It’s A Miracle They Survived
Completely unaware that they needed food, or winter clothing, and utterly ignorant to the fact that they needed to feed their domesticated animals it’s a wonder that the poor, naked, starving, Eskimos of the Canadian Arctic had even the strength to wonder why their dogs were getting skinny and dying until the government came along and saved them.
Can you imagine the arrogance of a society and government that would write such a thing?
Telling a people who had not only lived, but thrived, in the Arctic for thousands of years before Europeans quit burning people at the stake for questioning their holy men and figured out how not to sail off the edge of the earth, that they couldn’t survive without food or winter clothing?
I wonder how many people are aware that when the first Europeans finally did reach the Canadian Arctic that they were viewed by many in the same light as little kids — people to be coddled, and for whom allowances had to be made, because they had neither the common sense, or the skills, to survive on their own.
Without the winter cloths and food given to them by the people they encountered the first Europeans would have been little more than frozen explorersicles standing on the tundra…. something that, depending on where they stopped walking, could possibly have served as useful trail markers – at least until spring when they fell over.
If I used the word pathetic to describe it I’d be being overly kind.
It’s been noted before that there were two kinds of Arctic explorer; the ones who listened to and learned from the Inuit, and the ones who died.
Sir John Franklin was type B. To Sir John, the Inuit were interesting primitives in need of civilization and, of course, Christ. His men wore regulation british wool (which trapped moisture and froze), travelled with tons of tinned meat (some of which spoiled and poisoned his men), and abandoned ship with his silver tea set. His entire crew froze to death somewhere in the neighbourhood of Gjoa Haven.
John Rae was type A. He travelled alone or with a few Inuit companions, learned Inuktitut, hunted and foraged, built snow houses, and maintained a lifelong respect for Inuit and Cree. Consequently he became one of the most successful Arctic explorers in history, ranging across the Arctic, mapping the last stretch of the Northwest Passage, and uncovering much of the final story of the Franklin expedition.
Safe to say that most of the government folks around, including whoever wrote that useful memo, would probalby fall into type A as well.
What a Gem!
The sad thing is O.S. Finnie probably thought he was being a humanitarian, and was really doing a good job.
For what it’s worth, my father tells me of his youth, when he could never figure out why his stomach always hurt, why he was so weak and skinny, and why he was always so cold in the winter. Until one day, he was handed a flyer…
Do you have a date for this SL?
Sometime last year you guys posted something about John Rae here on SL.
I think it’s a shame that I never learned anything about Rae in school, he is not celebrated as a national hero, and his accomplishments are not celebrated nearly as much as those of Franklin.
“Until one day, he was handed a flyer…”
I often dream about that moment of first contact between our cultures, Throbbin’, when Martin Frobisher’s ships first drew up to the shores of Baffin Island, and the skeletal, starving Inuit dragged themselves toward them, moaning: “You guys got anything to EAT?”
Rae was villified in the British and American press because he passed along Inuit reports of evidence of cannibalism among the Franklin crew (which turned out to be quite accurate).
Lady Franklin was an incredibly strong, influential and charismatic woman who devoted her life to, first, the search for her husband, and then the burnishing of his reputation. Obviously reports of cannibalism within the Royal Navy could not possibly be true: so she enlisted no less an ally than Charles Dickens, who wrote a lengthy article mocking and disparaging Rae (and the Inuit reports), and that was that. Rae dropped out of history. Today everyone knows who John Franklin was (the guy who got lost and killed his entire crew looking for the Northwest Passage) , and almost no-one has heard of John Rae (the guy who actually mapped it.).
Ken McGoogan has written two great books about it all – Fatal Passage (about Rae) and Lady Franklin’s Revenge (about Lady Franklin). Both excellent.
There’s a “Jun 29 1931 University of Toronto Library” stamp on the copy I was given Throbbin. The original publication comes from the “North West Territories and Yukon Branch of the Department of the Interior Ottawa”, that’s as close as I can come to dating it.
I suppose you could get a publication date from (what I assume is) the inventory/issue number “N.W.T. No. 109″ on the bottom of the letter.
BTW, did you dad happen to mention anything at all about what people used to do with the “deer” that they killed? I mean, if it wasn’t for food or clothing could it have been an early version of first person shooter games, something to take their minds off being naked, cold, and hungry, maybe……..
