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Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History

February 25, 2005

Feb. 29, 1920 - Robert Janes's Last Journey (Part 2 of 4)

Robert Janes had embarked on a difficult journey south from his trading post near Pond Inlet. Travelling by dog sled, with one Inuit guide, and heavily-laden sleds, he would travel through Admiralty Inlet, Igloolik, and the Keewatin coast to Churchill, and from there to Winnipeg, and on to St. John's. He had picked probably the coldest time of the year to begin such a journey. But the trip would be a long one and there was no time to spare by waiting for warmer weather.

On their third day of travel, Janes and his guide, Uuttukuttuk, rounded the southwestern tip of Bylot Island and entered Navy Board Inlet. There they met another native, Kaukuarjuk. There was no trouble between Janes and the Inuk - in fact, Kaukuarjuk provided the trader with some caribou meat - but there was a portent of things to come.

Janes raised the subject of his old enemy, Nuqallaq, and told Kaukuarjuk that Nuqallaq was no good, an indication that Janes continued to bear malice against the man who had slept with his mistress two years earlier. Ironically, when Kaukuarjuk, more lightly loaded and able to travel faster, left Janes and headed north, his destination was Nuqallaq's camp.

Uuttukuttuk's wife, who had accompanied her husband and Janes this far, wanted to continue with her husband on his long journey. Supplies of food in her camp were scarce near the end of a long winter of darkness, and her husband had little to leave for her. Native hunting patterns had been so severely disrupted by the Inuit's need to trap foxes for the competing traders in the district that privation was often the result.

But Janes needed speed on this trip, and could not be encumbered with a family accompanying his guide. Janes prevailed, and the following day the two men traveled on alone.

Travel was slow. By the end of February, the party was still in Navy Board Inlet. The trip so far had been plagued by bad weather. It was bitterly cold, minus 45 C at one point. Still, it was early and Janes was filled with optimism. His diary entry for the last day of February conveys no hint of despair.

Saturday, February 29

Strong westerly wind with heavy drift over ice. In Narrows about 6 miles to the north of us it blew a gale all day, too much so to make a move. The day was bitterly cold, 35 below. Sent native to hunt. Have returned at 4 p.m. with three partridge which gave us a good supper. We have a very good stock of meat, enough to last as far as Arctic Bay, Admiralty Inlet if favourable weather prevails. Not so bad in igloo considering the frost outside. Night fine, wind moderating, all well.

Away goes February. Taboutie.

Janes's "Taboutie" is the Inuktitut word "tavvauvutit" - "goodbye," with which he bid farewell to the month of February. To the Inuit this month was traditionally called "avunnivik" - "the month of miscarriages." Although the sun had returned over the horizon in the High Arctic, this was nonetheless the coldest month of the year. In particularly bad years, caribou often suffered miscarriages about this time.

Dog team travel provides plenty of time for reflection. And Robert Janes had plenty to think about. His relations with many of the Inuit had been rocky. He had bullied and threatened many, and extorted furs from a number of them after his trade goods had run out. He looked forward to leaving the Arctic and getting back to St. John's and the family he had not seen for almost four years.

His wife was caring for their twelve children. He thought fondly of them all and had nicknames for most. Among them were two boys who were his pride and joy, Ambrose and Eggerton - Janes called them "Ham and Egg." He was leaving behind Kalluk, the woman he had lived with (along with her real husband) for over three years, and who was pregnant with his child. And there was also an eight-year-old girl, Ataguttaq, whom he had sired on his first trip to the Arctic. He recognized her as his daughter and often provided her presents.

Continued next week.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.

February 18 , 2005

Feb. 24, 1920 — Robert Janes’s Last Journey (Part 1 of 4)

Robert Janes was born on Gooseberry Islands near Glovertown, Newfoundland, and first traveled to the Arctic as second mate on the Canadian government ship, Arctic, under the famous Captain Bernier in 1910. From the English term “second mate” came his Inuktitut name “sakirmiaq.”

In 1912, he returned north on an unsuccessful summer expedition in search of gold at Pond Inlet. Finally, he came back for the third time in 1916 and established a trading post west of Pond Inlet at Patricia River. But competition was intense. Two rivals already had trading posts nearby.

