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' !
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 2nd 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 3rd 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 4th 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.
Wed 5th 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 7th
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 1st
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.