An interesting find, stageleft. Very patronizing indeed. I don’t have much knowledge about our Inuit, but I suspect you’re right that having survived for 10,000 years without Europeans renders that list pretty useless.
“Telling a people who had not only lived, but thrived, in the Arctic for thousands of years…”
I’m surprised to see you make a rookie mistake of this magnitude, especially since this organ has chastised others for referring to the Inuit as First Nations, which they are not, since they have not, in fact, lived in the Arctic for thousands of years, but only immigrated to Canada fairly recently, only arriving in Nunavut in c.1000 AD, for example.
And when they came to Canada their whaling industry wreaked havoc on the ecosystem, they engaged in endemic warfare with the original inhabitants (Dene, Cree), and engaged in a wiping out of the existing Dorset people that can only be described as genocide.
You might find nunavutuncensored.blogspot.com interesting for a more complete picture of the current state of relations between various groups. Not pretty, especially this year with all that res school settlement money flowing this year.
My dear Ada Blackjack, please do some research. There is very solid archaeological proof of an inhabited Arctic by Palaeo-Eskimos over 2,200 years before three wise dudes on camels wandered across the desert to give presents to some kid in a manger…. for greater certainty, that’s early Bronze age era for those who ultimately colonized Canada and whose ancestors wrote that letter.
Please don’t bother trying to give me any northern pointers, or lessons, or bother explaining things to me. I spent over half my life living in various Nunavut communities, was living there long before Nunavut came into being, continue to work with and for the people of the Arctic, remain a regular traveller to the north both for work and for pleasure, and, unfortunately, have come across far to many people like the folks at nunavutuncensored.
Big hockey tournament in Rankin Inlet this month – it’s gonna be a real good time, you gonna go?
“Ada Blackjack” (actually the name of a remarkable woman who was the last survivor of the disastrous Wrangel Island expedition) appears to be one of those unhappy recent immigrants to Nunavut of a type you and I know very well, Stage.
The blog referred to has been up since December. The blog’s first post states: ” The concept of this blog is not intrinsically negative, and I’ll try to collect positive stories about Nunavut as well.”
First sentence, next post: “I hate First Air.”
Second post: How awful the Iqaluit municipal dump is.
Third post: A Nunavut flag with a swastika.
Fourth post: How awful education in Nunavut is.
Fifth post: NTI (the Inuit organization implementing the Inuit Land Claims Agreement) is an awful, racist organizations because they’re having a photo contest for Inuit (i.e. their membership).
Sixth post: the author had an awful time because it had to share a room while travelling in Nunavut in winter. Quel surprise.
Seventh post: the author hates the fact that it is still treated as a visitor after “three years” living in Nunavut. (note…maybe some of the Nunavummiut are reading your blog?)
Most recent post: the author thinks the RCMP should arrest a local teenager who is rumoured to have uttered “death threats” against a local principal.
Hmm. The blogger ain’t doing so good on that “positive stories” thing, are ya?
Some folks just aren’t cut out to live in Nunavut. I once hired a guy who arrived in Rankin, went to the hotel, failed to show up for his orientation and first day of work, and took the plane out to Winnipeg the next day. At the time I was flabbergasted, but eventually I was grateful – he would have turned into one of those teachers/nurses/writers who “think the land is beautiful” but hate everything, “know some wonderful Inuit” but don’t really feel comfortable unless bitching about “the Inuks” among their own clique of equally miserable southern expats), and live for Jim Bell’s weekly anti-GN rant. They didn’t have blogs in those days (just Stageleft’s Political Discussion Forum), so that opportunity to vent wasn’t available: mostly they just drank, bitched, and eventually moved south, where they became authorities on all things Arctic.
Incidentally, one of the things I noticed on that Nunavut blog was an astonishing degree of ignorance about the nature of a Land Claims Agreement. At one point the blogger and respondents were bitching because the Inuit organization that implements the Inuit claim, that is run and governed by Inuit, was holding a photo contest for Inuit. RACISM!!!
Stage and Throbbin, we should hang out over there a bit.
I really should have addressed other points last night, but we were late getting home from the hockey game (GO SENS GO!!) and I was a tad drowsy.
