Tiqtiq+Dickens 2
Transcript of Tiqtiq+Dickens 2
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Tiqtiq, Brother Tadger, and Charles Dickens:The Theatre in the Round of Mackenzie Inuit Missions
1857-1863
(Short version, draft h)
Walter Vanast
McGill University
Intellectual Property
Corrections and suggestions invited
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Tiqtiq, Brother Tadger, and Charles Dickens:
The Theatre in the Round of Mackenzie Inuit Missions
1857-1863
Walter Vanast McGill University
Everything goeth, everything returneth . . .
for every here rolleth the ball turning there . . .
crooked is the path of eternity.1
F. Nietzsche
To arctic-coast tribes in pre-contact days history was a circle, as newborns received the
name of someone recently deceased and thereby became that person.2 But to whites who met
them it led straight from Adam to last judgment, when the dead would all rise and be assigned to
heaven or hell. How that was first heard in 1859 by a delegation of Mackenzie Inuit3 is the
subject of this article, as are the reasons it happened at Fort Simpson, a thousand miles south of
their home.4
A Troubled Decade:
The Hudsons Bay Company in the 1850s
The Hudsons Bay Company in the mid-century entered a difficult era, as an ending
loomed to its rights to Ruperts Land and the Northwest Territory, two immense terrains. Issued
in 1821 and valid for under twenty years, the licence to the latter had once been extended, but
free trade was in vogue by the time that was needed again. Showing doubt, Parliament submitted
the HBC to hearings in London.
Witnesses at that 1857 venue criticized Company conduct not only in the Territories, but
in Ruperts Land, the charter to which would expire in just over a decade. Most damaging of all
in that respect were plaints from residents of the Red River Settlement5
(later Winnipeg), who
chafed under HBC control.
Started for Scottish crofters forty years earlier, the Settlement had instead become a home
for retired Company employees and their mixed-blood descendants. Their farms by now
produced plentiful crops, many trades had developed, and private business was starting to
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growso they resented the Companys monopoly on commerce, and sought instant cancellation
of its charter.
To that end, a small group of the Settlements entrepreneurs had since 1846 drawn
attention to the fate of aboriginal peoples throughout fur-trade country. In an obvious ploy to
gain Britains support, they accused the Company6 of treating natives like slaves and refusing to
tell them of God. That meant (so they claimed by means of a legal pirouette) it had failed to meet
crucial obligations, and that therefore the charter was void.
Another means to get British attention was to state that the Company favoured Rome
over Canterbury, and that charge seemed valid if one looked at the Territory. In 1857 It held not
a single Protestant cleric, while Roman priests, Oblates of Mary Immaculate, had been present
more than half a decade and had gone as far north as Great Slave Lake.
It was there the next year, at Fort Resolution, that Father Henri Grollier arrived to put up
a permanent chapel.7
A driven man, nasty even to Oblates, he had asked permission from HBC
Governor Sir George Simpson to descend the Mackenzie, but a late response almost let an
Anglican cleric do it first.
The Reverend Hunter Leaves his Parish
About the time that Grollier started to build, Anglican reverend James Hunter, a fervent
evangelical, took leave from his Settlement parish. His reasons were several and some he could
not state, but it was a time of social turmoil and one senses he needed escape. Conflict had arisen
between Anglicans and Presbyterians (Pannekoek), and anger was high against the HBC, which
put the minister in an awkward position.
During a decade at posts8
further north, Hunter had formed warm ties with HBC men and
had married a daughter of Chief Factor Donald Ross and his wife Maria, a prominent couple.9
At
the Settlement, too, he got along fine with fur-trade staff, even as he saw that some Company
policies were unjust toward local residents. So he felt conflicted as its charter was challenged, its
licence put at risk, and its treatment of natives distorted in Britain.
Adding to the ministers woes was the Rev. Griffith Corbett , a fractious colleague with a
spotty past (Boreski), who preached rebellion against the HBC and supported claims it blocked
missionshe testified that year before the parliamentary committee.
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Ambition, too, pushed Hunters leave. Already an archdeacon,10
he might some day be in
line for the bishops position, and could raise the chance by blazing a path for new missions. But
the reason he gave in public, and in which he fiercely believed, was to battle Rome, whose
priests had set up base in the Territories and were about to reach the Mackenzie. His plan to
push right through them meant long absence from home (a fourth child was just born), but he
yearned to plant the cross among the Inuit. (1857, 1858a-c)
Sir John Franklin and the Ends of the Earth.
Hunters intended route played into whites fascination with the Arctic11
, as he would
follow the steps of naval officer Sir John Franklin, who had in 1826 explored the coast via the
Mackenzie. His ventures were well known, and even more so at midcentury were those of parties
trying to find him after he and his ships disappeared while looking for the Northwest Passage.
What also brought prestige was the Arctics meaning to Christians, for to them the last
phrase of Jesus Great Commission, unto the end of the world, was an order to tell of God at
the globes most distant sites.12
An Old Testament text, He shall have dominion also from sea to
sea, and from the river until the ends of the earth, was thought to presage it.13
That Hunters prospects were good was shown by a converted Inuk from east of
Hudsons Bay who had come to the Settlement and whose gentle ways confirmed his people as
the easiest of tribes to make Christian.14
Having him along might have helped evangelize the
Inuit of the Mackenzie, but he passed away, supposedly because of the climate. (Hunter 1858a)
The death did not blunt Hunters drive, for he also hoped to convert the Dene, the
Mackenzies Indians, who lived along the river south of the Delta, and who were said to be well
disposed toward accepting Christ. Hence his rush to get to Fort Simpson, HBC district
headquarters, where the officer in charge, Bernard Rogan Ross, had invited him in. (Hunter
1858b) They were friends from years both had spent at posts further south and besides, were
slated to be kin: Bernard planned eventually to marry Christina, younger sibling of Hunters
wife.15
Disappointment on the Mackenzie
In June Hunter left for the blessed work (1858d) on an HBC brigade (a flotilla of oar-
driven scows, each with a crew of twelve) and months later on Great Slave Lake met Father
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Grollier. The Oblate had been doing wellin addition to making headway among the Indians, he
had formalized the marriage of an HBC employee, Charles Gaudet, and his mixed-blood wife.16
Zealous as always and pained by seeing the enemy advance, the priest dropped his local work
and joined the boats to Fort Simpson. (Grollier)
All along the route the half-breed crews, Catholic descendents of voyageurs from
Quebec, helped the Dene pray with Father Grollier and accept his blessings. At Fort Simpson,
however, another dynamic took hold. When Indians there embraced the priest, Chief Trader Ross
at once sent him back to Great Slave Lake. (Grollier; Hunter 1858e)
Though Hunter now had the Mackenzie to himself, it brought no advantage, as natives
ignored his message and the mother-in- law of Charles Gaudet hurt his work. A forceful Mtisse,
she spread word that the minister was lhomme dune femme, a man linked to a wife, while the
priest belonged to God. (Grollier) Her tone that winter may have been extra harsh because
Gaudet had left the Roman faith and joined the Church of England.17
Career concern likely nudged the young mans shift. Recently promoted from labourer
status,18
he was the only Catholic officer in the district, while Chief Trader Ross19
hated all that
had to do with the pope.The switch was the ministers only success,
20and in July, as Father
Grollier sarcastically put it, he left in shame to rejoin his dear other half.
