Theatre in the Round: The Mackenzie Inuit’s First Contact

with Missions

Draft w4

Walter Vanast

McGill University

Intellectual Property

Corrections and suggestions invited

wvanast@mcgill.ca

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Theatre in the Round: The Mackenzie Inuit’s First Contact with Missions

Walter Vanast McGill University

“Everything goeth, everything returneth . . .

for every here rolleth the ball turning there . . .

crooked is the path of eternity.” i

F. Nietzsche

The Mackenzie Inuit’s 1909ii conversion seemed remarkably quick and brought competing

explanations. Ethnologist and religious cynic Vilhjalmur Stefansson ascribed it to fashion, like a new

style of hats, spreading east along the coast; missionaries, to the flowering of seeds gently tended. iii But

the road to baptism was in fact quite slow, and took fifty years of contact between Inuit and clerics. This

article describes their first meeting at far-away Fort Simpson, the events (local and remote) that brought it

about, the link between trade and missioniv, and the fate of some of the players. As held true at other

mission and fur-trade settings, the staging in 1859 was that of theatre-in-the-round, with actors addressing

both each other and the distant audiences that prescribed their lines.v

The Hudson’s Bay Company

and the 1857 parliamentary hearings.

The Hudson’s Bay Company in the mid-1850s entered a worrisome era, as an ending loomed to

its monopoly in two immense terrains: the Rupert’s Land charter would expire in 1870 and the Northwest

Territory licence, very soon. The latter, issued in 1821, and valid for under twenty years, had once been

renewed, but free trade was in vogue when the Company asked to have it renewed again. Signalling

doubt, parliament in 1857 subjected the HBC to hearings by a special committee in London.

Strong critique at that venue came from residents of the Red River Settlementvi (later Winnipeg),

part of Rupert’s Land and strictly controlled by the HBC. Here its staff lived out retirement, many

families had farms, and Anglicans and Catholics each had a bishop. As private business grew, people

chafed under HBC rule, and demanded repeal of its charter.

To reach that goal the Company’s enemiesvii claimed it had failed its obligations by blocking

missions and refusing to spread the Word of God, and that therefore the charter was null. They also, in

somewhat of a contradiction, accused it of helping the Catholic cause more than the Anglican, and could

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back that charge by pointing to the Territory. In 1857 It held no Anglican cleric, while Roman priests,

Oblates of Mary Immaculate, had been present six years and had visited as far north as Great Slave Lake.

It was there the next year, at Fort Resolution, that Father Henri Grollier arrived to build a

permanent mission.viii A driven man, nasty even to Oblates, he had already asked permission from HBC

Governor Sir George Simpson to descend the Mackenzie River, but a late response almost let an Anglican

cleric do it first.

The First Missionaries on the Mackenzie

About the time that Father Grollier reached Fort Resolution, the Rev. James Hunter, a fervent

evangelical, took a sixteen-month leave from his parish in the Red River Settlement. Hi reasons were

several and some he could not state, but it was a time of social turmoil and one gets a sense he needed

escape—a period of rejuvenation.

During his early career at an isolated fur-trade postix Hunter had formed warm ties with HBC staff

and married a daughter of Chief Factor Donald Ross and his wife Maria, one of the most senior couples in

the fur trade.x So he felt the stress as the Company’s charter was challenged and its licence put at risk. To

complicate matters, rebellion against it was preached by the Rev. Griffith Corbett, a prickly local

colleague and member of the high branch of the Anglican church. So strong was the latter’s hatred of the

HBC he had testified against it the previous year at the parliamentary hearings.xi

Ambition, too, nudged Hunter’s break. Already an archdeacon,xii he was a likely candidate for the

post of his ageing bishopxiii, and one way to raise the chance was to blaze a new path for missions. The

rationale he gave in public, however, and in which he fiercely believed, was to battle Rome, whose priests

had gone far north and were about to enter 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)

Hunter’s intended route played into whites’ fascination with the Arcticxiv, 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 widely 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. All the world wondered what

had been his fate, and new reports from the searches had recently appeared.

