“A photograph. A cold and harsh place. The Moravian Church Mission ship the Harmony somewhere on the Labrador coast. Ice hardens the earth between the mission buildings. The date is 1907. Each year mission ships would sail from Greenland Dock in Rotherhithe to Stromness in Orkney to take on water and crew, waiting for a break in the Westerlies, beating out through the Hoy Sound for the voyage to St. John’s in Newfoundland, then north up the Labrador coast to the mission stations beyond Hamilton Inlet.Makkovik. Hopedale. Zoar. Nain. Okak. Hebron. Ramah. Killinik.The largely German missionary Brethren re-mapped the land with bleak toponyms and Biblical typologies that settled over the coast like a prophetic fog. ...”
Paul Schmidt, Rear view of Okak Station, with views of the Harmony in the Bay with an iceberg (1907).
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