Hunters view of Inuit (1859), still based on hearsay, had by now greatly changed: rather
than peaceful and eager to learn, they thirsted for blood and were deceitful. Their urge to kill
would soon come into play, as they had vowed revenge against a Gwichin (a member of the
Dene tribe adjacent to the Delta) who had killed his Inuit wife. The threat was overblown if it
was true at all, but it kept the minister from going north beyond the Arctic Circle to Fort
McPherson, where Inuit had only recently begun to trade.
Inuit-Gwichin Conflict
Though a fur trade post (Fort Good Hope21
) had been present on the Lower Mackenzie
since 1804, Inuit never paid it a visit. What kept them away was fear of the Gwichin, who acted
as intermediaries in trade between them and whites, and who killed when that role was
threatened. Though each spring the two tribes spent time together at the Deltas southern edge,
sometimes for as much as a month, peace quickly ended if Inuit spoke of going to the post.22
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In 1840, when Fort McPherson opened on the Peel, closer to the Delta, Gwichin
massacred many Inuit men, women, and children. (H. Mackenzie) So effective was the message
to stay away that an Inuk brought from Hudsons Bay to aid with translation had nothing to do
and was removed.23 When his help were again offered in 1843, the clerk refused as he had no
contact whatever with Inuit. (Bell 1843).
Later that decade whenever Inuit approached the post, one or more were killed, which
made them think that whites gave Gwichin guns to kill them. (Richardson 214-15; Peers 1849).
In response the clerk sent gifts via Gwichin, hunters for the fort, to show his good will and tell
of his wish to meet them.24
The tactic worked despite a massacre (plotted by one of the
emissaries) of four Inuit25
; several men from the coast entered the fort in 1853, and each spring
thereafter a few more appeared. [ref.] Such visits from small bands, however, did not match the
Companys needs.
Lagging Business
Business at Fort McPherson had lagged since the 1847 founding across the mountains of
Fort Yukon, which had taken over trade with the western Gwichin. To raise intake of fur to
prior levels, there had to be much contact with Inuit. Problem was, if they came to Fort
McPherson in number, war with the Gwichin might occur. One solution was to place a post in
the Delta, but that Chief Trader Ross (1858) would not do without access to translation.
That interpreters were hard to find seems strange, for (as decades of Company records
show) peace between Inuit and Gwichin lasted longer than conflict, a Gwichin chief made an
annual trade journey into the Delta, and the two peoples lived side by side in spring.
Intermarriage also occurred, so for years these tribes had heard each other speak.
Similarly, some Gwichin had long traded at Fort Good Hope and Fort McPherson or
worked for those posts, and knew English well enough to interpret between it and the Inuits
language. But that skill, it appears, was lost at strategic times: when HBC clerks met Inuit in the
Delta, translation by Gwichin could be frustratingly poor.26
Children for the HBC
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To address these issues in 1858, Charles Gaudet, now in charge at Fort McPherson,
visited the Inuit in their homes. (Ross 1859) He enjoyed their hospitality, and got many pelts,
but on asking for a boy to take south to train, people needed time to reflect.
An average family, after all, consisted of a mother, a father, and two children who by age
ten helped with chores and hunts. Giving one up meant loss of labour now and of security in the
future, and besides, bonds of love were tight (except for orphans and youngsters taken in beyond
the infant stage, who might be treated as slaves).27
So to agree to the request, benefits had to be
major.
The following likely happened in winter and spring. The tribe chose to let two children
go, but in return wanted a fur-trade post to themselves. Then Gaudet told them their request
would carry more weight if put directly to Chief Trader Ross, and arranged for delegates to go
with him in July to Fort Simpsonan upstream journey of close to a month.
Gaudet did not know it, but his scheme nicely fit a command just written by Governor
Simpson (1859), who wanted a fort near the coast built at once. And since there was no
interpreter to send from Hudsons Bay, he instructed that the Inuit receive sufficient
inducement to let children be raised at a Company post. Cost for this and the new fort had no
limit. The open-ended commitment, foreign to his ways, was a calculated response to wounds the
Company had just suffered in Britain.
Theatre in London:
Charles Dickens and The Frozen Deep
For the HBC the tenor of the 1857 hearings could not have been worseand much of
that was of its own, unintended making. When two decades earlier the first expiry of the
Territory licence approached, the Company had stopped alcohol sales to natives, placed
missionaries on the trade route southwest of Hudsons Bay, and sent two of its men to explore
the Arctic shore.28
That last endeavour worked remarkably well, as large parts of the coast were
defined and new terrain was named after recently crowned Queen Victoria. As a result the
licence extension was smoothed and the Companys governors (George Simpson in North
America and his senior in England) were knighted.29
Given that success, exploration of the coast by HBC men had once again seemed an
excellent tactic prior to asking for a second licence renewal in the 1850sand besides, the
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search for Franklin and his men made for serendipitous timing. Where naval ships with large
crews and supplies had failed to learn their fate, small parties living off the land might succeed
and boost the Companys image. The initiative, however, brought the opposite of its intent. A
first effort, by the officer in charge of the Mackenzie District,30 produced little of note. A second,
by Chief Factor John Rae, who had been in charge there just before him (from 1849 to 1850),
brought a public relations disaster.
Travelling alone except for Inuit helpers, Rae learned that the last survivors from
Franklins ships had eaten dead fellow sailors before dying themselves. Rushing to England he
expected praise for his work, but instead faced anger, for the awful news could not be believed.
A campaign to discredit him and the Company was started by Franklins widow and boosted by
Charles Dickens, who wrote a play, The Frozen Deep, to show that British seamen were a heroic
lot and would never have engaged in anthropophagic acts. Queen Victoria came to see it and was
deeply touched. (McGoogan; Brannan).
The play was on stage in one part of London (with Dickens playing the most dramatic
role, each time breathing his last) while in another the parliamentary committee on the HBC
heard of high prices for trifles, blindness to native needs, failure to back missions, and payment
of sops to stifle clerics complaints. [ref.]
Sir George Simpson was made to look deceitful when he denied cannibalism occurred
among starving tribes and a letter was produced describing that very act by Gwichin outside the
gates at Fort McPherson.31
Matters were made worse by Rae, who botched his explanation of
Company profit, admitted he had never understood its tariff, and told that while in charge of the
Mackenzie he had ignored an order to lower what was charged for certain goods.32
Adding to the damage were jeremiads against the HBC,33 broadsides from the Aborigines
Protection Society (1856), complaints by naval figures involved in the search for Franklin,34
and
campaigns against it by several former employees.35 And since much of this alluded to the
Mackenzie (including claims of agricultural potential, which would make it a haven for colonists
and missions),36 the district became a focus of committee questions.