I’m sure you have a reference for this Ada Blackjack. Yes they had boats, and yes they had better hunting technology that the Tuniit, and yes they hunted whales – but as for having a “whaling industry” and wreaking “havoc on the ecosystem“, I want to see references.
Actually I don’t know of any significant warfare between the groups you mention…. there was tension that sometimes resulted in violence (I’m not sure I’d be able to reasonably describe it as endemic but I’m sure you have a reference to help us out), and although to be sure there was conflict between the Copper Inuit and the Chipewyan and the Yellowknives I don’t think that was ever described as endemic either.
Ah… actually, no, there was no genocide. Do a little of that research I mentioned earlier. Include the Tuniit of Southampton Island and Coates Island who died as a result of disease carried by whalers in the early 1900’s.
b, me thinks I will hang out there a bit although it looks to me that it’s the type of blog that won’t sustain itself for very long.
Yeah, I plan to contribute to some of the land claims threads.
“explorersicles”… Heh. Good one.
The battle is joined.
http://nunavutuncensored.blogspot.com/2007/12/racism-at-its-finest.html
How did I miss that?!?
I regularly search out Nunavut blogs, for a connection to home, to read the actual positive stories of people who move north who love the scenery AND the people, and some like Larrys who can’t seem to stand the place (which makes me wonder why they are living there).
Never been to nunavutunceosored, but at first glance it seems just dandy.
I’ll see you guys there!
And I am eagerly awaiting the references that Stageleft asked for from Ada. I’ve never heard this particular perspective before, and it would be a shame to let those statements go without some sort of prrof or evidence to back them up.
I note it was nominated at the Nunavut Blog awards. It could be a really interesting site: at first read, however, it feels a lot like sitting down with a bunch of really depressed teachers coming to the end of their contracts and counting the minutes till they leave.
I think you’re on the money there Balb.
It was nice to see some people commenting there who didn’t seem to hate every aspect of life in the north.
I plan on submitting an article to Nunavut Uncensored about my immense dislike for the dinner party circuit. Hope they print it.
Heh. Be sure to let me know.
In regard to comment 10, it was I that wrote the post on the state of education. I wrote it simply because the education must change. We cannot accept the status quo. Quite obviously it is not working. Unfortunately, I could not express some views on my own blog for fear of GN censorship. My latest post in fact, does discuss how all stakeholders are responsible for the state of education. I would make the same criticisms regardless of where I taught and not just because I happen to be in Nunavut. Any suggestions which you or any of your readers might have would naturally be most welcome.
Comment number 10 was a response to comment number 8, which suggested that Nunavutuncensored (which promises to provide “positive stories as well) would represent “a more complete picture”.
It does not. It’s pretty much a cataologue of Nunavut social problems by relatively new arrivals to the territory. It’s also peppered with posts that display a truly shocking ignorance about the nature of the Land Claim.
I don’t dispute the many challenges Nunavut is facing, Darcy. Believe me, I could tell you stories that would curl your hair. But an unremitting and unvaried focus on the negative isn’t “a complete picture”…it would be like orienting a Nunavut Newbie by giving them nothing but two years of Jim Bell’s editorials to read. Yikes.
I checked out the website (Comment 14).
It reminds me of some of the Boer (and some of the English too) in South Africa during the dismantling of the apartheid system who moaned about the injustice they now felt as they lost their privileged positions along with their hold on power and authority. They just couldn’t get used to the loss of superiority – their privileges of race and skin colour.
They bitched about initiatives and activities that did not recognize them — no matter how trivial — because of what it represented to them. It was all about them — and their sense of privilege today. But the past was a different country.
For myself, I have seldom seen such welcoming and generous people than northerners, regardless of pigmentation. The open doors. The empty chair. The silence, if that’s what you prefer. The bottomless pot of tea.
That’s not a romantic memory of the north. It’s what struck me as I compared the locked doors of my south, and the constant pressure to fill any void with even the most inane babble.
I also remember the flight to Iqaluit filled with dumb crackers and their lame, snide, sniveling, racial jokes, contrasted by the polite but stretched silence of their Inuit hosts. Why, I wondered, do they put up with such idiotic dolts?
I wondered if I should speak up on that and many other times. I had to keep reminding myself that I was a visitor in someone else’s homeland. It wasn’t my place to insult the hosts by assuming I knew better than they how to run their own house.