The Labradorians: Voices from the Land of Cain

The Labradorians: Voices from the Land of Cain (Breakwater) is another big compilation (500 pages), this one made by Lynne Fitzhugh from the pages of Them Days, a quarterly journal of oral history that has been published in Happy Valley, near Goose Bay in Labrador, since 1975. Most of the stories in this book are told by people of many cultures born between 1880 and 1930, and the range of personal history given is enormous. Much of what is told here is heartrending, and some is bloodcurdling. Surely the conditions of Labradorian life, possibly the least known of Canadian modes of being, are among the harshest in the world. This book, which is well edited, well footnoted and well produced, contains the raw material of epic, and belongs in the library of anyone who wishes to understand our hinterland roots.