John Burt and His Big Land Adventure......82 Years Ago

I received and email last night from my father with an attachment containing a magazine article written by my grandfather in 1980. It was a short story about his Big Land adventure 82 years ago. I remember hearing of his travels through Labrador from other people when I lived up there, but never knew all the details. John Mason Little Burt passed away when I was 19 years old, and being a self absorbed teenager living one day at time, I unfortunately never fully appreciated the precious little time I had with him. I never took the opportunity to hear of his adventures. To me, my grandfather was the guy who worked at Pomeroy's Store in St. Anthony.

Life is kind of cruel in a way, when you finally get to an age of where you can truely appreciate who your grandparents or parents are or were, it's too late.

Initially I thought the magazine article was written by someone else until I started reading it, and soon discovered it was in my grandfathers words. It was like hearing from him 25 years later. I'd love to be able to sit down with him now and talk about our shared experiences in Labrador. It being quite a bit more of a Big Land than it is now. In the fact that there were no roads, and 1000cc motorcycles to get around on.

The following was published in the magazine Them Days in 1980, when my grandfather was 70 years old.