours in Newfoundland and Labrador were outstripping the mission.
Thankfully, he met two people in Montreal, who were more than happy to help.
Sir John William Dawson was one of Canada’s most distinguished geologists, he was also the retired principal of McGill University, and he offered money for Wilfred’s cause.
You might remember Sir Dawson from my episode about his son, George Dawson, in early 2025.
Along with him Wilfred also received money from Sir Donald Smith, the future Lord Strathcona.
He also helped finance the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway and can be seen in the famous photo of The Last Spike hammering in that spike in 1885.
With the help of these two men, a yacht was retrofitted to become a hospital ship and christened the Sir Donald.
In 1895, Wilfred published an article titled “Vikings of to-day; or life and medical work among the fishermen of Labrador”.
It became the first of nearly three dozen books he wrote about his experiences in Labrador.
Despite the mouthful of a title, it became a popular book and all profits from the sales went to fund his work.
His fundraising and tireless efforts helped Wilfred Grenfell become well known much to the chagrin of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen who was growing increasingly irate with him.
He typically ordered things for his hospitals and just had the bills sent to the mission council.
When the council told him to get their permission before he pledged money in Labrador, he just ignored them.
He was a true believer in the concept of “don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness.”
Wilfred was keener on helping people that had been ignored for years than bureaucracy. Going rogue forced the mission council to recall Wilfred to England in 1896.
He was to be replaced by Dr. Fred Willway and Wilfred was sent to the North Sea to work on the fishing trawlers there.
What did Wilfred do?
He delayed his departure for several months by travelling up the Newfoundland and Labrador coast on the Sir Donald and established a co-operative store in Red Bay, Labrador.
It would provide essentials to residents without forcing them into deep debt It was the first of several cooperatives he established and, then Wilfred returned to England.
Dr. Willway, Wilfred’s replacement, didn’t take to his new assignment.
His wife was also miserable and within only a couple of years, they asked for a transfer to a climate more to their liking.
Meanwhile in England, Wilfred was still being Wilfred.
He asked a naval architect to design a steamer that could allow him to work throughout the year and the architect agreed to do it free of charge.
Had Wilfred asked The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen?
Absolutely not, they found out second hand that they had a new steal-hulled hospital ship in their fleet.
In June 1899, The Strathcona, a, launched and Wilfred returned to St. John’s to a hero’s welcome and the council was shocked once again a few months later when Wilfred built a year-round hospital at St. Anthony without their approval.
Then he took things further and opened a branch of The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen there.
It was clear by now that Wilfred was not going to be tamed or controlled and eventually, they backed off and allowed him to do his work as he wished and even helped him when needed.
After The Strathcona launched, his certificate from the Board of Trade did not allow him to pilot anything more than a simple yacht.
To get around this, the council registered the vessel under the Merchant Shipping Act and brought on a qualified crew to help Wilfred.
Meanwhile, Wilfred continued his fundraising tours in Canada and the eastern United States as his hospitals treated 4,000 patients a year.
In 1903, he met William Lyon Mackenzie King. At the time, King was the deputy minister of labour in Ottawa. He would go on to become Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister King became Wilfred’s ally as he helped him navigate Ottawa’s red tape and introduced him to people like Norman McLean Duncan.
Duncan was King’s close friend and an acclaimed journalist.
He had worked for the New York Evening Post and helped Wilfred in his promotional tours and later traveled to Newfoundland and Labrador with him.
Duncan also wrote several books set in Newfoundland, including Doctor Luke of the Labrador featuring a lead character based on Wilfred Grenfell.
As Wilfred’s fame grew many saw his determination and thought of him as a saint who helped the people of Labrador.
But that didn’t help him get a grant to build a hospital at Harrington Harbour, Quebec along the Labrador coast in 1905.
Neither did the list of donors he had secured and published articles in Among the Deep Sea Fishers magazine.
Even with the help of his friend Mackenzie King, the Canadian government turned down his request.
Their attitude could be summed up as “not our problem”.
Once again, Wilfred went to prominent friends, this time he turned to the daughters of Andrew Dow, who was a brewer in Montreal, and they gave him the money.
His friend, William Lyon Mackenzie King, also pestered the Canadian government so much that they eventually provided the hospital with an annual grant for maintenance.
King then used his connections to get Governor General Lord Grey to recommend Wilfred for The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George and Wilfred received the British chivalry honour in 1906.