What also brought prestige was the Arctic’s 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 globe’s most

distant sites.xv 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.xvi

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That Hunter’s prospects were good was shown by a converted Inuk from east of Hudson’s Bay,

who had recently come to the Settlement and whose gentle ways confirmed his people as the “easiest” of

tribes to make Christian. xvii 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 Hunter’s drive, for he also hoped to convert the Dene, the Mackenzie’s

Indians, who lived along the river south of the Delta, and who were said to be “well disposed toward the

gospel.” Hence his rush to get to Fort Simpson, HBC headquarters for the Mackenzie District, where the

officer in charge, Chief Trader Bernard Rogan Ross, had felt the Oblate threat and invited him to come.

(Hunter 1858b) They were friends from years both had spent at posts further south and besides, they were

kin—their partners were sisters.

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 while passing through Fort Resolution met Father

Grollier. The Oblate had been doing well—in addition to making headway among the Indians, he had

recently sealed the marriage of a mixed-blood womanxviii and an HBC employee, Charles Gaudet.

(Payment) As it pained the priest to see the “enemy” advance, he dropped his work and joined Hunter on

the boats to Fort Simpson. (Grollier)

Hunter silently watched as all along the route the “half-breed” crews (descendents from fur-trade

men from Quebec, and strongly in favour of the Catholic faith) encouraged Dene to pray with Father

Grollier, accept his blessings, and pin on their clothes the religious medals he handed out. At Fort

Simpson, however, another dynamic took hold. When Dene 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 showed no

interest in his teaching, and the mother in law of Charles Gaudet opposed his work. A forceful Métisse,

she spread word that a minister was “l’homme d’une femme,” a man linked to a wife, while priests

belonged to God. (Grollier) Her tone that winter may have been extra harsh because Gaudet had left the

Roman Church and joined the Church of England.xix

Career concern likely underlay the young man’s shift. Recently promoted from labourer status,xx

he was the only Catholic officer in the district, while Chief Trader Ross, an Orangistxxi from Ireland, hated

all that had to do with the pope. The switch was the minister’s only success,xxii and in July, as Father

Grollier gleefully put it, Hunter left in shame to rejoin his “dear other half.”

Hunter’s view of Inuit, still based on hearsay, had by now greatly changed: rather than peaceful

and eager to learn, they thirsted for blood and were deceitful. (1859) Their urge to kill was likely to come

into play, as a Gwich’in, a member of the Dene tribe adjacent to the Delta, had killed his Inuit wife, and

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they had vowed revenge. The minister, as a result, had not gone north beyond the Arctic Circle to Fort

McPherson, where Inuit had only recently begun to trade. But the threat was overblown, if it existed at

all, and may have been fed to the minister by Gwich’in. Indeed, an HBC clerkxxiii from the fort had just

visited the Inuit and found them “anxious” for more contact with whites.

Inuit-Gwich’in Conflict.

Though a fur trade post, Fort Good Hope, had been present on the Lower Mackenzie since 1804,

Inuit had never paid it a visit. What kept them away was fear of the Gwich’in, who acted as

intermediaries in trade between them and whites, and who killed when that position was threatened.

Though the two tribes pent time together each spring at the southern edge of the Delta, peace was sure to

end if Inuit spoke of wanting to meet the Good Hope clerk or themselves to go to the post. [citations]

While in 1840 HBC boats were on their way to found Fort McPherson, much closer to the Delta

than Good Hope, Gwich’in massacred many Inuit men, women, and children. (H. Mackenzie) The

message to stay away could not have been more harsh, and was most effective: though the Company had

brought an Inuk from Hudson’s Bay to help with translation, he had nothing to do. Removed to Fort

Simpson, his services were again offered to the clerk at McPherson in 1843, who refused them: “I shall

not have want of Oulibuck the Esquimaux’s future services as we have no intercourse whatever with that

nation.” (Bell 1843). The man was then sent homexxiv –quite an irony, given what happened after.

