Labrador Room

We have it easy these days without doubt
Our life so soft and free of clout
Sometimes I think we should pause to scope
Out how our ancestors had to cope

Those fishing families of bye gone yore
Who fished the coast of Labrador
With meager existence hard times did loom
For a stationer and family on his Labrador room

Leaving from Brigus by steamer Kyle
In early June the trip did start
The first trip out covering many a mile
Til reaching destination and full of heart.

His premises were a house, stage, and bawn
A two bedroom cabin shingled and limed
His home a tilt of wood, rough sawn
Four windows with nary a curtain or blind

A diet of cod fish, salmon or char
And fish & brewis, and beans abound
Salt meat, and duff and gingerbread sweet
No eggs were ever sure to be found

Homemade remedies passed on down.
From local witch doctors on frequent stops.
Student doctors came by once a year
So named by natives as foreigner “wops’

NF Rangers visited once in the summer
They were the only police on the coast
In spite of that there was little crime
And of that all were so fond to boast

Thus the life of a Labrador stationer
From that hardy old Newfoundland stock
Now living his life in utter contentment
Back home on that dear old Newfoundland Rock


A poem about some of the living conditions of a typical “stationer” and his family from Newfoundland engaged in the summer fishery on the Labrador coast in the early 1900s. Stationers were families engaged in the fishery who lived ashore on their premises or room as opposed to those known as “floaters” who came by schooner and lived aboard.


John Cornick
Halifax, Nova Scotia

  Submitted By: John Cornick