tales-of-Fogo-Island

That fire never went out. They brought wood and kept it going day andnight! One lady even made hooded flannelette jackets for the baby. Thishelped to keep him warm. In those days, everything we had washomemade. Other people helped by staying with the mother and child.The people were so good. They made my job much easier.In the early days, Nurse Cole would travel around the island on foot, by boat,horse, or by dog team. She never had trouble finding someone to take her tosee a patient. The people went out of their way to help. Travel in those dayswas not always easy, but it was usually safe. However, there were a few closecalls.Once, three of us were returning from Deep Bay on the salt water ice. Wewere traveling by dog-team and I was sitting on the sled. One man wasrunning ahead, sort of leading the dogs and another man was runningbehind, holding the sled and pushing it along. We were almost in FogoHarbour when the ice began to break up because there was such a bigsea. The ice ahead of us broke apart just as we came to it. The man infront with the dogs barely made it over the crack before it opened wide.For a moment, it looked like we were going into the water. As ithappened, the runners on the sled bridged the gap between the ice pansand kept us from falling in. That was a really close shave!In later years, a snowmobile was used for transportation during the wintermonths. Sometimes, it would get stuck in deep snow, and the passengers anddriver would have to shovel it out! However, the snowmobile was still a greathelp, especially when clinics were held in other communities on the island. Forexample, there was a clinic in Seldom every Tuesday and one in Joe Batt'sArm every Thursday.