Wilfred Grenfell: Fisher of Men (Christian Heroes: Then & Now) by Janet Benge & Geoff Benge

Author:Janet Benge & Geoff Benge [Benge, Janet & Benge, Geoff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography, History
ISBN: 9781576582923
Amazon: 1576582922
Barnesnoble: 1576582922
Goodreads: 1568799
Publisher: YWAM Publishing
Published: 2003-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

Seal Hunt

At noon on March 30, 1896, the church bells of St. John’s pealed loudly. Wilfred stood on the deck of the Greenland, crammed in alongside three hundred seal hunters. A huge cheer went up from them all as the bells rang out—the signal that the five-week seal-hunting season had officially begun. Ship sirens wailed and flags fluttered in the stiff breeze.

Finally, after years of hearing about it, Wilfred was on his way to a seal hunt. When he first arrived in St. John’s four years before, he learned that in mid-February huge ice pans broke off from the Arctic ice sheet and were driven south by the spring winds. Perched on these ice pans were hundreds of thousands of hood and harp seals that hitched a ride all the way to Belle Isle Strait, between Newfoundland and Labrador, where the winds died down and the ice pans bobbed about in one place. There the female seals gave birth to their whelps. The baby seals thrived on the ice pans, and within a month they weighed as much as fifty pounds. It was then, when the whelps were large enough to catch fish for themselves, that the seal-hunting season was declared open.

Steam was quickly raised, and soon twenty or more ships were jostling for position to clear the bottleneck exit of St. John’s Harbor. The Greenland took her place between the Neptune and the Windsor as she lined up to pass between the cliffs and race toward Belle Isle Strait for her share of the seal pelts.

With the exception of his doctor’s satchel, which he had slung over his shoulder, Wilfred looked just like his fellow seal hunters, dressed in thick woolen pants and jacket, fur cap, and knee-high boots. As the Greenland headed for open water, Wilfred moved among the seal hunters, reacquainting himself with those he had met before when they worked on fishing boats over the summer and introducing himself to unfamiliar faces. The atmosphere was electric; adrenaline ran high. If things went well, the sealers would have money to buy fishing equipment for the summer’s fishing. If things did not go well, they and their families would struggle until next year, when they would head out again for another chance at the seal pelts.

The Greenland made swift progress. The first night out from St. John’s, everyone who was not on watch slept on a straw mattress in the hold. It was a luxury to be inside. As soon as the holds started to fill with seal pelts, the crew would have to sling their mattresses down on the frozen deck and sleep there.

The next morning Wilfred was up bright and early. He did his usual exercise routine and followed it up with a dousing of icy water. As the others awoke, he lashed a ladder he had brought with him to the center mast. Then he climbed to the top rung, and with one arm hooked inside the rung for support against the rolling of the ship, he preached his first sermon of the voyage.

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