The Rupert Lands Charter at Risk
From the start, the hearings signalled non-renewal of the licence, and when that was
borne out, the HBC faced an even larger crisis: loss of its Ruperts Land charter in just over a
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decade if extension was not received. To have any hope, it had to regain public favour and raise
its repute among churchesand given what had been said in London, that required exemplary
behaviour not only in Ruperts Land, but along the Mackenzie.
Among other things, the Company would have to be seen trading vigorously with Inuit
(whom it was accused of ignoring) and helping to convert them and other far-off tribes. So the
governor in 1859 wrote to Chief Trader Ross, ordering him to aid missions to as great an extent
as he could.37
The HBCs role in the Territories, the letter explained, was no longer as ruling body, but
as a private entity. [ref?] Clerics would now be charged for travel and freight, but that did not
mean less assistancequite the contrary. William Kirkby, a new Anglican minister, would soon
arrive, and was to have free board at Fort Simpson while his house was constructed. Father
Grollier, too, would be going there, and was to stay till a boat left for the lower Mackenzie.
Chief Trader Ross received the letter in July when his brigade went south to the Methey
Portage38
to exchange the years furs for new goods.39
Debarking here was Archdeacon Hunter,
who was going home (where his daughter Maria died just before he arrived), and coming aboard
was the Reverend Kirkby. Whether he had an obsequious habit or wore his pants a particular
way is not clear, but something about him made fur-trade staff refer to him as Brother Tadger,
after a Dickens character in the Pickwick Papersa label that stuck the rest of his Mackenzie
career.40
On Great Slave Lake two weeks later Father Grollier joined the boats on their journey
back to Fort Simpson.41
Theatre at Fort Simpson:42
Inuit Delegates and the Art of Kneeling
Every summer at each Mackenzie District post, the clerks departure was timed so as to
reach Fort Simpson about the time the brigade returned from the Portage, and in 1859 that
worked remarkably well. Chief Trader Ross with Kirkby and Grollier aboard arrived on August
14, and Gaudet from Fort McPherson the next day. What made for excitement was the presence
on the latters boat of Tiqtiq (a chief) and four other Inuita man, a woman, their boy, and
Attngareq, a nine-year-old girl who had come without her parents.43
The crowd ashore44
was thrilled by the Inuits height, intelligence, good nature, exotic
dress, and remarkably fine looks. (Kirkby, 1859a) The children could easily pass for
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Europeans.45
Kirkby marvelled at so quickly seeing people from the coast. Here, he wrote in
his journal, is a new tribe to the Redeemer. May his glorious Kingdom be speedily established
among them.
The Mackenzie Inuit could not be gathered on farms (then a mainstay of mission tactics
in the South), but spent large parts of the year in permanent villages, which Kirkby considered
all so many facilities to the progress of the Gospel. (1859i) Already Chief Trader Ross had
invited him to the fort to be built nearby. Father Grollier had asked to go, but would not be
allowed.
Shortly after, Ross met the Inuit in the mess room, packed with observers, and told them
he would place a fort wherever they wished. But he needed an interpreter and asked that the boy
and girl be left with the minister for training. When the men agreed, Kirkby lept with joy. At
the sessions end the chief trader was about to hand out gifts when he had the minister do it
instead, as that would forge a link between cleric and future converts. (Kirkby 1859b)
Next morning, a Sunday, the Inuit came to worship in the same crowded space, standing
and kneeling46
as if they had been doing it for years (one wonders who coached them). Never
had Kirkby so strongly felt the gracious assistance of God.47
On Monday in Kirkbys room the visitors left nothing untouched. A clock and umbrella
intrigued them most, but they were not content just to look. Wanting goods to take home, they
made signs for knives, scissors, and needles, and Kirkby took them to the store and purchased it
all. Then, with the aid of a translator (a Gwichin who had come on the boat from Fort
McPherson), he spoke at length of salvation, intent on making them fully understand it and feel
it, so as to carry it back to their countrymen.( 1859c) That shows either that the Gwichin could
translate very well, or that the minister had no idea how few of his words were getting through
a common feature of nascent missions.
By Tuesday the men and the boy wore European suits, the girl a dress and bonnet newly
made by the tailor. But Kirkby (1859d) was aghast, for Father Grollier had hung a crucifix from
the neck of each, explained it was the child of the sun , and promised that if worn all the time
(like the amulets on their own clothes) it would protect them. Gaudet threw the crosses to the
ground while raising a hand as if in horror and disgust, later explaining this would prevent
such items from ever again being accepted.
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Not until Friday, when the Inuit boarded Gaudets boat, did the boy realize he was to
stay. Then he wailed so loudly and clung to his mother so tightly that, to Kirkbys distress
(1859e), she relented and took him along. Only Attngareq, without parents to appeal to, was left
behind.
At Fort McPherson weeks later a large group of Inuit met Gaudet and his passengers, and
when the delegates told of their excellent treatment, many offered to go the next year. Yet
matters related to Attngareq caused conflict, for Chief Trader Ross had sent her father a present,
which another Inuk wanted as well. At some point the girl had been given away by her family,
and the adoptive father thought the gift should go to him, as he was taking the greater loss. When
a fight was about to erupt, Gaudet (1860) wisely proposed the item be shared, to which the men
agreed.
Attngareq
Meanwhile Attngareq, the poor little Eskimo girl, stayed dull and withdrawn for
weeks. (Kirkby 1859f). The only one to comfort her was a Gwichin boy48
, an orphan from Fort
McPherson who spoke her language. Also acquainted with her tongue was a Gwichin woman49
at the fort, and it was with her that Attngareq stayed. Each day she and others went to the Rev.
Kirkbys school, and as they gained skill in saying letters and body parts, she cheered up. Smart
as the rest, she turned out perfectly happy and anxious to learn. (Kirkby 1859g-h)
Connection to home was further lost when Attngareqs name was changed to Maria. It
may at first have happened in a casual way, but become formal in March 1860 when Chief
Trader Ross ordered a start on a post for the Inuit. It was not, however, in the Delta as Tiqtiq had
hoped, but to the east on the Anderson River, at a site Ross thought would serve both nearby
Inuit and those on the Mackenzie.
Not realizing how far from her people that would be, Kirkby quickly baptized
Attngareq50
so staff at the new post could tell her friends. His journal (written for the eyes of the
Church Missionary Society in London) rapturously referred to her as the first fruit of a large
harvest that would soon be gathered into the heavenly garrison. (1860j-k)
The girls immersion in white ways increased the next year. In the 1860 summer
Christina Ross came north to marry the chief trader and when in spring their first child arrived
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she took in Attngareq as its nurse (Healy 1923). The arrangement worked well, for the girl was
good, intelligent, and obedient, learned with ease, and exactly followed instructions. 51
In addition to those breaks with her culture, Attngareq was denied the chance to meet
again with one of her fathers, a chief, who in 1861 at Fort McPherson let it be known he wanted
to see her. But permission for him to go by Company boat was several times delayed (Gaudet
1861, 1862; Ross 1861b) and in the end no reunion took place.52
For Attngareq that meant lack of news from home, a situation not helped by the
Reverend Kirkby. Despite his prediction of quick conversion, he did not visit the Inuit, and it
was by chance that three years later he met some near the Delta.53
Writing up the encounter for
the Smithsonian Institute, he claimed their good looks reflected high intellect, and backed it up
by telling of Attngareq. From knowing no English when she came under his wing, she now
spoke and wrote it well. (Kirkby 1865). That fine result, however, brought no help in
evangelizing her people.