He seemed to be on top of the world and his celebrity status greatly aided his humanitarian work in Newfoundland and Labrador.
But then in 1908 he cemented his efforts and became a legend.
At the small church in St. Anthony in 1908Wilfred Grenfell conducted an Easter Sunday service.
When he finished, two fishermen came up to him and told him that the sick boy he had operated on only days earlier was now suffering from blood poisoning.
Wilfred knew that without medical intervention, this boy would die.
He dropped everything and raced across the snowy landscape on a sled pulled by seven dogs.
Joining him on the run was his beloved dog Jack, a black Spaniel.
To stay warm, he had put on everything he had. His outer layer was made up of a coat and overalls.
Under those was the football uniform he wore at Oxford, which consisted of running shorts, stockings and a flannel shirt. It made for an odd combination.
But it didn’t matter to Wilfred. He was on a mission.
His destination was 96 kilometres south of St. Anthony at Brent Island across Hare Bay and he was a blur as he went by.
He finally stopped at Lock’s Cove which was about one-third of the way into his journey to rest.
The next day he sped off once again.
Spring is a very dangerous time to be on the ice in Labrador as solid ice can turn to slush very quickly.
Locals told him to stay on the shore and not go onto the ice, but Wilfred didn’t heed their warnings.
To get to Brent Island quicker, he chose to go straight across Hare Bay.
Everything was fine until about a quarter of the way across, the dog sled began to sink in the slushy ice.
Wilfred tore off much of what he was wearing to lessen the weight, but the sled continued to sink as he urged the dogs forward.
Through sheer luck and thanks to the strength and determination of the dogs, Wilfred made it to a tiny ice pan, but it was too small to stay on safely.
A larger pan was located about 18 metres away, so Wilfred tied a rope to the lead dog and urged him to go to the other pan. The dog refused.
Wilfred grabbed a piece of ice and threw it at the larger pan and told his dog Jack to fetch it.
His trusted companion jumped in and swam to the other pan.
All seven dogs followed and pulled the smaller pan with Wilfred on it.
They were safer on the bigger piece of ice, but it was a case of getting out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Wilfred didn’t have matches, food, or water. He had also taken off his hat, coat, gloves, and overalls.
Soaking wet, Wilfred was in danger of dying of hypothermia. He had to get warm.
To survive, he did something that pained him to his core. And if you don’t want to hear it, I don’t blame you so skip ahead ten seconds.
He killed three of the dogs and made himself a blanket from their skins to stay warm.
That night, he huddled with the remaining dogs.
In the morning, he built a pole out of the legs of the dead dogs and attached fabric to the top for a rescue flag.
It was a grisly sight on that piece of ice as Wilfred shivered through the day and into the next night.
Even the most hardy and tough couldn’t survive in this situation for long.
Wilfred would have died on the ice if not for a truly remarkable sequence of events that are almost too wild to seem real.
If you saw what I’m about to share in a movie, or in a book, you would criticize the writer for adding such an unbelievable plot.
But it’s real. It happened.
For two days Wilfred drifted on the ice with his remaining dogs. Shivering in the cold, with no food or water, he was becoming delirious.
Then when all seemed lost, a man who knew nothing of Wilfred’s mission, or the sick boy, decided to go out with his telescope and look out at the ice-covered horizon of Hare Bay.
As he peered through it, he saw something.
At first, thought it was an illusion but then he realized what he was seeing and was shocked by the sight of a lone man, wrapped in animal skin, huddled around five dogs.
Next to them was a flagpole as blood stained the ice crimson.
Wilfred Grenfell was so famous to locals that the man immediately recognized him.
But that isn’t the most unbelievable part.
He was the only man on the entire coast who owned a telescope!
Seriously, I’m not making that up.
As soon as the man saw Wilfred, he alerted others who started to dig out a boat from the snow.
Darkness fell and rescue efforts had to wait until the next morning.
Venturing out into the ice filled waters was dangerous but for Wilfred they would have gone through hell to save him.
The man who piloted that boat was none other than the grandfather of the boy Wilfred was coming to help.
When they reached Wilfred, he was near death. They quickly forced tea down his throat and took him and the dogs back to shore.
Wilfred survived his ordeal, but barely.
Sadly, the child he was trying to save did not make it.
He would go on to write a book about the incident and titled it Adrift on an ice-pan.
It made him extremely famous as he became the epitome of a man who did everything, he could help others, including nearly dying.