Janes quarreled with the Inuit and with the rival traders. In particular, he quarreled with an Inuit leader, Nuqallaq. At first they quarreled over a woman. Nuqallaq’s wife, Ullatitaq, tired of her husband’s cruel beatings, had committed suicide. Janes had left his wife, Leah, and twelve children behind in St. John’s.

Both men decided that they wanted an attractive young woman, Kalluk, who was married to Inuutiq, who worked for Janes. In fact, Janes, Kalluk and Inuutiq all lived together in a ménage-a-trois in Janes’s small shack. But Nuqallaq happened by from time to time when Janes was away. This situation eventually sorted itself out when Nuqallaq took another woman, Ataguttiaq, as his wife.

But Janes had problems with other Inuit over trade. He had liberally advanced goods on credit in the early days of his trading post, but had eventually run out of trade goods. He solved that problem by simply extorting furs from the Inuit at gunpoint. In the process he became a very unpopular man.

But his life took a decided turn for the worst in 1919 when his rival, Captain Henry Toke Munn — kapitaikuluk — arrived with supplies for his own post, and news for Janes. His backer in St. John’s had sold the ship. No relief was coming for Robert Janes. Munn and Janes were unable to agree on the terms of passage south, and Munn departed, leaving Janes behind.

The departure of Munn in the fall of 1919 left Robert Janes in northern Baffin Island to prepare for his fourth winter in the Arctic. One other white man shared the district with him, a Peterhead man, George Diament.

That winter, Janes concocted a desperate scheme to reach the South and home. With one native, Uuttukuttuk, as his guide and driver, he would go west through Eclipse Sound, north through Navy Board Inlet, and into Lancaster Sound to round the northern tip of Borden Peninsula. From there he would head south through Admiralty Inlet to Arctic Bay, where he hoped to meet natives and secure from them dog food sufficient to allow him to reach the Inuit camp at Igloolik in Foxe Basin.

He would secure more food from natives there and continue on to Repulse Bay. There he would dismiss Uuttukuttuk and hire another guide to take him that same spring along the Keewatin coast as far as Churchill and from there to the terminus of the Hudson Bay railroad. He would travel by train to Winnipeg. From there he would continue on to St. John’s. There he would charter a vessel to go back north to Patricia River to bring out the furs that he was leaving behind. His journey began on February 24, 1920.

Janes kept a daily diary on this, his last trip. Called “Record of Expedition to Hudson’s (sic) Bay,” it is for the most part a lucid recording of the journey, an optimistic account of a difficult trip on which temperatures reached as low as -45 F. Until the last two entries, there is no reference to trouble with any of the Inuit and no hint of the ill temper which had marred his previous relations with them. The diary describes starkly and sparely Robert Janes’s attempt to escape from his Arctic hell.

Monday, February 24

Calm and clear. Thermometer 36 below. Left station outward bound to try and reach civilization. Team eleven dogs, load about 800 pounds. Snow deep and going slow. At 3 p.m. cached half and sleighed till 11 p.m. when we reached south-west Bylot and put up for night in driver’s igloo.

That morning Robert Janes bid farewell to his mistress, Kalluk, and her husband, Inuutiq. Kalluk was heavy with Janes’s child, a child that Inuutiq would have the responsibility to feed and raise, and Janes knew that he would never see her again. It mattered little. He was on his way home to Leah and the large family that awaited his return in St. John’s.

To be continued...

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.

February 11 , 2005

Feb. 13, 1858 — The Birth of Sivutiksaq

KENN HARPER

In 1858 a couple living in Schwerin in northeastern Germany, Charles and Wilhelmina Duvel, gave birth to their fourth son, whom they named Wilhelm. This child would grow up to a life remarkably different from that of his siblings or, indeed, his countrymen.

When Wilhelm was two years old the family emigrated to New York City � a not unusual move for Europeans of the time, who saw America as the promised land.

Some of his siblings eventually changed the family surname from the Germanicsounding Duvel to Duval. This represented the first transformation in Wilhelm�s life; changing both first and last name, he became William Duval.

