Autobiographical collage by the well-known Canadian mariner, with emphasis on his obsession with the North. Introduction by E.T. [?] is dedicated to Bernier’s wife and gives a succinct summary of Bernier’s life including his four Canadian government expeditions to the North. He was a dedicated Catholic, a lifelong teetotaler, and put his faith in divine Providence.
p. 8, with little formal schooling, Bernier: …became later a student, a selfmade man, laid in a stock of books on all matters concerning the North and the discoveries generally, made numerous lectures and kept a voluminous correspondence. He was not short on matter either, for he had a diary of every day of his life and after he had been superintendent of the Quebec gaol, he had collected newspaper cuttings of every thing he was interested in and had blank books full of them.
p. 289: My term as governor of the Quebec gaol gave me the opportunity I had been seeking for so long, of concentrating on my Arctic studies. I fitted up one of the rooms of my lodging as a library, with shelves lining three of the walls. Soon these shelves were filled with books. I bought every new book, and many old ones, relating to the north, and my clippings from newspapers and magazines filled numerous scrapbooks.
p. 323, on his first Arctic voyage: The Moravian Brothers came on board and brought a lot of newspapers for which we were very thankful. This remarkable body of men has been established on the Labrador coast since 1765, when they were granted a large grant of land north and south of Nain. They have done good work among the natives.