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Updated: May 22, 2025
We sail on the "Harmony" to Labrador, and see the neatly built settlements, the fur-clad Missionary in his dog-drawn sledge, the hardy Eskimos, the squat little children at the village schools, the fathers and mothers at worship in the pointed church, the patients waiting their turn in the surgery in the hospital at Okak. We pass on to Alaska, and steam with the Brethren up the Kuskokwim River.
Okak, two days' travel south of Hebron, with a population of three hundred and twenty-nine, is the largest Eskimo village in Labrador and an important station of the Moravian missionaries. Besides the chapel, living apartments and store of the mission a neat, well- organized little hospital has just been opened by them and placed in charge of Dr. S. Hutton, an English physician.
It is a hundred miles from Okak to Nain and on the way the Kiglapait Mountain must be crossed, as the Atlantic ice outside is liable to be shattered at any time should an easterly gale blow, and there is no possible retreat and no opportunity to escape should one be caught upon it at such a time, as perpendicular cliffs rise sheer from the sea ice here.
Here I engaged, with the aid of the missionaries, Paulus Avalar and Boas Anton with twelve dogs to go with us to Nain, and after one day at Okak our march was resumed.
Even in Labrador there are many different dialects. The "Northerners," the people inhabiting the northwest arm of the peninsula, have many words that the Koksoagmiut do not understand. The intonation of the Ungava Eskimos, particularly the women, is like a plaint. At Okak they sing their words. Each settlement on the Atlantic coast has its own dialect. It is a difficult language to learn.
He also in- formed me that wolves had followed him all the way from Okak to Hebron, mingling with his dogs at night, but at Hebron had left his trail. At three o'clock we reached the summit of Lamson's Hill and began the perilous descent, where only the most expert maneuvering on the part of the Eskimos saved our komatik from being smashed.
The natives received them well. They erected a beacon on a hill, tarried but a few days and then turned back to Okak. Upon their return they gave glowing accounts of their reception by the natives and the great possibilities for profitable trade, but they did not deem it advisable themselves to extend their labors to that field.
The history of Fort Chimo extends back to the year 1811, when Kmoch and Kohlmeister, two of the Moravian Brethren of the Okak Mission on the Atlantic coast, in the course of their efforts for the conversion of the Eskimos to Christianity cruised into Ungava Bay, discovered the George River, which they named in honor of King George the Third, and then proceeded to the Koksoak, which they ascended to the point of the present settlement.
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