June 27^th 1968

Dear Mum and Dad

We have been extremely lucky & have got hold of a recording of a drum dance which is a rather rare thing nowadays. I’ve recorded a bit of it in this tape. I didn’t expect to come across any in Igloolik, so I am really quite thrilled with this recording, made by an Eskimo carver. The introduction is by Joe Krimmerdjuak, a boy who lived for a year on the next street to me in Ottawa! He comes from Igloolik originally.

Hope that you are saving my letters as they are also my diary & field notes!     

                              

July 1^st Dominion Day 1968

            On Sat. there was a display to beat anything ever seen in the Royal Tournament. The 4 teachers & one of our party were leaving to get a plane from Hall Beach. That plane was scheduled to leave at 4.30. At 3.45 they were all standing outside waiting to be transported to the top of the hill where a plane was due to land. The village possesses 2 government Bombardier snow mobiles, 3 tractors, 1 R.C. Mission Bombardier & several skidoos. One bombardier was out of action. The second one started up the hill and one of its tracks fell off. The big tractor went to its rescue and toppled over into a ditch. The 2 other tractors both set off at once & narrowly missed colliding. Meanwhile the departing head teacher, who was determined to get out at all costs, climbed up behind one tractor & sat, the perfect English gentleman, on top of a 50 gallon oil drum, clutching his guitar.

Suddenly 3 skidoos converged & hitched up to the sled loaded with his luggage & they set off in a cloud of smoke to get up the hill. Meanwhile the R.C. Mission bombardier arrived on the scene belching steam, & stuttered to a halt, having been running with no water in the radiator! We were all quite helpless either with rage, or with laughter.

Eventually one of the tractors scooped up the side of the 1^st Bombardier & put it back on its track, & a load of angry people set off up the hill, hoping that the plane, that had landed there ½ an hour before, was still waiting – as the pilot had no idea that he was supposed to be taking out these 5 people! We learnt later that the plane at Hall Beach hadn’t made it, so after all the rush the 5 people had to wait till the next day to leave there anyway! [see June 7^th for the fate of the head teacher’s crates in the warehouse fire]

            We have just had a visit from Kamanik one of our hunters, & Mathusalem, the son of the other hunter. Not content with the existing language difficulties we’re trying to teach them Spanish. It’s amazing how quickly they pick up words & phrases! As Eskimo is twice as hard to learn we think that is quite fair! Last night Enoki, our other friendly hunter, came round to supper with 2 small sons as his wife is away in hospital having a baby. The meal was a tremendous pantomime with Enoki at the head of the table, cutting up this huge arctic char we had. This is a salmon-like fish, only far far tastier!!! This one weighed 7lb & gave 15 huge meals, & was caught locally. Enoki is the kindest man I’ve ever come across & his children obviously adore him. He’s very short & is always pulling super faces & explaining things with his hands. It took him about 20 mins to serve the fish because of his pantomime, & we were all in stitches, including the 2 little boys. Great jokes about which bits of cutlery to use etc. & watching the smallest boy stuff his face, nose, ears etc with chocolate cake was really funny – great big eyes looking very solemn, & retrieving crumbs from his vest.

 

July 8

Mike and Hiram have just returned from a 4 day hunting trip, & we were beginning to get worried about them. They had been off chasing walrus, & their accounts of the hunt beat anything Ernest Hemingway ever wrote. They travelled by dog sled to the sea, then by canoe to some islands in the middle of Foxe Basin where they found about 20 huge walrus basking on ice floes. They cut the engines & drifted right up behind the (sleeping) animals. Kamanik fired a 2.2 rifle & hit one on the head. The bullet bounced off and the walrus just lifted its head & looked at them as if a fly was bothering him (reminds me of King Kong being bombed on the Empire State building) Then Enoki fired & between them they killed it. Meanwhile the other animals (about 15’ long, weighing 1-2,000 lb!) slipped into the sea and started milling around the boats & bobbing up under them.

They got onto the ice floe, & got a harpoon line in the walrus, but it slipped into the sea. The waves had become really big by then, & they towed the body to a larger floe. It had a 4 foot notch round it which made it almost impossible to climb onto. They got up, & then hauled the walrus up with ropes, held behind their backs, leaning out over the water with all their weight. As they were butchering the carcass, skinning it, taking the tusks etc (it weighed about 2,000 lb) the waves started breaking up the ice floe, & it got smaller & smaller until it was about the size of a coffee table, at which point they jumped into the boats & let ½ the carcass drop into the sea. Then with 500 lb of meat (equivalent to 3 average-sized men) in each boat, they zoomed away to camp on the islands. What an adventure!