Wife and Mother at Thirteen
Youngsters in the North became sexually active when still children by todays standard,
and whites took very young brides. As Franklin noted in the 1820s, The girls at the forts . . . are
frequently wives at 12 years of age, and mothers at 14, (Van Kirk, 101) and that is what
happened to Attngareq. Though Mrs. Ross got along with her so well she wanted to take her on
the familys journey to Britain, her husband refused because thirty-three-year-old William Brass,
one of his traders, wanted her for a wife. (Healey, 1923).
When the Rosses left Fort Simpson in 1862, Attngareq was once again without a family,
and it was then that Brass made Attngareq his mate. Their marriage the next year, when she was
pregnant with his child, was likely performed la faon du pays, i.e. via a signed HBC contract,
during Kirkbys absence.She gave birth to a boy at age thirteen.
The missionarys report of Attngareqs new status ( as far as earthly things go she has a
comfortable home for her future life) failed to hide his dismay. What made it hard to take was
that the newly-weds had been sent to a post far south of the treeline.54
Yet something good might
still happen, for if plans came through to transfer Brass to Fort McPherson, his new partner could
tell her poor countrymen something of Jesus.(Kirkby, 1862) None of that came about.
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Part II: LEnvoi
South of the Treeline
Governor Simpson did not live to see the outcome of his policy toward missions. He hadlong suffered a form of spells (Hargrave), and at the parliamentary hearings his memory failed
on several occasions.55
In 1859 he declared he would soon resign, and early the next year passed
away (Galbraith) while paralyzed from a stroke or multiple seizures.
Next to leave this world was Father Grollier. Shortly after meeting Tiqtiq and his group
he founded a mission at Fort Good Hope, and from there made journeys to Fort McPherson to
meet both Inuit and Gwichin. Shortness of breath felled him in 1864 at age thirty-eight.
(Carrire) He had never entered the Delta, yet Catholic hagiographies told how he realized his
ideal, which was to take the cross all the way to the Pole.(Champagne 121) The line
paraphrased what were said to have been his last words, and which were inscribed on his grave:
Jesus, I die content, for your standard has been raised unto the ends of the earth.56
Similar words marked Canadas founding three years later. When plans emerged to name
it a kingdom and the United States balked, the solution (a dominion) was found in a Bible text
that, as we saw, served as basis for missions: He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and
from the river until the ends of the earth.57
Given that heady mix of national pride with
Christian triumphalism, as well as colonists pressure for soil,58 the HBC recognized its charter
would not be renewed, and after negotiation surrendered its rights.
Charles Gaudet was promoted from postmaster to clerk in 1863. That same year he
moved to Good Hope, where his only white companions were priests who spoke French,59
the
language of his youth in Montreal. Soon he reverted to the Roman faith,60
but kept it a secret for
a decade. (Payment 5) The conversion did not stall his receiving, in 1878, the title of chief trader,
but it came without change in work, and he was never in charge of the district.61
He ran the Good
Hope post nearly five decades and throughout that time his wife was a pillar of the Catholic
Church.
Archdeacon Hunters Mackenzie journey did not lead to his becoming the next bishop of
the Northwest. In 1862 at the Red River Settlement he had to deal with a scandal involving Rev.
Corbett, the missionary62
who had urged rebellion against the HBC and had testified against it in
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London: after making a servant girl pregnant, the minister had repeatedly used his medical
training to try to abort the foetus. Much nastiness followed and contributed to Hunter being
denied the episcopal post. Returning overseas, he became a renowned London preacher. (Peel)
In 1881 Attngareq and her husband lived at Fort Nelson and had six surviving children,
the youngest age three.63 Near the centurys end they retired to southern Manitoba, and it was
there, at St. Andrews (the former parish of the Reverends Hunter and Kirkby in the Red River
Settlement), that she died on Jan. 20, 1897 and was buried beside the church. (Brownlee)
The Mackenzie Delta
For decades nothing came of missions to the Mackenzie Inuit. Some years clerics met
them in spring at Fort McPherson, and on occasion stayed in their homes in the Delta, yet
scandal, mental illness, low funds, lack of drive, fear of violence, or some other issue always
negated those efforts.64 That is not to say this explains the failure to gain convertsit may be
that no matter how strong the churches efforts, the Inuit were not yet ready to change belief.
The same might be said of extraction, the process of taking heathens to an established
white site, teaching them Bible truths and the evangelizers language, and then sending them
home to spread their new faith. After Attngareq other youths from the coast (one of whom was
named David Copperfield) stayed at HBC forts from time to time65
, but as far as one can tell
from surface events, exposure to divines and later contact with their own people never helped the
Christian cause.
Tiqtiqs people found little use for the fort on the Anderson River, which was too far
away and did not fit their spring migration through the southern Mackenzie Delta. When it
opened Chief Trader Ross (1861a) wrote that it would bring an important and lucrative trade,
but instead it took in few furs and led only to loss(Dallas 1863). Abandoned five years after
construction, it was burnt down by Inuit for the nails.66
It would be understandable if Tiqtiq felt bitter about his journey to Fort Simpson, for
despite Attngareqs remaining with whites, no fort had been built where he had asked. In 1871,
after yet another promise that one would soon go up, his tribe withheld their furs in anticipation.
(Hardisty 1871a, b)
When that time, too, the HBC reneged, and chose instead to send Gaudet into the Delta
with a boat, Inuit attacked and threw overboard the furs he had collected. The Company as a
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15
result abandoned what it had hoped would be an annual affair. (Hardisty 1872a, b). Promise of a
fort was again made from time to time, especially after American whalers in 1889 started trading
near the Delta, but it all came to naught.
Nowhere is it recorded whether Tiqtiq was with those who those who assaulted Gaudets
boat, but the next spring he was at Fort McPherson (PRJ 1873), where it seems he was well
known and probably visited yearly. There may have been times, however, when danger kept him
near home, as he played a central part in a feud that brought many murders.67
Also causing demise was epidemic illness. When it claimed Tiqtiqs wife in late 1885,
she was brought to Fort McPherson and lay frozen in the warehouse beside three Gwichin. (PRJ
1885) That she was taken there for eventual burial, rather than left above ground, was perhaps a
first sign of willingness to adopt Christian rites. It did not, however, point to quick reception of
the teachings of competing clerics, Oblate Father Camille Lefebvre and Anglican Reverend Isaac
Stringer68
, who approached them seven years later.
Details of the two mens faiths, let alone conflicts in dogma, eluded the Inuit, but they
heard a difference in tone. The priests hell-fire words soon led to his exclusion from their
homes, while Stringers calm approach won friendship and respect.69
Initially based at Fort McPherson, Stringer moved in 1897 to Herschel Island off the
Yukon coast, which the whalers had left for points further east. Living with wife and children in
the whaling companys house,70
he managed its trading post for natives and conducted his
mission. As during Tiqtiqs visit to Fort Simpson, commerce and Christianity were closely tied.