The Inuit had no firearms, and when one or more were shot whenever they approached the post, it

made them think the HBC gave guns to the Gwich’in kill them [reference?]. It took a series of indirect

contacts via gift-bearing natives (hunters for the fort) to show that whites bore them no ill will and had no

intention of doing them harm. It may have helped whites involved in the Franklin searches traversed the

Delta—the 1848 party of John Richardson and his assistant John Rae, for example, traded with the Inuit

and did not fire when natives swarmed the boats.

Whatever the cause, the Inuit lost their fear of whites, and wished so much to have direct access

to trade goods, they put fear of the Gwich’in aside. Despite the 1850 treachery of one of the Company’s

Gwich’in emissaries and a massacre led by him, xxv several Inuit three years later entered Fort

McPherson, and each spring thereafter a few more appeared.

Those visits, however, were not enough to boost the post’s profit, which had lagged since the

1847 opening of Fort Yukon across the mountains.xxvi To return to prior levels of business, the clerk

would have to take in large quantities of fur from the coast. Problem was, if Inuit came to Fort McPherson

in number, war with the Gwich’in was likely to occur. One solution was to place a post deep in the Delta,

but that Chief Trader Ross (1858) would not do without access to good translation.

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That interpreters were hard to find seems strange, for (as decades of HBC records show) peace

between Inuit and Gwich’in lasted longer than conflict, a Gwich’in chief made an annual trading journey

to Inuit terrain, and the tribes lived side by side in spring not only in the Delta but sometimes at locations

further east. xxvii Intermarriage also occurred, so for years they had heard each other speak.

Similarly, some Gwich’in had long dealt with fur-trade staff (first at Fort Good Hope and then at

Fort McPherson) and knew English well enough to translate between it and the Inuit’s language. But that

skill, it appears, was lost at strategic times: during meetings of HBC clerks with Inuit in the Delta,

translation could be frustratingly poor.xxviii

Youths for the HBC

To address the issues outlined above, Charles Gaudet, now in charge at Fort McPherson, visited

the Inuit in late 1858. His presence showed that the Company wanted friendly relations, and while he

“enjoyed their hospitality” he got many pelts. But when he asked for a boy to take south to train as an

interpreter (Ross 1859), the Inuit needed time to reflect.

Inuit families consisted on average 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 worked hard and treated as slaves).xxix So for Inuit to agree to the HBC 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 for themselves, away from the Gwich’in. Then Gaudet told them their

request would carry more weight if discussed directly with Chief Trader Ross, and arranged for Inuit

leaders to go with him in July to Fort Simpson—an upstream journey of three to four weeks.

Gaudet did not know it, but his scheme nicely fit a command just written by Governor Simpson

(1859), who wanted a fort on the coast built at once. And since there was no interpreter to send in from

Hudson’s Bay, he instructed that the Inuit receive “sufficient inducement” to let some children be raised

among whites. Cost for this and the fort had no limit.

It was a surprising commitment for a man renowned for being tight-fisted, and to understand it

one must look at the difficult spot the HBC was in, and what had brought that about.

The Frozen Deep: Theatre in London

When in the 1830s the first expiry of the Territories licence approached, the Company had

banned the sale of alcohol to natives, installed missionaries on the trade route south-west of Hudson’s

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Bay, and sent two officers to explore the Arctic.xxx Large parts of the coast had been defined and new

terrain, later found to be an enormous island, had been named after just-installed Queen Victoria. As a

result the Company’s governors (George Simpson in North America and another in England) were

knighted and renewal of the licence was smoothed.xxxi

Given that success, exploration of the coast by HBC men had seemed a good tactic prior to

asking for a second renewal in the 1850s, and the search for Franklin made for serendipitous timing.

Where naval ships with large crews and supplies had failed to find him or determine how he died, small

parties living off the land might succeed and boost the Company’s image. The initiative, however,

brought the opposite of its intent. A first effort, by the officer in charge of the Mackenzie District,xxxii

produced nothing useful and a second, by Chief Factor John Rae, who had been in charge there just

before him (1849-50), brought a public relations disaster.