On the islands they collected terns’ eggs to eat, & Hiram found ½ a human skull that he used as a basket. They stayed at Hall Beach for 2 days with some of Enoki’s relatives. Apparantly there was non-stop Scottish music going, as whenever someone got up they put on the record player, & with the 24 hr. daylight there’s always someone up.

            The dog is now a perpetual menace & I’m covered in bites. He is the only dog suffering from bouts of simultaneous hiccups & farts that I know, & yowls & howls all day.

 

 

July 8

            Enoki came to supper yesterday. Hiram put a paper flower on his forehead & when I saw it I howled, & Enoki called me ‘amaruk’ – wolf. I went to the Anglican service last night with Enoki & co. Everyone takes off their boots & goes in in socks as there are lovely polar bear skins on the floor. Knew the hymn tunes, but not the words, so sang rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

The minister called a hymn no., then after a pause & a consultation with his wife in the choir, he called out the number of the English version. I had to sit with the mums on the left of the church & as surrounded at one point by 3 nursing mothers. They don’t stand during hymns, so I felt very conspicuous standing, & towering over the few women who were also standing. Felt like a giant sitting in baby furniture too, as my pew was too close to the next one & I couldn’t fold myself up small enough to kneel. I’ll obviously have to take a baby next time! The floor was littered with baby bottles, rattles & 2 sleeping children – one a little boy with no zip on his trousers. Mike had a comparatively easy time on the men’s side as it’s quieter, & Enoki was helping him find his place in the prayer book.

            The super tough geologist, Hans Trettin, is trekking out across the wilderness miles away from anywhere, & I’ve just been listening to the pilot, Doug Hemby, on the radio as he swoops across the arctic to go & move Hans’ camp. It’s very exciting to plot Doug’s position on the map as he radios it in, & trace his route. The third member of the group, Tom Pollen, has to sit & tend the radio all day & listen for signals. Very dull!

            Love Jenny x

 

July 8 Igloolik

Dear Nanny

            I am really enjoying it here still. It is now summer, which means that instead of snowing, it rains. The weather has mostly been lovely though, with days & nights of bright sunshine and blue skies. When it is fine I go up to the hill behind the village, and explore the little lakes up there. It is unexpectedly beautiful, as from down in the village the ridge looks grey and bleak, but on top there are masses of purple and yellow flowers between the rocks, and bright mosses. Also several types of song bird and ducks and gulls, and there is a lovely view of distant mountains all covered in snow. From the ridge you can watch everything that happens in the village, and see the hunters setting out across the frozen sea on sleds pulled by 10 or 15 dogs.

            Last week we played football in the middle of the village and about 20 Eskimos joined in. They are terribly strong, and went on playing for about 2 hours, long after I had given up. One of them picked the ball up under one arm, and a girl

under the other and ran the length of the pitch as if he was playing rugger!

They have a film every Saturday in a small hall, and this week it was a cowboy film, so all the children are playing cowboys & Indians. A group of them ambushed me up on the hill, and we spent the afternoon looking for birds nests, and I was lent a super cowboy hat to wear.

Love Jenny x

 

July 11^th 1968

Dear M & D

            The barber has been experimenting again and people are appearing all over the village with strange haircuts. This week they are all shaved almost bald except for a tuft of long hair falling over their eyes in front. Very weird.

            I was out this afternoon, & when I came back I found the puppy, Amarok, looking very guilty, tail between his legs. In the living room I found everything in the house that is movable, & at dog level, scattered & chewed on the carpet. He’d emptied the kitchen garbage bin, the food cupboard (tins) towels from the bathroom, and my boots, shoes & the contents of a duffle bag in my room! He looked so repentant I think he would have put everything back if he could.

My first ever colour slides came back in the mail. You’ll be surprised at the amount of colour there is here where everything at first glance is white snow & grey rock.