The End of the World
We dont know when Tiqtiq passed away, but around the time he lost his wife he had a
new daughter, Sukayak (the fast one), perhaps the offspring of a junior woman in his household.
71She worked for the Stringers in 1901, sewing beautiful caribou coats in which they were
photographed in the fall on the way home to Ontario, and in which years later they were received
by the king and queen in Britain.72
Just after the centurys turn Sukayak and her husband survived an epidemic that killed
eighty of the two hundred in their tribe, and on a summer tour in 1909 Stringer (now a bishop
based in the southern Yukon)73
held a hearty service, with many present, in their tent.74
During
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16
that trip a few adults were baptized, and by 1912 most Inuit in the region, including several
hundred who had moved there from Alaska, had joined the Anglican Church.
The Christian path of eachconfirmation, marriage, etc.can easily be traced from
Anglican records, including that of a second Tiqtiq, who in 1914 was one of a group who
volunteered to tell of Jesus to another tribe far east along on the coast. 75 In the same way that
Europeans had taken the gospel to the Delta, these new converts felt compelled to take it to the
end of their world. It could not happen just yet, as foul weather stopped their advance and ruined
the boat supplied by the mission, so it took other people and efforts. But in time the Great
Commissions final phrase was (in its geographic sense) fully effected.
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17
Archival Sources and Abbreviations
American Museum of Natural History, New York
R. M. Anderson photos (Anderson-Stefansson Expedition)
Anglican Church of Canada.
General Synod Archives, Toronto (Stringer Papers)
Public Archives of Alberta (Register of Baptisms etc.)
Dartmouth College Library
Stefansson Papers.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online DCBO
Hudsons Bay Company HBC or Company
Hudsons Bay Company Archives HBCA
Fort Simpson correspondence books.
Fort Good Hope post journal.
Peels River post (i.e. Fort McPherson) journal. PRJ
National Archives of Canada NAC
Church Mission Society Papers. CMS at NAC
R. M. Anderson 1910 photos.
Oblates of Mary Immaculate Archives, Rome
E. Petitot correspondence.
Old Dartmouth Historical Society
Whaling records.
Questions and answers by number at the parliamentary
committee hearings concerning the HBC, 1857. Q+A
Note concerning dates and names.
All correspondence is cited by year-day-month. Fort McPherson on the Peel was for most of the
nineteenth century referred to as Peels River post, or simply Peels River, nearly always
without the apostrophe. For the sake of clarity, Fort McPherson is used in the body of this article.
Citations
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18
1909-26 Registers of Eskimo Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and Death 190926.
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Ballantyne, Robert M.
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Boreski, Thomas G.
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1966 Under the Management of Charles Dickens: His Production of The Frozen
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2011 Personal Communication.
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1994 The Inupiat and the christianization of Arctic Alaska. Etudes/Inuit/Studies 18.1-
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2010 Pierre-Henri Grollier. Web. DCBO. 2010, 12, 10.
Coates, Ken S.
1991 Best Left As Indians: Native-White Relations in the Yukon Territory. McGill-
Queen's UP.
Coates, Kenneth.
1987 The Commerce of Discovery: The Hudson's Bay Company and the Simpson and
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Champagne , Joseph Etienne
1949 Les Missions Catholiques dans lOuest Canadien, 1818-1875. Ottawa: LInstitut
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Choquette, Robert
1995 The Oblate Assault on Canada's Northwest. Ottawa: U. of Ottawa P.
Cooper, Barry.
1988 Alexander Kennedy Isbister: A Respectable Critic of the Honourable Company.
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Dallas, A. G.
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David, Robert G.
2000 The Arctic in the British Imagination 1818-1914. Manchester: Manchester UP.
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1937 Mid Snow and Ice: The Apostles ofthe North-West. Buffalo: Missionary Oblates
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1849 An Examination of the Charter and Proceedings of the Hudson's Bay Company,
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Galbraith, John S.
2000 Sir George Simpson. DCBO. 2007, 11, 12.
Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on the Hudsons Bay
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1858 Report from the Select Committee together with the proceedings of the
committee, minutes of evidence, appendix, and index. London. Canadiana.org.
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Gaudet, Charles
1860 to William Kirkby, 1860 n.d. (received at Fort Simpson 1860, 19, 03 when Kirkby
transcribed it into his journal, q.v.)
1861 to Bernard Rogan Ross, 1861, 02, 02. HBCA B200/b/34
1862 to Ross, 1862, 09, 02. HBCA B200/b/34.
Grollier, Rvrend Pre.
1858 Missions Etrangres: Vicariat du Mackenzie, Souvenirs: rcit indit d'un voyage
du R. P. Grollier au Fort Simpson en 1858. Missions de la Congrgation des
Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immacule. March 1886, 409-19.
Hardisty
1871a to Andrew Flett at Peels River, 1871, 10, 03. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1
1871b to governor, 1871, 30, 11. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1
1872a to Donald A. Smith, 1872, 28, 02. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1
1872b to Donald A. Smith, 1872, 02, 12. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1
Hargrave, Letitia
[Date?] to [I must fill in name and date], in McLeod, Letters
Healey, W.J.
1923 Women of Red River: Being a Book Written from the Recollections of Women
from the Red River Era. Winnipeg: Womens Canadian Club, 1923. Web.
Hooper, Lieut. W. H.
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1853 Ten Months Among the The Tents of the Tuski, With Incidents of an Arctic Boat
Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, As Far As the Mackenzie River and
Cape Bathurst. London: John Murray (AMS Press, New York, 1976).
Hudsons Bay Company, Fort Good Hope journal.
1822-1834. HBCA, B/80/a/1-12.
Hudsons Bay Company, Peels River [i.e. Fort McPherson] journal (PRJ). HBCA.
1873 1873, 05, 06.
1885 1885, 04, 11.
Hunter, James
1857 to CMS 1857, 04, 11. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
1858a to CMS, 1858, 11, 02. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
1858b to CMS, 1858, 09, 04. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
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1858d Journal, 1858, 08, 06. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
1858e Journal, 1858, 11, 08. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
1858f Journal, 1858, 16, 08. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.
1859 to CMS, 1858, 30, 11. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A80
Isbister, Alexander Kennedy
1846 A few Words on the Hudson's Bay Company; with a Statement of the Grievances
of the Native an Half-Caste Indians, Addressed to the British Government through
their Delegates now in London. London. Pamphlet. Web. Canadiana.org
Kennicott, Robert
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1859 to Spencer Baird, 1859, 17, 11. Smithsonian Institute Archives, RU 7215, box 13.
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Kirkby, William West
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1859h Journal, 1859, 09, 09. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.
1859i Journal, 1859, 10, 11. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.
1860a Journal, 1860, 19, 03. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.
1860b Journal, 1860, 25, 03. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.
