In Those Days: Inuit and Explorers

Kenn Harper

Description

In the fifth volume of the In Those Days: Collected Writings on Arctic History series, Kenn Harper shares tales of European explorers who came to the Arctic seeking adventure, riches, and the elusive Northwest Passage, and Inuit they encountered there. Inuit were invaluable in adding to Western knowledge of the Arctic, serving as guides, clothing-makers, and interpreters. But not every meeting was friendly. This collection sheds light on Inuit who played a pivotal role in the expeditions of some of the most famous Arctic explorers, including the unfortunate John Franklin. This volume also includes dozens of rare, historical photographs.

Sujets

• In Those Days: Collected Writings on Arctic History
• Polar Regions
• Histoire
• Esquimal
• Franklin's lost expedition
• Inuit
• Indigenous People's Day
• Indigenous
• Columbus Day
• Northwest Passage
• History
• John Franklin
• Iqaluit
• Nunavut
• Inuits

Informations

• Publié par: Inhabit Media
• Date de parution: 26 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781772274561
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

In Those Days
In Those Days
Collected Writtings on Arctic History
Book 5
Inuit and Explorers
by Kenn Harper
Inhabit Media
An image of the map of Canada. In the top-left corner is Alaska, with Point Barrow at the north of the state. To the east is Yukon, with Herschel Island at the north and Whitehorse at the south of the territory. To the east is the Northwest Territories, and from north to south are: Richard's Island, Banks Island, Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Victoria Island, Holman Island, Bear Lake, Fort Franklin, Fort Providence, and Great Bear Lake. To the east is Nunavut, and from north to south is: Cape Columbia; Ellesmere Island, Beitstad Glacier, Axel Heiberg Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, King Christain Island, Alexandra Fiord, Smith Sound, Melville Island, Grise Fiord, Craig Harbour, Resolute, Cape Sparbo, Devon Island, Beechey Island, Dundas Harbour, Lancaster Sound, Arctic Bay, Bylot Island, Button Point, Pond Inlet, Fort Ross, Bellot Strait, Prince Regent Inlet, Moffet Inlet, Kitikmeot Region, Cambridge Bay, Boothia Peninsula, Thom Bay, Pelly Bay. Fury and Hecla Strait, Baffin Island, Kudluktuk/Coppermine, Bloody Fall, King William Island, Gjoa Haven, Kugaaruk, Igluluk, Foxe Basin, Cumberland Sound, Naujaat/Repulse Bay, Kivalliq Region, Fullerton, Cape Dorset, Iqaluit, Tookoolito Inlet, Frobisher Bay, Bloody Point, Marble Island, Hudson Strait, and Arviat. Below Yukon is British Columbia. To the east is Alberta, with Fort Chipewan at the north. To the east is Saskatchewan, with Lake Athabasca at the north, and Cumberland House to the south. To the east is Manitoba, with Brochet, Churchill, and York Factory at the north. To the east is Ontario, with Fort Albany, Moose Factory, and James Bay at the north. To the east is Quebec: Cape Wolstenholme, Ungava Bay, Kuujjuaq/Fort Chimo, and Nunavuk Region are at the north; and Nastapoka Islands, Richmond Golf, Belcher Islands, Fort George, and Rupert House are along its west coast. To the east is Labrador, with Indian Harbour and the Labrador sea to the north, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the South. Hudson Bay is between Ontario and Quebec; the Arctic Ocean is north of Canada; Baffin Bay is above Baffin Island; and Davis Strait is east of Baffin Island. In the top-right corner of the map is Greenland (Denmark). Along its west coast, from north to south are: Thank God Harbor, Petermann Peninsula, Bessels Bay, Hannah Island, Anoritooq (with Kane Basin to the west), Etah, Neqi, Siorapaluk, Qaanaaq, North Star Bay, Cape York, Bushnan Island, Melville Bay, Devil's Thumb, Upernavik, Disko Bay, Egedesminde, Holsteinsborg/Sisimiut, Sukkertoppen/Maniitsoq, and Nuuk.
Published by Inhabit Media Inc.
www.inhabitmedia.com
Inhabit Media Inc. (Iqaluit) P.O. Box 11125, Iqaluit, Nunavut, X0A 1H0
Design and layout copyright © 2022 Inhabit Media Inc.
Text copyright © 2022 by Kenn Harper
Images copyright as indicated
Edited by Neil Christopher and Jessie Hale
Cover image: A portion of a photograph of a group of Inuit and sailors rescued from an ice floe in 1873. Source: Kenn Harper Collection.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrievable system, without written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of copyright law.
This project was made possible in part by the Government of Canada.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.
Printed in Canada.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Inuit and explorers / by Kenn Harper.
Names: Harper, Kenn, author.
Description: Series statement: In those days : collected writings on Arctic history ; book 5
Identifiers: Canadiana 20210370211 | ISBN 9781772274226 (softcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Inuit‚—First contact with Europeans‚—Canada, Northern. | LCSH: Inuit‚—Canada, Northern‚— History. | LCSH: Northwest Passage—Discovery and exploration. | LCSH: Northwest Passage—History. | LCSH: Canada, Northern—Discovery and exploration. | LCSH: Canada, Northern—History.
Classification: LCC E99.E7 H37 2022 | DDC 971.9004/9712—dc23
Table of Contents
Introduction
A Note on Word Choice
Preface
Collected Writings
Abduction: The “Countrie People” of Baffin Island Meet Martin Frobisher
“They Spake, But We Understood Them Not”: Christopher Hall’s Inuktitut Word List