Love Jenny x

 

July 16

Dear M & D

            Well what a day of high adventure! I’ve been cosily inside for 36 hours (except for weather readings) listening to a tremendous storm beating down from the north. Winds were up to 30 m.p.h. (nearly off our wind guage’s scale!) + rain, and  everything moveable in the village moved south, including the heavy box with our weather equipment in it, and 2 dustbins (Hiram leapt along the beach chasing one of them!) This morning it had died down a bit, and Kamanerk came round with a huge grin. His boat, which was tied up at the sea edge 15 miles away, has been blown away, still tied to an ice pan, with Enoki’s sled, also on an ice pan in hot pursuit. Komanirk & the 2 boys, swathed in water proof clothing, + Carol & me & K’s wife & children, all massed on the beach to see them leave on K’s sled to go & borrow another canoe to look for theirs. Unfortunately the tide was in and had lifted the ice on the bay and left a crack 30’ wide and about 4’ deep between the beach & the ice, so they couldn’t cross it to start their journey.

Every-one dispersed and the Eskimos started skimming stones & eventually we all went home for lunch! They left in the afternoon & spent that day & night & the next day chugging up & down the coast. They gave up looking & came back to a camp on the island, & there was Kamanerk’s boat on the beach. Someone else had seen it & towed it back for him!

Today I learned that the P.M. Pierre Trudeau is coming to Igloolik next Thursday, July 25. Never saw him in Ottawa! There’s a mad scramble to clear the village up now. All dead dogs are mysteriously disappearing & plastic bags full of anuk seem fewer on the beach.

            Last Night Enoki came round & was teaching Mike & me Eskimo till 2.30 AM. He was teaching us colours & said my face was “nice & white from being inside.” Actually, did he but know it, it is bronzed from being outside! He gave me an Eskimo name which I insist means sylph-like, but Mike claims means thin. Anyway it is: Salooktork (pronounced Shaluktuk,) He doesn’t speak any English, but was in the South for 4 months on a course once & he can do a brilliant imitation of an English voice which sounds rather like Peter Sellers talking gibberish. He can still remember some phrases, and stands & points to a map & with his chin in his collar he says “You are heah” “This is mai hat, this is my head, this is my hair.” Then collapses in giggles.

When he was south he saw a troop of Scottish pipers in kilts & got excited because he thought they were women! Because Eskimos only have sparse beards & white men are all hairy Enoki was curious to know if white women have hairy chests! I assured him that I didn’t, personally.

Mike now has a 6 week beard & a special Vestey salon haircut. Hiram, incredibly, grows longer & thinner each day and the children ask me if he eats very much!

 

Spring in Igloolik

June 10^th 1968 Igloolik

I think teaching here would be a tremendous experience. The children are all very eager to learn & when they are given a day off they all groan, then hang round the school.

Travel out of Igloolik is very dodgy now as the ice is breaking up & they won’t take the Bombardiers out. The mail therefore came by plane which was fortunately dropping some supplies here for 2 geologists who have arrived unexpectedly [Hans Trettin].

The warehouse in Hall Beach caught fire this week after some crazy character used a blow lamp on his skidoo inside. Colin Wynne is shipping out all his belongings & 3 crates of his stuff caught fire!

Another helicopter is missing now. There’s still hardly any water as it’s even impossible to get out onto the sea ice to get that now!

Frank was extremely impressed by your mustache Dad as he has a small walrus one. He is now determined to let it grow into handlebars. I told him it’ll take 30 years!! The children wrote in their current events book “there are 2 scientists, one has white hair, & the other has a mustache, but it isn’t a real one”

     Photo: Frank emptying the toilet, known as the 'Honey bucket'. Hiram at the table. 

       Hiram filled Frank’s pipe with toilet tissue & tobacco & Frank smoked it all. We’ve just told him about & he says it tasted very good & he couldn’t understand why it drew so well & why people kept asking him how it tasted!

Photo: Hiram waiting for me to cut his hair, wearing a toilet liner. 

The main “street” is now under a foot of water & slush. The children love it & are floating about on boxes & oil drums & paddling in it. The village has been invaded by gulls during the last week & they hop around on the roof sounding like thunder.

Ottawa has shipped up about 200 mattresses for no apparent reason, & they can’t give them away. I wondered why so many sleds were de lux, mattress-padded models!

Now the snow is melting all sorts of things are coming to light, including 50 telegraph poles Ottawa was convinced were needed in Igloolik! Actually we already have poles & a telephone system. Only about 25 houses have phones.

I’ve managed to pick up BBC world service on our radio.

Our loo is the bucket variety & I’m sure I’ll never remember to flush the lavatory when I get back. We have a ventilation pipe which blasts cold air down into the bucket so you don’t sit there very long, despite the fact that we are all reading The Invisible Man which is in the bathroom. Should finish it by Sept.