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1865 A Journey to the Youcan Russian America. Smithsonian Institution Annual
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Lewes, John
1842 to Governor Simpson, 1842, 07, 09. HBCA B200/b/16.
1843 to Governor Simpson, 1843,30, 07. HBCA B200/b/19.
Levasseur, Donat
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1932 John McLean's Notes of a Twenty-Five Year's Service in the Hudson's Bay
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1852 1852, 31, 08. NAC source as above.
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Porter, Andrew
1985 Commerce and Christianity: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-Century
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1983 Commerce and Christianity: Providence Theory, the Missionary Movement,
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2011 Oblate Defeat. Father Camille Lefebvre, Reverend Isaac Stringer and the
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Van Kirk, Sylvia
1983 Many TenderTies. University of Oklahoma Press.
1These words open an address by Zarathustras animals during his convalescence: Everything
goeth, everything returneth; eternity rolleth the wheel of existence. Everything dieth, everything
blossometh forth again; eternally runneth the wheel of existence. Everything breaketh,
everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth itself the house of existence. All things separate,
all things again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of existence. Every
moment beginneth existence, around every ball Here rolleth the ball There. The middle is
everywhere. Crooked is the path of eternity. [source?]
2What was given to the child was the name-spirit, which needed a home after its prior owner had
died, and which could create havoc or illness if not given refuge. See Stefansson [get reference]
3 Until the late nineteenth century only Inuit from the Deltas eastern side came each spring to its
southern tip, and it is they who are the actors in this account. Whites in the 1890s sometimesrefer to them as Kukpugmiut, i.e. people of the large water, a name the tribe applied to itself.
Some modern authors name them as just one of several original Eastern Delta groups, which
include the Kittegaryumiut (McGhee 9). For an excellent, well illustrated history of the
Inuvialuit see Alunik et al., Across Time andTundra.
4Porter describes Britons providential view of the conjuncture of Christianity and commerce.
Stanley tells why it was expected to reach complete consummation between 1857 and 1860
and why that failed.
5Settlement hereafter.
6Via their spokesman in London, Alexander Kennedy Isbister.
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31
7For early Oblate work in the Territories see Levasseur, ch. 5, Jusqau Grand Nord.
8Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan.
9 For many years Donald Ross was in charge of Norway House, a major HBC transport hub and
depot.
10 Archdeacon since 1853, Hunter was secretary of Northwest missions for the Church Mission
Society. In 1855 after study in England he gained A Lambert M.A. from the Archbishop of
Canterbury. His bishop was James Anderson.
11For British fascination with the Arctic see David, The Arctic, a turgid, almost impenetrable
academic tome.
12The Great Commission, KJV Matthew 28:18-20, All power is given unto me in heaven and in
earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded
you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. The New Century Version
translates the last words as the end of this age."
13Psalms 72:8, KJV. The idea for this line comes from Martha McCarthys From the Great
Riverto the Ends ofthe Earth, a superbly researched, fluid account of Mackenzie Dene missions.
14Hunter (1857) had years earlier heard these kind comments about Inuit of the Hudsons Bay
region from HBC surgeon Dr. John Rae, and was unaware of his harsh view of Mackenzie Inuit,
met during his 1848 Franklin search expedition with John Richardson.
15At Norway House, a major transport hub and depot on the trade route southwest of Hudsons
Bay.
16 The wife was Marie Fisher. See Payment.
17 Mr. Gaudet was last year admitted into the Church of England by Archdn. Hunter. (Kirkby
1859b)
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18Gaudet was then postmaster, the lowest officer rank. The next levels are clerk, chief trader,
and chief factor. In this article, unless stated otherwise, chief trader designates both the title and
the responsibility for the district.
19 Ross was from Ireland (HBCPS) and a fervent Orangist, i.e. a member of the Orange Order,
or Orange Lodge, founded in 1796 by Irish Protestants at a time of intense sectarian strife. The
name refers to William of Orange, the Dutch prince who became King of England, Scotland, and
Ireland in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and who two years later defeated Catholic James II
in Ireland at the Battle of the Boyne. (Wikipedia).
20 A few Dene joined the Anglican faith, but only briefly.
21 The first Fort Good Hope, was located on the Mackenzie a few days travel from the Delta; in
the late 1820s it was moved a weeks travel upstream to just south of the Arctic Circle.
22Early in the century, when Fort Good Hope belonged to the Northwest Company, Gwichin
profited from war with Inuit, for they received gifts from the post to end it. Such was the case in
1817 and 1819 when Peter Dease was in charge. (Simpson 102) For conflict and contact between
the tribes after 1821 see the Good Hope Journal (1822, 16, 10, HBCA B80/a/1; 1826, 22, 06 and
1826, 08, 09, B80/a/5; 1828, 20, 09, B80/a/7; 1829, 20, 06 and 1829, 21, 07, B80/a/8; 1830, 22,
06, B80/a/9; 1834, 23, 06 and 1834, 23, 08 and 1834, 14, 09, B80/a/12) and the Fort Simpson
correspondence books: Brisebois 1825, Bell 1826, 1829, 1830, 1831a and b; Smith 1826, 1830a
and b, 1831, 1832.
23Oulibuck had been with Dease and Simpson during their late-1830s explorations along the
coast, starting from the Mackenzie. He spent the 1840-41 trade year at McPherson (McPherson
1840), and it may be there that his wife and two children joined him. In 1841 he was sent to Fort
Simpson (Bell 1841), where he stayed the next two years (Lewes 1842). After Clerk John Bell
(1843) refused his services, he was sent to Norway House, whence he made their way home.
(Lewes 1843).
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24It may have helped that about that time British parties looking for Franklin traversed the Delta
and acted with restraint. In 1848, for example, Dr. John Richardson traded with the Inuit and did
not fire when they swarmed the boats.
25 The killings took place at Separation Point, at the Deltas southern point. When Inuit met an
HBC boat near the Peel, the Gwichin (led by a man who had been an HBC emissary) ensured
they would not get invited to Fort McPherson: The Indians first traded all the bows and arrows
of their foes then crept into the surrounding bushes and deliberately shot them (Bell 1850).
26For translation problems see J. Anderson 1852a and b; A. Mackenzie 1855; Ross 1858 and
1859.
27 See Nuligak, 13, 30, 32, 54, 58, 120, 127, for the tale of his 1890-1910 youth as a poor
orphan.
28Peter Dease and Thomas Simpson. Barr gives an exquisite introduction to his edition of
Deases diary.
29 See Fitzgeralds sarcastic 1849 comments (119-120) on HBC tactics prior to the licence
renewal. Coates has discussed the self-serving aspects of the HBCs 1836-39 Dease and Simpson
explorations.
30James Anderson, to whom Gov. Simpsons instructions ended with the line I rely on you
sparing no effort to distinguish yourselves by success and so to secure for the Honourable
Company and their [sic] officers the approbation of Her Majestys Government and the English
public (1854)
31On being read an account by William Kennedy of cannibalism in Labrador, Simpson had
insisted (Q+A 1558-1564) that famine was never severe enough to bring such ends. The letter
read to him (Q+A 1606-7) re Peels River was from John Ballantynes 1848 adventure book
Hudsons Bay. A former HBC clerk, Ballantyne had not been to the Mackenzie, but had a friend
in the district. Besides, when he left the Northwest he traveled to Montreal with HBC foe John
MacLean, author of a work highly critical of the HBC.
