Glimpses #118: Wilfred Grenfell: The Doctor Who Went Out into the Cold

ounding feet carried the awful news down the frozen coast. Dr. Wilfred Grenfell was marooned on an ice pan with his sled dogs. The missionary physician had raced off to tend a sick boy. Despite warnings, he had taken a short-cut across the bay. Apparently the ice had broken under him and now his life was in desperate peril.

Faces were taut at the mission hospital. If the doctor died, their work was jeopardized. More than anyone, he had been the champion of Labrador's need. All anyone could do was pray and wait out the cold night. Rescue could not be attempted until light permitted. That is, if there was someone left to rescue. The wind was blowing the ice out to sea. Once past the headland, the ice must break up. Exposure might kill the doctor first.

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Still a Chance to Save Him!
Dawn came at last. "He's there," shouted someone. A telescope showed the doctor far too windward, but still within the shelter of the bay. Five brave men launched a boat and paddled into the swirl of ice. Again and again they had to haul their boat onto ice pans to prevent it from being crushed as the blocks of ice smashed into each other. Steadily they worked their way through sish (wind-packed snow) toward the stranded evangelist. At last they could make out his face, reddened by wind. He was clad in dog skins. Grenfell scrambled silently into the boat with his animals. The crew poured him tea and turned into the wind, straining for shore. At last Grenfell spoke. He apologized for the trouble he had caused. He told how his sled had sunk into sish he'd mistaken for ice, how he had cut the lines to the dogs and swum to the nearest pan. It was small, so he'd coaxed the dogs onto a larger pan twenty yards away. But tragically, as the night wore on, in order to escape freezing to death himself, he'd had to skin two of his dogs for their coats.

Finding the Ultimate Adventure
Wilfred Grenfell's brush with death on the ice pan was but one of many adventures in his strenuous life. The greatest was to follow Christ. "To follow Jesus Christ -- I believe more than ever -- that is the only real adventure of life," he wrote. His delight in adventure, combined with the dedicated support of thousands who responded to his pleas, uplifted a desolate region of earth. As a boy Grenfell had run and explored the Cheshire coast in England with abandon, climbing trees, leaping dunes, throwing himself into the undertow. He spent nights at sea with fishermen. One cold day when he was just eight, he stepped into a "puddle" to retrieve a bit of game he'd shot, and found himself in a deep hole. He lost his gun in the scramble to save his life. Not until he was twelve was he again allowed to shoot alone; and then, whether the weather was warm or freezing, he plunged into creek or sea to retrieve the game he shot. When he was sent to boarding school at fourteen, Grenfell chafed under new restrictions. Needless to say, he was one of those who sneaked over the walls when confinement seemed unendurable. To compensate for his loss of freedom, he played sports, and he played with fierce intensity. All his life he got snappish if he lost at anything.

As a Youth He Sees the Hard Side of Life
Grenfell's father was a Christian and a scholar. His was a practical faith which provided breakfast to fifty poor fishing village boys each school day. About the time Wilfred entered his teens, his father moved to the poverty-stricken east end of London to serve as hospital chaplain with the city poor. Wilfred saw first hand the effects of poverty and alcoholism and came into contact with the sick. He decided to become a doctor. At eighteen he entered London Hospital Medical School. Standards were low and Grenfell gave little attention to his class work, even paying a burser to mark him present when he was not. Sports alone fascinated him. The teams which gathered round him were awed by his ability to sustain punishing exercise such as swimming in ice-filled ponds. Cramming at the last minute, Grenfell passed his exams. He advanced to surgery. Under the discipline of the great surgeon Doctor Frederick Treves, he advanced his medical skills. Treves became his hero. When American evangelist Dwight L. Moody visited England, Grenfell attended a meeting and gave his life to Christ. Two years later, under the preaching of the Christian athlete, C. T. Studd, he renewed his consecration. His first forays into evangelism came in the slums. Asked to teach a Sunday school class, he gathered little urchins off the streets and trained them to box, to row, to build up their bodies. His efforts were out of place, he was told. The Sunday school asked him to leave. Grenfell rented his own building and continued to work. Many of his boys became Christians and grew to be useful men. Some were his close friends until death.