Jackie Tuktuk came round with his squeeze box & we’ve just had a little musical session with him & Enoki & Kamanerk the 2 hunters. Enoki taught 4 of us to do a jig & we were bounding round the room doing a 5-some reel! as Jackie played. He’s very quick &  picked up a French Canadian tune Mike plays on the mouth organ. Mike has just asked Jackie if he can play any Eskimo songs. After a lot of thought he said yes & started to play Scotland the Brave.

Soon transport will be difficult as the ice is unsafe for large vehicles.

Photo: Kamanik and family trying to leave Igloolik village at low tide to go out to camp. The qamutiq is on sea ice beyond the tide cracks, and he is pulling one of the dogs.

Yesterday the Conservative candidate for this area arrived to meet the villagers. That’s quite something as it’s a hell of a trip to make for an hour’s meeting. It was fascinating. The women sat at the back of the hall, the men at the front. Latecomers (me) on the floor in the front. Women kept wandering out holding babies ominously away from them, but over your head & you flinch & clear a path. A background noise of coughing & a baby in its mother’s hood rattling the plastic blackout curtains. A boy behind me banging his skidoo keys on the iron stove. The candidate gives me a warm grin as I creep in late, a woman sitting just behind him takes a little naked baby out of her hood & proceeds to breast feed it – she is sitting facing the entire audience.

All the boys stare enviously at the young interpreter’s drainpipe trousers & leather jacket. Most people are wearing traditional clothing – sealskin boots, parkas etc. The candidate keeps saying how pleased he is to see so many people at the meeting & the interpreter is giggling. Then he says the people may shake hands with him now, but no-one seems to want to. If they vote for him he will visit them often. Not a murmur. Are there any questions? An old Eskimo stands up & speaks for 5 minutes. The interpreter says he has a one bed roomed house, why can’t he have a 3 bed roomed one, also his back aches, what are they going to do about it?

After the meeting people do shake hands with him & he pats all the women on the back.

I’m getting some sealskin boots made.

Igloolik June 16th Sun

I was out yesterday with Frank who was shooting a movie of the children playing in the village. We found a crowd of kids playing a super game throwing stones at a piece of wood like we used to on the beach. It is a super Bolex camera, costing $1,500. Frank was offered a job with Antonioni the great film man himself, but chose graduate work instead. He's got all kinds of ideas for experimental movies, but he is resigned to shooting 'home movies'.

            There are more kinds of birds here now including sandpipers & longspurs & great thrill, yesterday I saw a flock of eider ducks flying overhead!!!

Photo: How I loved Amarok! 

            Saturday being movie night I decided it was time I sampled Igloolik night life. The movie was 'Moon Pilot' a revolting 1950's US trashy thing that should never have been made at all. It was fascinating to see a building full of no-English speaking people shrieking at the jokes & giggling at the stupid things in the film. The projector is worked by the store clerk - a great tough man. A boy sits at a desk by the door & collects 50c as you come in. If a whole lot of people start to come in late the film is stopped & the lights go on until people are settled, then off it goes again. I sat at the back with the nursing mothers. The film gets everyone in a great mood, & when each reel is changed the lights go on & there's a general burst of jokes & comments. After the film you all dive for the door & the fresh air. As at church there is a constant stream of mothers taking children out & behind the fuel tank.

            I've fallen in love with a little husky pup. The RCMP used to have 20 dogs, but theses were replaced by snow mobiles & they got rid of all but one dog - Alice. She has just had 4 pups. Yesterday I managed to grab one & pick it up. A look of ecstatic joy came onto its face & it closed its eyes & snuggled up to my parka. If only I could keep one! The things eat about twice the amount that I do though, & could never live in a city.

 Photo: Children with a new born husky pup.

Igloolik June 10^th 1968

The snow is melting fast. It’s 39̊ F out, & to reach our snow gauges out on the sea ice is very hazardous as there cracks along the shore with about 2 feet of slushy snow & water on top! The boys are waiting to go off hunting.

Igloolik village June 10th 1968

            Saturday saw another wild wedding feast in Igloolik & 2 Bombardier loads of people came up from Hall Beach, including the bride’s mother. The service was conducted by the Eskimo Anglican minister & bits of general interest were translated by the Justice of the Peace/ Hudsons Bay Manager. Nasuk, the vicar, doesn’t speak English but when he asked the groom in Eskimo if he took this woman etc – he raised his eyebrows significantly & hissed “I dooo” like a prompter at a school play. The hymn was God Save the Queen, & several Eskimos kept pushing past the bride, vicar etc to take pictures from the altar with noisy Polaroid cameras, then they’d peel off the instant pictures & show them to everyone.