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32All Raes testimony: Q+A 365-696; not understanding the tariff: 482-484; not lowering prices:
532.
33
34Naval Lieutenant W. H. Hooper told in 1853 (366-74) of an HBC mans part in a massacre of
Inuit by Gwichin. Naval Surgeon Armstrong 1857 (155, 167, 198) praised the Inuit and pointed
out that clergy had done good work among them on the Labrador coast, yet none could be found
on the Arctic Coast.
35 Thomas Kennedy, Isbisters young uncle, after leaving the HBC led searches for Franklin
sponsored by the latters widow, whipped up opposition in Upper Canada to the Companys
monopoly, and spoke to Toronto businessmen about the Mackenzies wasted riches (Aborigines
Protection Society). Like Fitzgerald, he had not been in that district and likely got his
information from McLean and Isbister. Kennedy and McLean had both worked for the HBC in
Ungava, and after leaving the Company lived near each other in southern Ontario.
36The charge that the HBC blocked missions related closely to claims that the Mackenzie could
support agriculture. If true, it meant that natives could change from a nomadic life to farming,
then considered a sine-qua-non to native conversion. James E. Fitzgeralds 1849 jeremiad against
the HBC commented (119-20) on the Mackenzies fine weather and soil, even at Peels River,
and McLeans book backed him up. General Sir John Lefroy, an expert on magnetic force, who
had passed 1843-44 in the Mackenzie District, denied at the hearings (Q+A 158-364) that
farming there could support colonists, yet on a final note (Q+A 361) mentioned he had shared
the HBC boats with cattle, which were kept at several posts.
37By aiding Rome the HBC might offend evangelicals, but it had other power groups (including
Catholics in Lower Canada) to consider. To show an even hand, the Company fostered comity
by helping Anglicans set up at certain posts, Catholics, at others. It was not a policy that could
last.
38Also known as Portage La Loche, or the Grand Portage, twelve miles long, in what is now
northern Saskatchewan.
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39A trade year started June 1.
40 There are at the post Mr. Ross, Mr. Onion a clerk, Mr. Kirkby an Episcopal clergyman (of
Church Missionary Society) nicknamed Brother Tadger (see Mr. Wellers friend in Pickwick
papers) and myself, for gentlemen. (Kennicott 1859). 1
41Kirkby had with him John Hope, a young mixed-blood teacher from the Settlement, where he
was a recent graduate of the St. Johns Academy, which had Anglican staff.
42 In theatre-in-the-round, actors address not only each other but the audience (distant in this
case) that set their lines. The concept as applied to native-white encounters come from several
sources. Mission work, Noel Dyck (1980) first suggested, was like a morality play 1980). While
improving tribal ways, clerics also touched an audience at home. Values conveyed were those
of Europeans, to whom at the same time they gave cause for imitation. Jennifer Brown
broadened the concept to traders. Like clerics, they were deeply involved in directing,
orchestrating, and acting out a script. For both missionaries and HBC clerks it was theatre-in-
the-round, watched by indigenous peoples on one side, directors, share-holders, and the church-
going public on the other. And natives, one might add, were all along staging plays of their own;
newcomers and original peoples were actors in each others simultaneous dramas.
43 Kirkby journal, CMS reel A93, NAC. The girls age: 1859, 08, 09; the rest of the paragraph,
1859, 15, 08. Tiktiks name, 1860, 19, 03.
44Over a hundred people were present, including crews of boats from most district posts to pick
up goods, and those of the chief traders brigade (who spent winter at the Mackenzies Big
Island).
45One might postulate this had something to do with sailors contact with Inuit during the
searches for Franklin).
Sir John Richardson had passed through the Deltas Eastern Channel in1848 and had close contact with its people, and overt descriptions of sex between sailors and
native women by other parties off the coast (though further west) were put to paper in subsequent
years . In 1849 an orgy on the ice by the Alaska Coast (while Lieutenant Pullen, the officer in
charge was briefly absent) was indulged in by his subordinate and nearly all the men, and was
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halted when a sudden break in the ice caused a number of very ludicrous exposes. And when
the ship Ploverwintered near the Behring Strait that year, the captain kept an Esquimaux girl in
his cabin for purposes that were but too evident. Officers and crew followed the example. (Rae,
1851) Numerous others undoubtedly occurred, but were not recorded. That young Mackenzie
Inuit girls were beautiful and sexually desirable, however, was not something recent. Richardson
had also come through the Eastern Delta in 1826, when he was Franklins second-in-command,
and reported in euphemistic terms how the females had given his party glances that could
scarcely be misconstrued, and that young girls had a considerable share of beauty.
(Richardson, 1828). In the 1850s the beauty of Inuit women had not escaped HBC men who had
gone far north on the Mackenzie and Anderson Rivers. They in turn mentioned it to missionaries
Hunter and Kirkby, who repeated it almost with longing in their journals (they were both at thetime far away from their wives) [citation]
46The evangelical or lower branch of the Anglican Church included kneeling in its liturgy.
47 At the services end, Kirkby thanked HBC staff for their noble efforts to erect a church.
48William Flett8 years old, speaks Loucheux and Eskimo. He is from Peels River, a pure
Indian, and unbaptized though called by the above name. (Kirkby 1859g)
49 She was the wife of James Flett, who had been at La Pierres House, a subsidiary to Peels
River west of the Mackenzie Mountains. The couple and their children had come south on the
same boat as the Inuit. The husband had no relationship to the orphan boy.
50Conversion in that era involved assigning a new name, often one from the bible, and only
rarely did ministers choose one of special liking to the Roman Church. So it may seem strange
that Kirkby baptized Attngareq with the name of the mother of Jesus, to whom Rome gave what
Protestants thought was idolatrous praise.50
Yet he had no choice, as many women in Scotland
and the Northwest were called Mary, including the sister of Chief Trader Bernard Ross and his
future mother-in-law. Perhaps also in play was the death of Archdeacon Hunters daughter
Maria, who had died just before he returned home from the Mackenzie in 1858. Attngareq, as a
result, was now Maria Ross.
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51The Rosss first child, Alex Christie, arrived in 1861. When in old age Christina looked back
at this period, her memory had fogged and she thought it was she Attingareks unmanageable
native name to Maria. Ross went on furlough in 1862, and may have gone to Dublin, but the
family was at St. Andrews in the Red River Settlement in Feb. 1863, when their second child,
Francis Curtis, was baptized.
52Perhaps it was feared that since no fort had been built in the Delta, the man would insist on
taking Attingarek home, or that he wanted more gain. But it may have been a matter of true
affection.
53Kirkby was en route from Fort Simpson to the Yukon.
54 Fort Halkett, on the Liard, from which no post journal has survived.
55For Simpsons testimony see Q+A 702-2125, Feb. 26 and 27, 1857.