It cemented him as saint-like in the minds of readers around the English-speaking world.
And Wilfred Grenfell never forgot the sacrifice of those three dogs.
At their graves he installed a plaque that said,
“Who gave their lives for me.”
For twenty years Wilfred Grenfell devoted himself to his work.
Every waking moment was spent either helping the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, or fundraising for them.
There was no time for a personal life.
But sometimes a personal life finds you whether you want it to or not.
In the later spring of 1908, a few weeks after his ordeal on the ice, Wilfred was travelling to the United States to receive honorary degrees from Harvard and Williams College.
His mother travelled from England to meet him at Harvard.
On his return trip to North America, he met Anna MacClanahan from Chicago.
She had just toured Europe and was the daughter of a Confederate officer in the American Civil War and the granddaughter of a judge.
She was part of the upper class of Chicago and as soon as he met her, in his brash style, he told her how her life as an aristocrat was empty and meaningless.
She told him that he didn’t even know her name.
He responded that he was only interested in her future name …. Grenfell.
You can’t say that he didn’t have overflowing confidence.
In reality, he had made a bold and incorrect assumption about Anna. She was far from an aristocrat who wanted nothing but a life of luxury. She said years later,
“All my life. I have been interested in reading of those who have made sacrifices for the general welfare of mankind. I realized when I became a young woman that if ever my heart was won, the conqueror must be more than a mere figure in society, or a successful business or professional man. When I met Dr. Grenfell, I realized at once that my ideal had been found.”
In November 1908, he and Anna wed at the Grace Episcopal Church in Chicago.
Their honeymoon was a trip up the Labrador coast that took nine days because of a blizzard.
When they eventually made it to St. Anthony, fireworks lit up the sky to welcome them.
They then took a sled from the dock as people cheered them in the streets.
Above them, a banner read,
“Welcome to our noble doctor and his bonnie bride!”
Wilfred may have been a rogue at work, but at home Anna’s word was law.
As soon as she moved into their large St. Anthony home, she told Wilfred he had to fix the leaky roof, which he did and said they needed a cook and staff.
She also insisted that there be formality in the home versus the previously relaxed atmosphere Wilfred enjoyed.
He agreed to everything.
She also took the brashness out of Wilfred and began to shape him into a man who could hob-nob with the upper-class.
She insisted he appear more professional, which would help in his fundraising.
His tweed jackets were gone, replaced with morning coats.
His socks now matched and his shoes were always shining.
He said,
“Anna told me I must dress properly because people expect it.”
While Anna often insisted that the people around her treat her in the fashion pertaining to her class, she was also very generous.
A woman worked a 16-hour day to prepare meals for an event to raise money for Workers Without Pay.
She was so exhausted she fell asleep in her clothes.
When she woke up, she feared she would be reprimanded, instead, Anna handed her an entire week’s worth of pay as a bonus.
Anna became completely involved in Wilfred’s work. She organized his fundraising tours and lectures, edited books for him and helped children in the area obtain scholarships.
Thanks in no small part to Anna, Wilfred became even more well known. By 1910, he was more famous than The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen he represented.
Possibly because of that, the mission council withdrew from Newfoundland and Labrador that same year, leaving Wilfred to continue his work without them.
Two years later, the International Grenfell Association was formed and quickly surpassed The Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen.
Within a few years, it had branches throughout Britain, the United States and Canada.
But hard times were coming not only for Newfoundland but the entire world.
The First World War brought massive death and destruction, and sparked huge social shifts, including women’s changing roles, but also deep disillusionment and economic devastation.
In Newfoundland, the price of fish plummeted, and as other food costs skyrocketed.
To help, the Grenfell Mission gave more as donations declined sharply.
Many people gave to the war effort, instead of humanitarian needs in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Wilfred Grenfell also felt he needed to do his part in the war.
Even though he was in his early-50s, Wilfred joined the Royal Army Medical Corps.
He received the rank of Major and reached the trenches of France in January 1916 and was stationed there for three months until he was sent back to Canada.
When the war ended, the four years of conflict had done nothing to diminish Wilfred Grenfell celebrity and a year later he published his autobiography, A Labrador Doctor.
It was a massive commercial success in 1919 and much of the sales went back into helping people in Labrador.
Four years later, mill owner Walter Haythornthwaite out of Lancashire, England attended a Wilfred Grenfell lecture and became inspired.
He wanted to create a fabric to honour him.
