The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers: Coming of Age in the Arctic. Edward Maurice Beauclerk

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СКАЧАТЬ that was to prove useful about the Eskimos I was soon to be living among. I learned that the Innuit (the People), which is their own name for themselves, almost certainly came from central or northern Asia. The physical type, language and culture all tend to confirm this and that they migrated to North America via the Aleutian Islands, starting about 1000 BC. Reversing the usual direction of migration, they travelled steadily from west to east, moving along the northern coastline of the mainland, spreading out into the arctic islands, keeping close to the sea, until finally coming to a halt in Greenland, where the massive ice plateau of the interior blocked further movement.

      The development of their culture and of their social life was greatly limited by the severity of the environment, which precluded any attempt at food production. Apart from the blue-berries which grew wild on the hills during a short season and a type of edible seaweed, there was no useful vegetation. Hunting of one kind or another was therefore essential at all times, and because they only had the simplest of equipment, cooperation between the hunters was vital.

      He also told me about the Eskimo religion, which was based on the belief that everything and everybody had a spirit. A rock, a fish, a polar bear or a human being were all equal in this respect, and it was the activities of these spirits which controlled events and people. They could move about at will. If a person became ill, it might be thought that his spirit had deserted him, or it might be that an ill-disposed one had taken up residence within his body and would have to be conjured out.

      This belief provided a continuity of life, softening the reality of death with which they were all too familiar. It was known that although the body became lifeless after death, the essential person remained close at hand, even if invisible. So firm was this conviction that the children, being guarded by the spirit of a dead relative, were allowed to wander into dangerous situations without causing any great anxiety, because their parents felt secure in the knowledge that the spirit would keep them safe.

      The shamans, or angekok as they were called, supplied a link with the supernatural world by having the ability to transfer themselves, on suitable occasions, into the world of the spirits and by gaining control of one or more of them. Dependent upon the ability of their subject spirits, they would thus hope to have some control over the affairs of everyday life.

      The angekok did not apparently depend on the miraculous. Generally, it was a shrewd, calculating type of man or woman who was most likely to become a shaman. In a real crisis, matters would have reached a fairly desperate state, from which they could not get much worse, before the angekok got to work. So, not infrequently, their incantations were followed by an improvement in the weather, or travelling conditions, or whatever it was that was bedevilling the camp.

      As we set off once more, the manager of Pond Inlet, who was due to go out for a holiday, joined me in my cabin, considerably brightening the rest of the journey. When he told me that he had his entire worldly possessions with him, I expected to find the cabin filled with his luggage, instead of which it seemed that his belongings barely filled one small cardboard case, which lay at the bottom of his trunk.

      My companion began at once to settle my future.

      ‘You’ll be going ashore at Pangnirtung,’ he said. ‘Geordie Gall will take care of you. He’s very strict though you know. Prayers every morning at eight, the youngest apprentice reads the lesson.’

      I laughed at this and said that I was sure that he was pulling my leg. He became indignant.

      ‘Indeed I am not,’ he said. ‘You ask any of the other managers, they’ll all tell you the same thing. Geordie is a fine God-fearing man.’

      ‘Well, he must be very different from the other managers up here,’ I said.

      ‘And just what do you mean by that?’ asked Jimmy threateningly.

      ‘Oh, nothing,’ I replied.

      ‘You’ll have to be careful about swearing. Geordie doesn’t like it and you’ll be fined for using bad language.’

      I really did not know whether to believe him or not, for he was very convincing, and the next day even produced two witnesses to corroborate his story.

      The district manager confirmed his prediction that I would be going ashore at Pangnirtung the next morning. There was nothing very remarkable about this, however, as that post was the last port of call, and short of taking me back to Montreal there was nowhere else for me to go.

      Cumberland Gulf, on the east coast of Baffin Island, was visited more than once by explorers hoping to find a sea passage through as far south as possible. They soon had their hopes dashed, but gathered an amount of information about the area. They were later followed by Scottish and American whalers, who for a long period formed the only link the Eskimos had with the outside world. A trading post was not established in the area until the 1920s. The site selected was in a fiord almost at the head of the sound which was reasonably centrally placed for all the camps in the vicinity.

      We entered the gulf one morning at half speed, for there was a very dense fog and the captain’s wisdom in deciding to travel slowly was soon confirmed. Half-way through the morning, the fog began to lift, drifting away from above the Nascopie to reveal a cloudy uncertain sky, a small patch at first, then gradually clearing so that what looked like a darker cloud appeared almost directly ahead of us. Not happy about this odd-looking cloud, the captain altered course about ninety degrees, which was just as well for soon afterwards the fog dissolved altogether and the darker cloud turned out to be a rather solid headland.

      Later on the sun came out and seemed to be spotlighting a high and distinctive hill, shaped like a huge man’s cap, which they told me marked the entrance to the fiord that was to be my new home. We passed this landmark early in the afternoon and came up the inlet to a point opposite a group of buildings, where we dropped anchor. A quarter of an hour must have elapsed before a boat put out from the shore and a queer party came aboard headed by a man wearing a brightly coloured shirt and a large sombrero hat. His movements were made with such extreme care and his expression was so pleasantly vacuous that it was obvious, even to me, that he was drunk. I thought to myself, so much for the morning prayers and all the rest, for this indeed was Geordie Gall, my new boss.

      My grandmother, herself a devotee of the chaise-longue, frequently expressed her firm belief that it was better to wear out than to rust away. Comfortably enveloped in rugs and shawls and bounded by hot-water bottles, she rested her own ageing joints while exhorting others to ceaseless activity. At moments during my first three days at Pangnirtung, I had cause to remember this conviction of hers. Once the cargo started to come ashore, the goods came off in an endless chain. While the tide was high enough to unload along the water’s edge (there was no jetty), one boatload after another came bustling in from the ship. When the tide had dropped too far back over the rocks and mud for the boats to be able to come in from the shore, the boxes had to be carted up the bank to be piled near the shore. There was a short spell during each tide, at slack water, when it was possible to get some rest, but I was so exhausted that it never seemed more than a few minutes before someone was waking me up again.

      The supplies lay scattered about over the flat at the top of the bank, where it was wise to tread carefully. There were cases of all shapes and sizes, bales, cartons, lumber for two small houses to be built for the company’s Eskimo employees. Supplies labelled for the Oxford University Arctic Exploration Society. Barrels of oil and gasoline, kegs of molasses. Lengths of steel for sledge runners. A bath loomed up in front of me and I very nearly fell in it. Sacks of coal and flour. Crates of cheese, drums of potatoes, kegs of oatmeal, bags of sugar. Innuit men and women struggled up the bank with vast loads, children with smaller burdens. White men bustled backwards and forwards importantly, missionaries appeared and disappeared, and sometimes even policemen. Always of course СКАЧАТЬ