At age 21, he made another momentous decision. He shipped aboard an American vessel bound for the Arctic, and arrived in the hotbed of Arctic whaling, Cumberland Sound, in 1879.

A legend has grown up around the circumstances of Duval�s arrival in the Arctic. As a young man, the story goes, he was engaged to be married but wanted a year of adventure before settling down. Shipping north, he passed the winter in the Arctic. On his return to the United States, he learned that his fianc�e had married a clergyman in his absence. Despondent, he returned to the Arctic, vowing to remain there.

In fact, Duval�s first sojourn in the Arctic lasted four years, a time when he was usually employed as second helmsman aboard the schooner, Lizzie P. Simmonds. Finally, in 1883 he returned to the United States for a year. But the spell of the Arctic was in his blood and the following year he returned, this time to a whaling station at Spicer Island in Hudson Strait, moving the next year to another station at Cape Haven at the mouth of Frobisher Bay. He then went south for another year, but in 1887 he returned to the Arctic, and this time the move was permanent.

Duval spent many of his early Arctic years at the famous whaling station of Blacklead Island. Employed at one time or another by most of the companies active in Arctic whaling, he was known to Inuit by an Inuktitut name, Sivutiksaq, the harpooner. Like most of the whalers at Blacklead, Duval took an Inuk woman as his wife. With his first wife he had at least one child, a son, Killaq. The wife died, and Duval eventually took another wife, Aulaqiaq, with whom he had four more children. Two sons, Qakulluk and Natsiapik, did not reach adulthood. Two daughters, Tauki and Aluki, did. Tauki was childless, but Aluki had a number of children.

The Duval family lived at many locations in the Arctic � Albert Harbour near Pond Inlet, a winter in Admiralty Inlet, Durban Harbour south of Broughton Island, and two years on Southampton Island.

But always they returned to their beloved Cumberland Sound. Many whalers, Scottish and American, black and white, came to live and work in the Canadian Arctic. Most of those who stayed for any length of time took Inuit wives, and left behind Inuit children. Only one, William Duval, remained in the Arctic for the rest of his life and did not abandon his family.

Duval�s descendants are everywhere in the Baffin Region. In Pangnirtung and Iqaluit, the Akpalialuk, Battye and Duval families count him as their ancestor. In 1903 the Duval�s moved to North Baffin; when they returned to Cumberland Sound a few years later, Duval�s son, Killaq, remained there. With his wife Tatiggat, he had a daughter, Uisattiaq, who eventually moved to Resolute Bay, the grandmother of the Palluk family of that hamlet. Killaq and Tatiggat also had a son, Qangualuk, who famously disappeared on the shores of Foxe Basin in the winter of 1942-43. His descendants, the Siakuluk family, live in Hall Beach.

In the 1970s I met Bertha Krooss, an elderly spinster in New Jersey, William Duval�s niece, daughter of his sister, Minnie. All Duval�s siblings except Minnie had died childless, and Bertha was Minnie�s only child. �I am the last of my family,� she told me. �I have no relatives anywhere.�

Imagine her astonishment when I told her that she had dozens of relatives among the Inuit of Baffin Island. She had no idea that her uncle, whom she had met only twice in the 1920s, had any children. �He showed up here unexpectedly a few times with outlandish tales of living with the Eskimos,� she told me. In those days, a visit out of the Arctic meant spending a winter, and he often passed the time by taking his niece in to New York City to see the shows at Radio City Music Hall. But inter-racial marriages were a rarity in America at the time, and he never revealed the secret of his Inuit family.

William Duval � German, American, Canadian and almost Inuk � died at Usualuk, a camp near Pangnirtung, in 1931, surrounded by his family.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.

February 4 , 2005

February 10, 1922: A Circus of Formality

KENN HARPER

In March of 1920, Nuqallaq, an Inuit leader in northern Baffin Island, with the assistance of other Inuit, killed Robert Janes, a Newfoundland trader, near Cape Crauford at the entrance to Admiralty Inlet. The reasons are complex. In August of the following year, Staff Sergeant Albert Herbert Joy reached Pond Inlet on the Hudson's Bay Company ship, Baychimo. The Bay was establishing its most northerly fur trading post and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was simultaneously establishing a police detachment.