“Take Heed of the Savage People”: Hudson’s Mutineers Meet the Inuit
Slaughter at Bloody Fall
The Return of The Dog-Children: Parry and Lyon at Iglulik
Parry’s Medallions
“A Greater Instance of Courage has not been Recorded”: Tatannuaq, the Peacemaker
First Encounter: The Nattilingmiut Meet John Ross
A Wooden Leg for Tulluahiu
“The Deep Footprints of Tired Men”: John Franklin’s Lost Expedition
“A Nice Steady Lad and a Favourite with his Tribe”: Albert One-Eye
Charles Dickens, John Rae, and the “Good Interpreter,” William Ouligbuck
Inuit Evidence in a British Court
A Fortuitous Meeting: Tookoolito and Ipiirvik, and Charles Francis Hall
Inuit Adrift: 1,500 Miles on an Ice Floe
An Inuit Plan to Find the North Pole
Robert Peary, the Inughuit, and the Iron Mountain
Minik, the New York Eskimo: A Victim of Peary’s Neglect
I Will Find a Way or Fake One: Robert Peary Claims the North Pole
Ittukusuk, Aapilak , and Daagtikoorsuaq: Travels with Dr. Cook
“The Trail That Is Always New”: Matthew Henson and his Inuit Family
Inughuit and the Myth of Crocker Land
Getting Away with Murder
Sovereignty 101: Captain Joseph-Elzéar Bernier and the Inuit
“We’re Going to Keep On Living”: Ruth Makpii Ipalook on Stefansson’s Karluk Expedition
“I Thank God for Living”: Ada Blackjack and Stefansson’s Wrangel Island Fiasco
Joe Panipakuttuk on the St. Roch: Through the Northwest Passage
Acknowledgements
Introduction
This is the fifth volume to result from a series of articles that I wrote over a decade and a half under the title Taissumani for the Northern newspaper Nunatsiaq New s. This volume presents stories of the interactions between Inuit and explorers, primarily in the Canadian Arctic but with a few digressions to Alaska, Greenland, and even Siberia. They are stories about culture contact—about interactions between two very different cultures. They tell of conflict and sometimes cooperation, about mutual confusions and sometimes understandings, about betrayal and loyalty. In researching some selections, I found an extensive paper trail; for others it is scanty. Inuit maintain some of these stories as part of their vibrant oral histories. We need to know these stories for a better understanding of the North today, and the events that made it what it is. They enhance our understanding of Northern people and contribute to our evolving appreciation of our shared history.
I lived in the Arctic for fifty years. My career has been varied; I’ve been a teacher, businessman, and consultant. I moved to the Arctic as a young man and worked for many years in small communities in the Qikiqtaaluk (then Baffin) region––one village where I lived had a population of only thirty-four. I also lived for two years in Qaanaaq, a community of five hundred in the remotest part of northern Greenland. Wherever I went, and whatever the job, I immersed myself in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit.
In those wonderful days before television became a staple of Northern life, I visited the elders of the communities. I listened to their stories, drank tea and talked with them, and heard their perspectives on a way of life that was quickly passing.
I was also a voracious reader on all subjects Northern, and learned the standard histories of the Arctic from the usual sources. But I also sought out the lesser-known books and articles that informed me about Northern people and their experiences. In the process I became an avid book collector and writer.
All the stories collected in this volume originally appeared in my column, Taissumani , in Nunatsiaq News . Taissumani means “long ago.” In colloquial English it might be glossed as “in those days,” which is the title of this series. The columns appeared online as well as in the print edition of the paper. Because of this, it came as a surprise to me to learn that I had an international readership. I know this because of the comments that readers have sent me. I say it was a surprise because I initially thought of the columns as being stories for Northerners. No one was writing popular history for a Northern audience, be it Indigenous or non-Indigenous, and so I had decided that I would write stories that would appeal to, and inform, Northern people. Because of where I have lived and learned, and my knowledge of Inuktitut, these stories would usually (but not always) be about the Inuit North. The fact that readers elsewhere in the world show an interest in my stories is not only personally gratifying to me, but should be satisfying to Northerners as well––the world is interested in the Arctic.
I began writing the series in January of 2005, and ended it temporarily in 2015. I began it again three years later. I write about events, people, or places that relate to Arctic history. Most of the stories—for that is what they are, and I am simply a storyteller—deal with northern Canada, but some are set elsewhere. My definition of the Arctic is loose––it covers the areas where Inuit live, and so includes the sub-Arctic. Sometimes I stray a little even from those boundaries. I don’t like restrictions, and Nunatsiaq News has given me free rein to write about what I think will interest its readers.
The stories are presented here substantially as they originally appeared in Taissumani , with the following cautions. Some stories that were originally presented in two or more parts have been presented here as single stories. A few stories are amalgamations from a number of columns. For most, the titles have