Igloolik shore, boat and telegraph pole June 1968

            After the wedding we gathered once more at the scene of last week’s party and started up where we’d left of! This time there were lots of Eskimos there & they had us all spellbound dancing 8-some reels that the old Scottish whalers had taught them last century. I can’t really describe them, but just imagine 4 smiling couples ambling round like sailors on their sea legs, doing tremendously intricate figures & with their feet tapping away all the time. Each reel lasts about 15 minutes so when the record finishes they put it on again & continue until the dance is finished, & then they all start laughing & clapping.

The super interpreter got up & did a superb solo, skipping from one foot to the other, crossing the room backwards, with lots of whoops & shrieks. When he realized we were all watching & clapping he went terribly shy & stopped, but couldn’t stand still for long, so came up to Jim & challenged him to some sort of contest to see who could outdo the other with fancy steps. Fantastic.

The great thing about the North (although I’ve only been here 2 ½ weeks) is that everyone has the chance to be themselves. Everyone is independent with no superior peering over their shoulder.  I think teaching here would be a tremendous experience. The children are all very eager to learn & when they are given a day off they all groan, then hang round the school.

After the stag party given for the groom last week the school principal had such a bad head he couldn’t teach (he’d drunk some bad home-made beer) & the next day one class in the school wrote in their current affairs book “Mr W was drong last night, Mr R was also drong but he came to school today”

Child travelling on sled wearing caribou fur clothes

            There was a nice big article on us in the Montreal Star the week we left. I’ll send it to you as soon as I can get hold of some more stamps (the P.O. burnt down)

Frank was extremely impressed by [photo of my father’s moustache] as he has a small walrus one. He is now determined to let it grow into handlebars. I told him it’ll take 30 years!!

The children wrote in their current events book “there are 2 scientists, one has white hair, & the other has a mustache, but it isn’t a real one” The white haired one is Dr de Pena an [American] anthropologist. She is Frank’s boss, & the static between her & Foote is something fierce. How sick I am of little lectures on how tea drinking is a psychological thing with me & that coffee is just as thirst quenching. Frank’s cold is psychosomatic, she can put her own milk in her coffee etc.

A woman nutritionist has arrived & insists on poisoning my food by mixing in grated coconut even though I’ve said I can’t stand it. Today we had peaches mixed up with 3 week old raspberries from a smelly can, choked with coconut & when I removed my peaches & washed them she was quite narked. Now de Pena & Carol are having a set-to about who does the cooking.

Amarok skating

Travel out of Igloolik is very dodgy now as the ice is breaking up & they won’t take the Bombardiers out. The mail therefore came by plane which was fortunately dropping some supplies here for 2 geologists who have arrived unexpectedly [Hans Trettin, with his pilot Doug Hemby and radio operator Tom Pollen]. Suspiciously though, I only got your one² letter s & am expecting a lot more mail than that. The warehouse in Hall Beach caught fire this week after an Eskimo used a blow lamp on his skidoo inside. The head teacher is shipping out all his belongings & 3 crates of his stuff caught fire! He’s very depressed about it as they’re all his super records etc – but resigned.

Another helicopter is missing now. There’s still hardly any water as it’s even impossible to get out onto the sea ice to get that now! (sea ice loses its salt after a few months & you just wander out onto the bay & cut your water supply & pop it onto a dog sled) As there are 8 of us here now things like baths & hair washing are out.

It’s embarrassing to be associated with Foote & de Pena. Funny how lecturers like them always talk as if facing 300 students & their voices drone on & on & on all day & night.

Anglican Church Igloolik

            There’s an old Bob Hope movie on in the hut opposite tonight. All the kids come round selling little trinkets for 25c – the admission fee, on movie night.

 

Thurs 11th

Raining steadily. 3.30 walked up to the ridge to take b/w photos of meltwater in rain. Beautiful & soul lifting up there. Wandered by the edge of this desolate lake, I heard the wind cry in the sedge... N wind 15-20 mph, temp 37. Saw eider male on lower NW ridge.

Walked to some big rocks to discover it was a boulder-field - felsenmeer! Large granite boulders concentrated on highest point of ridge. A dog howling in the village wafts down on the wind. Find what look like wolf spoor - contain lemming bones & skins - obviously a 1/2 starving wolf is lurking in the rocks. Decide they must be huge snowy owl pellets - ca. 4" long & 1 1/4" thick.