Headquarters' instructions to Joy were all-encompassing: "A detachment is to be established at Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, and you have been selected to take charge of it. You have been appointed a justice of the peace in the Northwest Territories, in which Baffin Island is situated; a coroner, a special officer of the customs, and a postmaster of a post office located at Pond Inlet."

On Dec. 26, on the first of his many famous Arctic patrols, Joy, travelling with a group of Inuit, disinterred Janes's body from its crude rock grave on the shores of Brodeur Peninsula and brought it back to Pond Inlet. On Jan. 21, 1922, he conducted an autopsy.

Justice had to be carried out properly, thought Joy. That meant forms to be filled out, informations to be sworn and notices served. With only four white men in the district, Joy arranged a circus of formalities to deal with the trappings of white man's law. On Jan. 23, he arranged that Wilfred Caron, an employee of another fur-trading company, would appear in his presence and swear an "Information to Hold Inquest." Joy then swore Wilfred Parsons of the Hudson's Bay Company in as "Special Constable," so that Parsons could then issue a "Warrant to Summon a Jury" to Joy himself, who then duly served a "Summons to Jury" to each of Caron, Parsons and the latter's assistant, Gaston Herodier.

Tellingly, Joy noted in his official report that these three were "all the competent men available as jurors." Joy had given no thought to including Inuit on the jury. Parsons, although now a member of the jury, was still a Special Constable and in that capacity he next served a "Summons to Witness" to Coroner Joy and to the three Inuit men, Urulu, Tuurnaq and Ululijarnaaq, who had accompanied Joy in recovering the body of the deceased.

On the same day that this flurry of paperwork was handled, the coroner's inquest opened at 4:30 in the afternoon. James Tooktosina, an Inuk from Labrador in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company, served as interpreter. With few buildings available, the inquest was held in the living room of the trading post. Other Inuit witnesses had to be called, and so there were numerous adjournments ordered by Coroner Joy so that he, in his role as Staff-Sergeant Joy, police officer, could summon the additional witnesses to testify. The inquest, in fact, went on until well into February. The Inuit who were summoned told what they knew of the events, and everything was duly interpreted for the benefit of the white men, who scrupulously noted everything said.

One can only wonder what impression this formality, this insistence on written testimony, this obsession with the trappings of southern justice, had on the Inuit. They cannot have understood the role that Joy, claiming to represent a country called Canada, would play in their lives and futures, and how he was different from the new traders, Parsons and Herodier. For now, they were all qallunaat, and the Inuit gave them all Inuktitut names. Parsons they dubbed "Nujaqanngittuq," the bald one. Herodier became known as "Ataataluk," the poor father. But Albert Herbert Joy was simply called "Saarjan," an attempt to pronounce his rank rather than his name.

On February 10, the jury retired and returned with its verdict in 20 minutes. It read:

"That the said Robert Janes was shot to death on or about the end of March in the year one thousand nine hundred and twenty, the precise date being to the jurors unknown, at Cape Crauford in the North-west Territories. And that the cause of his death was that Nuqallaq alias Qiugaarjuk, Eskimo, did feloniously and of his malice aforethought kill and murder the said Robert Janes by shooting him through the body and head with a rifle, from which he instantly died.

"And do so further say that Ululijarnaaq, Eskimo, and Aatitaaq, Eskimo, did feloniously and of their malice aforethought aid and abet the said Nuqallaq alias Qiugaarjuk in committing the said felonious act."

With a verdict in hand, Coroner Joy dismissed the jury the next day. Then, that same day, Parsons, acting again in his role as Special Constable, laid an Information and Complaint before Joy who now acted, not as police officer, but as Justice of the Peace. The complaint was against Nuqallaq, Ululijarnaaq and Aatitaaq for the murder of Robert Janes, contrary to section 263 of the Criminal Code. Later that day, Joy, still acting as Justice of the Peace, issued a Warrant to Apprehend for each of the three Inuit; he noted that these warrants were issued and "retained by me." In fact, Joy as Justice of the Peace had directed Joy as police officer to arrest the three men. They were later tried for murder.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.

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