As stated before, the liveyeres and others than the Indians, build their cabins on the coast, usually on the shores of bays, but always by the salt water and where they can hear the sound of the sea.  Every man of them is a hunter or a fisherman or both, and the boys grow up with guns in their hands, and pulling at an oar or sailing a boat.  They begin as soon as they can walk to learn the ways of the wilderness and of the wild things that live in it, and they are good sailors and know a great deal about the sea and the fish while they are still wee lads.  That is to be their profession, and they are preparing for it.

The Labrador home of the liveyere usually contains two rooms, but occasionally three, though there are many, especially north of Hamilton Inlet, of but a single room.  All have an enclosed lean-to porch at the entrance.  This serves not only as a protection from drifting snow in winter, but as a place where stovewood is piled, dog harness and snowshoes are hung, and various articles stored.

In the cabin is a large wood-burning stove, the first and most important piece of furniture.  There is a home-made table and sometimes a home-made chair or two, though usually chests in which clothing and furs are stored are utilized also as seats.  A closet built at one side holds the meager supply of dishes.  On a mantelshelf the clock ticks, if the cabin boasts one, and by its side rests a well-thumbed Bible.

Bunks, built against the rear of the room, serve as beds.  If there is a second room, it supplies additional sleeping quarters, with bunks built against the walls as in the living room.  Travelers and visitors carry their own sleeping bags and bedding with them and sleep upon the floor.  This is the sort of bed Dr. Grenfell enjoys when sleeping at night in a liveyere’s home.

On the beams overhead are rifles and shotguns, always within easy reach, for a shot at some game may offer at any time.  The side walls of the cabins are papered with old newspapers, or illustrations cut from old magazines.

The more thrifty and cleanly scrub floors, tables, doors and all woodwork with soap and sand once a week, until everything is spotlessly clean.  But along the coast one comes upon cabins often enough that appear never to have had a cleaning day, and in which the odor of seal oil and fish is heavy.

Those of the Newfoundland fishermen that bring their families to the coast live in all sorts of cabins.  Some are well built and comfortable, while others are merely sod-covered huts with earthen floor.  These are occupied, however, only during the fishing season.  The fishermen move into them early in July and begin to leave them early in September.

As stated elsewhere, no farming can be done in Labrador, and the only way men can make a living is by hunting and fishing.  Eskimos seldom venture far inland on their hunting and trapping expeditions, but some of the liveyeres go fifty or sixty miles from the coast to set their traps, and some of those in Hamilton Inlet go up the Grand River for a distance of more than two hundred and fifty miles, and others go up the Nascaupee River for upwards of a hundred miles.