After the attack the dogs became extremely aggressive and surly.  They were like a pack of fierce wolves.  No one about the place was safe, and the agent was compelled to shoot every animal in defense of human life.  Usually in Labrador when dogs are guilty of attacking people they are hung by the neck to a gibbet until dead, and left hanging for several days.  I have seen dogs thus hanging after execution.

When I left Davis Inlet Post of the Hudson’s Bay Company with my dog team one cold winter morning, a native trapper told me that he would follow later in the day and probably overtake me at the Moravian Mission Station at Hopedale.  We made half the journey to Hopedale that night and spent the night in a native cabin.  A storm was threatening the next morning, but, nevertheless, we set forward.  Shortly after midday the storm broke with a gale of wind and driving, smothering snow, and a temperature 30 degrees below zero.  Every moment it increased in fury, but fortunately we reached the mission station before it had reached its worst, and here remained stormbound for two days, during which time the trapper did not appear.

Later I learned that, with his wife and young son he left Davis Inlet a few hours after our departure.  After the storm had abated his dog team appeared at Davis Inlet, but he and his wife and child were not heard from.  A searching party set out, but could find no trace of the missing ones.

In the spring, when the snow had begun to melt, the komatik was found and scattered about it were human bones.  It was supposed that the man had halted to camp and await the passing of the storm.  Benumbed by the cold he had probably fallen among his dogs, and they had torn him to pieces, and with whetted appetite had then attacked and killed his wife and child.

These great wolf dogs of the north are quite different from those of the south.  It is doubtful if today a true Eskimo dog is to be found south of Sandwich Bay, and here and for a long distance north of Sandwich Bay many of the animals have mongrel blood in their veins.  They are smaller and inferior.  But from Sandwich Bay southward the difference is marked.

These southern dogs are faster, in a spurt of half a day or so, than the big wolf dog, but they lack size and strength, and therefore the staying powers that will carry them forward tirelessly day after day.  The strain of wolf in their blood often makes them vicious, but in general they respond to kindly treatment and may be petted like dogs the world over, and sometimes the natives make house dogs of their leaders.

The dogs of Newfoundland, such as Doctor Grenfell uses in his winter journeys in going out from St. Anthony to visit patients, are still a different type.  These are usually big lop-eared kindly fellows, and just as friendly as any dog in the world.  The laws of Newfoundland provide a heavy fine upon any one bringing upon the island a Labrador dog that is related even remotely to the husky wolf dog.