Amarok has emptied the kitchen garbage bin, the bathroom & my cupboard of all moveables & chewed them on the living room carpet. Also streaked the carpet with bacon fat! He looked vv guilty. Watched a woman run down onto the ice with a pail in the rain. Fill it with drinking water from a pool, then squat & pee, then run home.

Sea ice Turton Bay, Igloolik

The main “street” is now under a foot of water & slush. The children love it & are floating about on boxes & oil drums & paddling in it. The village has been invaded by gulls during the last week & they hop around on the roof sounding like thunder.

Igloolik village from the air, sea still frozen. Hudsons Bay buildings with red roofs, Catholic Mission buildings bottom left with Father Fournier's stone church behind it

Ottawa has shipped up about 200 mattresses for no apparent reason, & they can’t give them away. I wondered why so many sleds were de lux, mattress-padded models! Now the snow is melting all sorts of things are coming to light, including 50 telegraph poles Ottawa was convinced were needed in Igloolik! Actually we already have poles & a telephone system. Only about 25 houses have phones.

A woman mending a tent with a hand sewing machine, a toddler on her back

            An Eskimo man came round here to have a good look at us. Colin told us that when he lived in Hall Beach he appeared one day proudly driving a superb dog team down the road. Everyone knew he had no dogs of his own so they asked him where he’d got them. “Oh, I found them on the rubbish tip” he said. Everyone knows that things on the rubbish tip belong to no-one, so he assumed they’d been thrown away. Actually they belonged to a man who was sorting through the tip for valuable things that may have been discarded from the DEW line base. I looked through my notes & found that the man who did a survey here in 1965 mentions him as “the laziest bum around” Poor man, fancy being blacklisted in Ottawa!

Plan of Igloolik summer 1968

            Hiram filled Frank’s pipe with toilet tissue & tobacco & Frank smoked it all. We’ve just told him about & he says it tasted very good & he couldn’t understand why it drew so well & why people kept asking him how it tasted!

Our loo is the bucket variety & I’m sure I’ll never remember to flush the lavatory when I get back. We have a ventilation pipe which blasts cold air down into the bucket so you don’t sit there very long, despite the fact that we are all reading The Invisible Man which is in the bathroom. Should finish it by Sept.

            Our friendly hunters have just come round for coffee & Enoki has had all his beautiful long hair cut off into a crew cut. He’s getting ragged unmercifully & they’ve put a bobble hat on him now.



Dotted buildings are the shcool and government staff houses, the IBP house is the middle of three on the shore at the bottom

            Hope you like the stamps on this. The narwhal (pronounced whale) is found near Igloolik & its horn is the thing that started the legend of the unicorn. People brought them back & said they were from a one-horned beast etc. They only catch about 1 or 2 a year here, but I’d love to get hold of a horn!

Well [the ‘lazy bum’] came round with his squeeze box & we’ve just had a little musical session with him & Enoki & Kamanerk. Enoki taught 4 of us to do a jig & we were bounding round the room doing a 5-some reel! As [the man] played. He’s very quick & picked up a French Canadian tune Mike plays on the mouth organ. We’ve been recording the concert which is very successful & causes much merriment. Mike has just asked him if he can play any Eskimo songs. After a lot of thought he said yes & started to play Scotland the Brave!! When he left he said that usually white man pay him a dollar for recording his playing!

Mike cutting up a seal behind our house with an audience sitting on the WWII landing craft 'the barge'on the beach,         June 1968

I’ve been up at Kamanerk’s house watching his wife scrape a seal. Also round for coffee with the geologists. The leader is a very civilized & pleasant German, Hans Trettin, & it was so pleasant talking to him. He laughed at my jokes – which no-one’s done for 3 weeks. 

So here’s wishing you all my love & kisses. Jenny xx

Box of letters from Igloolik found in the garage

Hall Beach May 1968

Tues 28th

Ate seal liver for lunch which was delicious - better than calf liver. Also ate caribou stew for supper. Eating is a full time occupation as it is always light & always feels like feeding time. Also the air is so pure & healthy.

            This evening at 6.00 I went to the Brownies at the school to help Mrs Wynne the school mistress & Brown Owl. It was tremendous fun. They were a bit shy & reserved, but I joined in the games & songs & played Grand old Duke of York etc & all ended in great giggles & laughter. I tested some of them on their motto & oath etc & next week 10 of them are going to be enrolled & given berets & scarves. They're so excited about the uniforms & obviously enjoying the games. They also learn little things like laying a table.