It would need to represent Wilfred Grenfell’s spirit and determination, while also able to withstand the climate of Labrador.
The cloth he created was densely woven and made of cotton. It was tough, water-resistant and lightweight. This 600-thread count cloth was presented to Wilfred to protect him in the snow, wind and cold weather while he did his work.
Today, Grenfell Cloth is still manufactured in England.
Meanwhile, by the mid-1920s, Wilfred Grenfell was slowing down after spending 30 years of his life helping others.
He was burning out, and the board of the International Grenfell Association suggested he take a holiday with Anna.
As he travelled through Asia the board proved they could run things without him because by now his fame had reached a level that others could raise money in his name and honours soon followed.
On July 25, 1927, he became Sir Wilfred Grenfell courtesy of King George V.
Anna gave up her American citizenship to receive the title of Dame.
But the couple didn’t stop in 1932, he wrote Forty Years for Labrador, and two years later published The Romance of Labrador.
But his health continued to suffer. He had frequent attacks of angina, which is a chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart. It depleted his energy, and his writing was heavily aided by Anna.
By 1935, he was experiencing chest pains on a regular basis. Walking was his only relief. To make matters worse, his memory was starting to slip.
That year, he retired from the International Grenfell Association.
He wrote of getting older,
“The idea that one is becoming useless is the greatest shock a real human organism can experience.”
Around this same time, Anna was diagnosed with cancer. While Wilfred knew she was ill, Anna typically hid how sick she was and continued to help him.
The couple eventually retired to their summer house in Vermont for their final years.
On Dec. 9, 1938, Anna wrote Wilfred a note that read.
“I’m going to leave today, I think, but I shall never be far away.”
With her ashes, Wilfred made his final journey to Labrador to deposit them in a rock face at St. Anthony.
After Anna’s death, he discovered she had preserved all his records, papers, drawings and photographs for future historians. Wilfred continued to decline. At times he forgot where Labrador even was and had trouble recognizing old friends.
He knew his end was near, but he did not seem to mind.
He had faced death many times in his life and he no longer feared it.
He wrote,
“When I actually was looking at death, sitting on that ice pan with no material hope whatever of ever seeing land again, I was just as keen about what I was going to see on the other side of the horizon as I was to get back and see what I thought I had left forever behind me.”
On Oct. 9, 1940, Wilfred Grenfell played a game of croquet with his secretary and professor. After the game, he went upstairs to have a nap.
He never woke up.
His ashes were taken to St. Anthony and placed in the same rock face next to Anna’s, overlooking the harbour.
Although he was gone, he would never be forgotten.
Thirty-five years after Wilfred died, a campus of the Memorial University of Newfoundland opened in Corner Brook. In 1979, four years after the campus opened, it was renamed for Wilfred Grenfell.
In 1978, The Sir Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Historical Society was formed. The organization bought Wilfred’s home at St. Anthony and restored it to serve as a museum honouring him.
Twenty years later the society built an interpretation centre in St. Anthony, with help from the International Grenfell Association.
Before I end this episode, I have one more story about Wilfred Grenfell and how his kindness inspired one Inuk girl to make a difference.
In 1890, near Rigolet, Labrador, Kirkina Mucko was born.
As a toddler, Kirkina fell through the ice while out with her father.
By the time they reached home, her legs were badly frozen, and her father was forced to amputate them with an axe.
She was taken to the hospital, where she met Wilfred Grenfell.
He helped her recover and he became someone she deeply respected.
For mobility her father made her leather pads that fitted to her stumps.
Meanwhile, Wilfred Grenfell raised money to buy her artificial legs.
By her mid-20s, she was working at the Grenfell Mission in St. Anthony, helping others just as she had been helped.
In 1916, she married a local trapper and had two children. Sadly, three years later, her husband and children were dead from the Spanish Flu.
But that didn’t stop Kirkina.
She wanted to help others and trained at Grenfell’s hospitals to be a nurse.
For the rest of her life, she helped hundreds of people with medical needs.
And others helped her. Crewmen with the Royal Canadian Air Force and US Air Force, stationed at Goose Bay, raised money to buy new artificial legs for her in 1950.
When those legs wore out by 1961, airmen once again replaced her limbs.
Kirkina died in 1970, and a women’s shelter in Labrador was named after her.
A little bit of kindness by Wilfred Grenfell to help an Inuk girl caused a humanitarian ripple effect that ended up helping many more people long after Wilfred’s own story had ended.
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