A "Fisher of Men" on the Rough North Sea
From the slums Grenfell went to the North Sea. At that time North Sea fishing was a hazardous enterprise that cost over 300 lives each year. There were no doctors. The wounded were transported home in small cutters with fish. Thrown about by wind and sea, their broken limbs were terribly damaged by the time they reached shore, sometimes days later. Grog ships called "copers" brought drink, pornography and tobacco to the sailors. To address this state of affairs, concerned citizens founded the Royal National Mission to Deep-Sea Fishermen. Their strategy was to offer music, decent literature, and the gospel as a substitute for the copers' wares. Doctor Treves spent a winter with the fishermen and urged Wilfred to join them. Without hesitation Wilfred agreed. Wilfred was the right choice. He tended the sick, shared sailor yarns, invented games, toiled over the catch, and preached on the decks. In this way he won many to Christ. Able to outwork the best of the fishermen, he gained their admiration. The fishermen adored him. They saw he lived his faith. Full of energy, he found new ways to extend the work. He committed the mission to building a clubhouse on shore. This was badly needed. As soon as the fishermen hit port, pressures mounted to squander their pay on drink to the neglect of their families. Grenfell offered an alternative. To help raise money he spoke wherever he could obtain an audience. His name began to grow in fame. For five years Grenfell worked among the North Sea fishermen.

Now on to Faraway Labrador
In 1892 Lord Southborough, returning from a visit to Canada, asked the mission to investigate conditions in Labrador. Grenfell was eager to go. The boat named The Albert was outfitted with a crew of six and Grenfell as doctor. After a stop at St. Johns, Newfoundland, he sailed north to join the fishing fleet. The Albert picked its way four hundred miles up a badly-charted coast. Within two months Grenfell had treated a thousand patients.

Reaching and Healing Remote and Hurting People
Poverty, ignorance, semi-starvation, and tuberculosis were rife. A barter-economy exposed the settlers to the mercy of traders. Although Church of England, Moravian, and Methodist missionaries worked among settlers and eskimos, spiritual vitality was in most places quite low. Grenfell saw that more than a hospital ship was needed. He vowed to demonstrate the difference Christianity could make and urged the mission to establish a work. Although suspecting that Wilfred's enthusiasm would push them further and faster than they wanted to go, the directors agreed. In 1893, the mission which would become known as the Labrador Medical Mission was born. That year Grenfell made a heroic journey of over 600 miles through largely uncharted waters, treating two thousand patients, saving many lives such as that of an eskimo girl who needed an emergency operation. He convinced the fishermen of St. Anthony to donate time to building themselves a hospital. The mission staffed it. Almost larger than life, Grenfell became legendary. At times it seemed he was the mission. Indeed Grenfell raised most of the Labrador mission's support through speaking tours, books, and the formation of associations. He convinced doctors and nurses to volunteer for frigid Labrador. Although not as visible as he, they were no less heroic.

So What's in a Name?
Grenfell became less venturesome after he married. Traveling aboard The Mauretania, he fell in love with a girl "because of the way she walked." Through an error he got her name wrong. When he reproved her for the frivolous life she was leading, she asked him how he dared scold her. "You don't even know my name." Grenfell replied that what her name was did not matter. He was only interested in what he hoped it was going to be. The upshot was that Anne married him and became an asset to the mission. They had three children before she died of cancer. In 1935, at age 70, Grenfell's robust mind began to fail. He retired. By then the mission had become self-perpetuating. It operated seven nursing stations, six hospitals, an institute for seamen, four hospital ships, several industrial centers, schools, and clothing distribution centers. He had also established cooperatives. He found a land which its inhabitants grimly nicknamed "The Land of Cain," and took away its curse.

• In one of Moody's meetings, C. T. Studd asked every person to stand who was on Christ's side. Among a group of boys from a reformatory ship, one rose, despite the hazing he knew he must take from his fellows. Grenfell was so impressed by this act of personal courage that he rose, too.
• When Grenfell reached the boat which was to carry him into the North Sea, it was so small that he almost turned back. What changed his mind was the hearty greeting and cheerful smile of the skipper inviting him aboard.
• "How infinitely more needed are unselfish deeds than orthodox words," said Grenfell.
• Grenfell's first North Sea voyage lasted two months. He never saw the deck or rigging free from ice and snow.
• Grenfell once chased a burglar who had broken into his house during Sunday service. Grenfell happened to be at home because he had contracted two black eyes in a football game.
• Slide shows with a "magic lantern" appealed to the eskimos and settlers of Labrador, so Grenfell frequently used them as well as phonographs as tools of his ministry.
• Grenfell wrote: "The Labrador has taught me one truth, which as a physician I never forget, that is, coddling is the terrible menace of civilization, and 'to endure hardness' is the best preparation for a good soldier."
• Grenfell tried the patience of a sea captain when he jumped overboard in mid-Atlantic to rescue a soccer ball kicked too enthusiastically.
• His first winter at St. Anthony, Grenfell covered 1500 miles by dogsled to doctor people. He could sometimes cover 75 miles in a day-- and sometimes less than five.