            While everyone sits here moaning that they haven't met any Eskimos except our 2 hunters I was out meeting the children.

            This evening the Catholic priest Father van der Velde visited us & told us about his 26 years in Pelly Bay - a very isolated settlement. To get supplies in they needed 2 teams of 20 dogs & he had to hunt to get enough food for them. He told us that when choosing caribou pick the young in autumn as they have just weaned & taste like veal. In spring though the yearlings are lean as they don't know how to feed properly in winter. The best then is a 'doe that for some reason is not pregnant' !

Thea and Terry leaving Hall Beach for the sea ice and Igloolik with the RCMP snowmobile and sled. We travelled in the yellow Bombardier tracked vehicle.

JV holding an unsuspecting lemming

Wed 29th

Ho ho! Rumour has it that the mail will leave this afternoon so will finish this screed. The plane goes to Hall Beach, & we get it by snow mobile.

            I've just been visiting Thea. I'm going to the wedding in my corduroy trous as none of her things fit me. Her RCMP husband to be is super. The wedding is on Fri. They've got a super husky bitch & some pups which live in a sort of igloo-kennel outside. I'd like one of them, but how rotten to keep it in Montreal. Also they eat more than I do & you can't hunt seals round McGill.

            The lads have finally gone off a-hunting thank heavens with Enoki Kunnuk and Naitani Kamanerk. Lovely and quiet. I've had a surreptitious bath & used all the water. Our new water supply is on the door step waiting for the ice man to come & break it up for our tank. The sun shines on all & I've just done the met. observation. Temps 28° - quite tropical. Love to all. Quinn xxx

Thurs 30

6 AM weather

Bought red wool & braid from Hudson Bay Store for skirt. Used Mrs Bartell's sewing machine. She is the telephone operator, husband Heinz is mechanic. Daughter Nina, 11, in Brownies, son Mark. She is Peruvian, he German.

Boys back from hunting at about 10 PM - red faces, puffy eyes. Successful hunt as now great buddies with hunters.

Fri 31 May

6 AM weather. Noon Enoki & Kamanik round for coffee. Much giggling & joking. P.M. finished red skirt. Visited Thea & borrowed suspenders & petticoat.

7 P.M.Thea & Terry’s wedding at R.C. church. As he is the RCMP he & the best man were in their Mounty’s finery, complete with red jackets, striped pants & silver spurs that jingle jingle jangled (but no horses) The ceremony was held in the R.C. church with all the Eskimo men on the right side & the women & children on the left. There was a huge background noise of children, & every so often a mother would go outside with a child for it to relieve itself. They sit in their mothers’ parka hoods with just a vest & jumper on, & little bare bums keep peeping out when they stand up.

During the hymns the men sing the first verse quite softly then the women belt out the 2^nd one, very nasally, for all they’re worth, converting ordinary hymn tunes into weird Eskimo scales. They alternate verses with the men, then all sing the last one in unison. I was really left with my mouth gaping it was so impressive.

Father Van der Velde married them, with Father Fournier in the background.

After the ceremony we all rushed out & Thea hurled handfuls of toffees which the little kids went wild over. I helped a little lad get one out from under the slatted floor & that caused a great stir & lots of grins & giggles. The skirt I made for the wedding out of the thin wool duffle they use for parkas & socks, decorated in the Eskimo way with coloured braid was a great talking point afterwards. (It is bright red)

Afterwards went to the school for reception. Danced with Frank, then Bill 'the Bay', then Jim Deyell from the Hall Beach Bay, then Bill, etc. Great. They kept asking me to dance & as soon as I sat down after each dance the other would leap up & ask me. Jim did much wild Hebridean Shetland dancing. Danced a couple of Dashing White Sergeants. Bill from St John's Nfld. Jim from Hebrides Shetlands?

June 2 Sun Diary

Work from 11AM - 4PM, then set off with Frank towards Cape Matthew Smith at 6. Refusing the emergency bannock being pressed upon us we set off to reach the mountains, but they're just an illusion so turned back. The Conservative candidate for the area arrived by skidoo & we went to the little hall to hear him talk. Itani translated. Van Norden very sincere but didn't come across very well. Pearson - a bearded bod from Wallasey was there too & v good, but I wouldn't vote for him. Pearson a tremendous character & amusing.