56 The inscription is from Grolliers grave at Fort Good Hope: Je meurs content, O Jsus, votre
tendard estlev jusquaux extrmits de la terre. (Choquette photograph, 58). The same
quotation appears on the title page of a 1937 history of northern missions, Mid Snow and Ice, by
French Oblate Pierre Duchaussois, who held a doctorate in literature. Its original version, Aux
Glaces Pola
ires, published in Paris, won him membership in the Acadmie Franaise. The
wording in the English volume: Oh my Jesus, I die happy, since I have seen the Sacred
Standard of Thy Cross lifted up at the very ends of the earth.
57Leonard Tilley, government leader in New Brunswick, suggested the text. (Morton 97-98)
58 See Owrams informative Promise ofEden about the Wests appeal to farmers and politicians.
59Father Grollier until his death in 1864, Father Jean Sguin starting in 1861, and Father Emile
Petitot, from 1864 on. Also present was Oblate religious brother J. P. Kearney, for whomGrolliers imperious ways were a cross to bear. Sguin and Kearney stayed half a century, as did
Gaudet. Bretons 1963 hagiography of Kearney shows a photo of a nasty-looking Grollier (opp.
p. 16) and one of Charles Gaudet and his family with the comment staunch friends of the
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missionaries (opp. p. 80). The book softens Grolliers deathbed words (p. 53) so as not to imply
he reached the pole: I die happy now that your standard is raised here at the ends of the world.
60 Petitot to Oblate Director General Joseph Fabre in Rome, Mar. 21, 1865, Oblate Archives,
Rome
61HBCA personnel sheet. HBCA. Web. http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical
62Griffin Owen Corbett belonged to the high Anglican Church (another reason for his not getting
along with Hunter). In addition to stoking Red Rivers populace against the HBC, he testified to
its anti-mission stance at the 1857 hearings (Q+A 2656-2888, p. 150-169 ). A fine prcis of his
twisted personality and bizarre ecclesiastic path tells that the local bishop called him a most
dangerous man. (Boreski).
63Situated on the Liard west of Fort Simpson in what is now British Columbia, Fort Nelson was
part of the Mackenzie District. The 1881 Canadian census listed James 18, Margaret 16, Jane
14, William 10, John 8, Thomas 3. Marias ethnic origin was given as Esquimaux, but in later
years in other documents as Indian and Mtis (the former is not unusual given that some whites
until early the next century referred to Inuit as Esquimaux Indians). Marias daughter Margaret
was the great-grandmother of John Brownlee, now living in Edmonton, who saw early drafts of
this article on the web, and realized that Attingarek (known to him only as Maria Ross) provided
a last link in a story he had chased for decades. In return, he kindly offered details he had found
of her time at Fort Simpson (such as her employ as servant by the chief traders wife) and of her
later life. In his youth Brownlees nearest relatives denied they carried native blood, then
considered a shamebut he followed a hunch and doggedly traced through the decades. He and
his family proudly bear their Mtis status.
64A conclusion based on my transcription of Oblate and Anglican correspondence related to the
Mackenzie Inuit from 1860 through 1890 and written up in as yet unpublished articles such as
Une faute dorthographe: a sexual history of missions to the Mackenzie Inuit. The faute was
the Oblates way of referring to Rev. Robert McDonalds fathering in the 1860s of a child by the
Peels River HBC traders wifewhich required him to stay away for several years in the
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Yukon. Later Anglican missionaries include McDonalds brother Kenneth, who left because of
his own sexual scandal, Wm. Carpenter Bompas, who stopped his Inuit work when made bishop,
and Thomas H. Canham, who disliked McDonald and feared Inuit violence and so arranged in
the 1880s to get moved from Ft. McPherson west across the mountains. The Catholic clerics
were Jean Sguin, superior at Good Hope, and one his priests, Emile Petitot. Sguin made a long
visit to the Delta Inuits homes and wished to return, but was not allowed by the Oblate
hierarchy. Petitot was never able to control his homosexual appetites and suffered with paranoid
schizophrenia that quickly cut short all four of his stays with the Delta Inuit; his experience of
them may be far less than his writings tell. He did the same with Yukon Gwichinafter visiting
them he told stories that required his knowing the language when in fact (as Sguin pointed out)
he did not.
65The main examples are three males: George Greenland (Arveuna), David Copperfield, and
Kalukotok.
66I visited the Kogmollit [at sandspit between Baillie I. and Cape Bathurst]... Long talk in my
tent with Naoyniak, Taligoak, and Izyatooagzyook... They used to visit Fort Anderson. They tell
how some of the natives burnt the buildings after they were deserted to get at the nails I.
Stringer journal, 1900, 08, 08.
67This item reached V. Stefansson in 1912 through oral history told him by Kukpugmiut who
were youngsters in the 1890s. (Stefansson 1916)
68Stringer, ordained a deacon in Toronto in 1892, and a priest at McPherson in the 1893
summer, and was not a reverend until that second event.
69These comments are based on my transcription of the diaries and correspondence by and about
the two men in church and HBC archives.
70Formerly a pool hall for sailors and quarters for the Pacific Whaling Companys on-shore
captain.
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71For Sukayak and her husband Ivitkoona (and a prior one accidentally shot by a whaler) see
Sophie Porter, 1895, 04, 06. Bodfish 124. Isaac Stringer 1895, 14-15, 08; 1897, 13, 05; 1898, 01
and 09, 01; 1898, 26, 11; 1900, 05, 03; 1900, 20, 07; 1901, 08-18, 04; 1909, 27, 07. Sadie
Stringer 1901, 08-18, 04. Stefansson 1906, 1907, 1912. R. M. Anderson June 1910, photos
#162, 176, and 180. Anglican church registers 1910, 05, 08; 1921, 01, 01; 1925, 13, 07. Nuligak
86. Rasmussen 44 (in 1924 at Igdluk).
72 The fame the royal visit brought, as well as stories about his time in the Arctic, helped make
Stringer Archbishop of Ruperts Land, one of the Anglican Church in Canadas most senior
positions.
73Though bishop of the Yukon (then called the Diocese of Selkirk) Stringer acted as commissary
for the Diocese of the Mackenzie, which often had either no bishop or a weak one who preferred
to leave visits to the coast to Stringer.,
74At Nalugogiak
75For this second Tiktik, or Tyiktik, as whites also spelled it, see Isaac Stringer diary, 1898, 20,
11; 1899, 31, 01; 1899, 01 and 02, 02; 1900, 20, 07; 1909, 30, 07; 1912, 12, 07 (when the offer
to go east to the Copper Inuit occurred), and 1927, 25 and 26, 07; Stefansson, 1907, 1916;
Nuligak, 91; Anglican Church registers, baptism #64-5, 1910; marriage #32, 1910, 06, 08;
baptism #219 of Tiktiks daughter, 1912, 10, 07; her marriage, 1912, 12, 07; baptism #270, of
Tiktiks son Mark, 1913, 11, 01; Tiktik married again, 1922, 01, 01; Tiktik confirmed, 1925, 29.
06.