1.30 back home where Foote is hoisting the telephone bells now converted into a mobile - very annoying. The meeting was great, with women at the back & men in front & us in front on the floor. Woman feeding ½ naked boy at her breast just behind Van Norden during his talk.

Mon 3^rd Diary

Boys off hunting - walrus? Work like the clappers all day. Foote finds the whites here very objectionable. He seems set to alienate as many people as possible.

About to order mukluks via Jim Haining. Jim Deyell is interesting - like a charging bull in a china shop, but dances a wild Hebridean backstep with elegance. The place is crawling with Scotsmen.

Tues 4^th Diary

Boys back early afternoon. They went to Ooglit Islands, but saw no walrus. Brought back a small ringed seal. Stag party for Jim Haining. Colin Wynne drank 12 pints of green beer.

Mike and Hiram help Enoki unload his qamutiq after the hunt. Boys watch and the dogs, seeing Enoki has dropped his whip, head for the village cold store.

Wed 5^th Diary

Colin Wynne missed school! In the current events lesson the entry in the book was "Mr Wynne was drong last night. Mr Remus was also drong but he came to school today”

Heard news of Bobby Kennedy's being shot in the head.

 Enoki came round this morning. Most impressed by a cherry pie, & asked what it was. Visited Theresa Remus to borrow a dress & shoes for Sat. Mary will make an outer parka for me. God this house is bloody noisy - mostly the 2 lecturers droning on.

Hiram Beaubier, Jenny Vestey, Mike Bradley and Carol Engel marvel at Don Foote's Alaskan mukluks for a photoshoot at McGiil before leaving.

June 7^th Letter

The mail is going out so will finish this. Life here is certainly not trivial. Last week the E.M.R. helicopter that my friend from Ottawa was to use, called in at Igloolik for fuel. It took the wrong grade & that night, during a “white out” with no visibility it disappeared & lost radio contact. Planes couldn’t search for it because of the weather. It was found about 2 days later on an island near here, out of action because of the bad fuel! 2 people aboard apparently O.K.

This week the village has had a huge & horrid blow of fate. The Eskimos run a Co-Op. which is completely independent & sells carvings, clothes etc & tries to make money by doing contract work for the Government. The week before we arrived their building burnt to the ground. About 6-8 weeks ago about a mile off Igloolik Island a man fell through the sea ice and drowned. The others walked in to the island to a camp & from there they came by dog team to the village. They went to Jim Haining’s house first & when he woke up at 4 AM to find his bed surrounded by Eskimos he knew what had happened. They hardly dared tell the R.C. priest Father Fournier as he was already shattered by the Co-Op burning. He was the one who got the Co-Op on its feet.    

There was a requiem mass last night in the R.C. church which I attended. It was very different from the wedding & terribly sad. There were still funny things like babies hurling bottles across the aisle & running in & out of the door, little angelic choir boys in huge wellington boots etc but very very moving. The man’s father sat in front of me in caribou skin trousers. He uses crutches. Father Fournier looked really shattered. Much incense. ½ the ceremony in Latin & ½ in Eskimo. I followed the Eskimo by comparing it to the Latin printed opposite in the prayer books & translating that from memories from school.

            The body is still in the sea & as Mike dives under the ice he has been asked to try to recover it. His equipment is coming up on the next plane. I think that is too risky as the currents there are notoriously swift & he’s only used to lake diving.

            Terry Waterhouse, the R.C.M.P. man has just heard that a baby died in May in an outlying camp, so he will have to go out & visit it to sign the death cert. What a job! Poor Thea has plunged straight into it all.

            Yesterday I visited an Eskimo woman who is going to sew an outer cover for my parka. She has a week old baby boy. He’s minute & very very sweet. She is 27 & has had 6  babies, lost 4 & had one adopted, so she’s really nervous about this one. In her house she has a table, 2 chairs, a stove, a water tank, 2 beds, a cot and a tape-recorder & that’s all.  

Well, we have our 1^st sealskin scraped & stretched & put on the roof to dry. We look like a genuine Eskimo house now. All the village kids congregate round the back of out house to watch these crazy white men cutting up seals.

            Eating well – caribou stew yesterday. All my love & thinking of you a lot Jenny x

Fri 7th June Diary

4PM Mary brought round the finished parka. - really beautiful. Gave her $10 which was more than she expected.

JV with newly covered parka, holding the husky pup Snoopy.