Travelling alone except for Inuit helpers, Rae learned that the last survivors from Franklin’s ships

had eaten the flesh of deceased fellow sailors before dying themselves. Rushing to England, he expected

praise for his work, but instead faced anger and disbelief. A campaign to discredit him and the Company

was pushed by Franklin’s widow and supported by Charles Dickens, who wrote a play, The Frozen Deep,

to show that British seamen were a heroic lot and could not have done such dreadful 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 performing the most dramatic role

and evoking many tears), while in another the parliamentary committee concerning the HBC heard of

high prices for trifles, blindness to native needs, failure to back missions, and payment of “sops” to clerics

to stifle complaint. Sir George Simpson, who testified two days and parried eighteen hundred questions,

looked deceitful when he denied cannibalism had ever occurred among starving tribes and a letter was

produced describing that very act by Gwich’in outside the gates at Fort McPherson.xxxiii Rae made matters

worse by botching his explanation of Company profit, admitting he had never understood its tariff, and

telling that while in charge of the Mackenzie he had ignored an order to lower what was charged for

certain goods.xxxiv

Adding to the damage were recent jeremiads against the HBC, pamphlets from the Aborigines

Protection Society, complaints by naval figures involved in the Franklin search (one of whom blamed the

1850 massacre of Inuit on the HBC), and campaigns against the company by former employees. And

since much of this alluded to the Mackenzie,xxxv it became a focus of committee questions. In the end,

Parliament did not renew the Territories licence, and that did not bode well for the Rupert’s Land charter,

set to expire eleven years later.

Help for Mackenzie Missions7

To have any hope of extension, the HBC had to regain public favour and raise its repute among

churches. And given what had happened in London, that required exemplary behaviour in the Mackenzie

District, even though it was not part of Rupert’s Land. The Company had to be seen trading vigorously

with the Inuit (whom outsiders accused it of ignoring), and helping to Christianize both them and other

far-off tribes. So the governor wrote to Chief Trader Ross, ordering him to aid missions as much as he

could.xxxvi

In the same letter, the governor advised that that the Territories licence had not been renewed, so

the Company’s role was no longer as ruling body, but as “private individuals.” Clerics would now be

charged for travel and freight, but that did not mean less assistance—quite the contrary. A new minister,

William Kirkby was on his way north, and was to have free board at Fort Simpson until his house had

been built. And Father Grollier, too, would also be going there: he was to join Ross’s brigade during its

return journey north, and stay at the fort until a boat left for the lower Mackenzie.

Chief Trader Ross received the letter in July when his brigade reached the Methey Portagexxxvii,

far to the South, to exchange the year’s furs for supplies and new goods.xxxviii Debarking here was

Archdeacon Hunter, who was going home, and coming aboard was Kirkby, whose role it was to stay in

the Mackenzie district and set up missions.xxxix

Perfect Kneeling:

Theatre at Fort Simpson

In 1859, as happened each summer at posts in the Mackenzie District, the clerk’s departure was

timed so as to reach Fort Simpson just as the Chief Trader with his brigade returned from the Methye

Portage. Ross with the Reverend Kirkby and Father Grollier aboard arrived on August 14, and Gaudet

from Fort McPherson the next day. What made for excitement was the presence on the latter’s boat of

Tiktik (a chief) and four other Inuit: a man, a woman, their boy, and Attingarek, variously referred to as

being nine or ten years old, who had come without her parents.xl

The crowd ashorexli was thrilled by the Inuit’s height, intelligence, good nature, exotic dress, and

“remarkably fine” looks. (Kirkby, 1859a) The children could easily pass for Europeans.xlii 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 among

southern natives), but spent large parts of the year in permanent driftwood villages, which were “all so

many facilities to the progress of the Gospel.” (1859i) Already Chief Trader Ross had invited him to the

fort to be built near those sites. Father Grollier, who had asked to go, would not be allowed.

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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 session’s end the chief trader was about to hand out gifts when he had Kirkby 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 kneelingxliii 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.xliv

On Monday in Kirkby’s 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 Gwich’in 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 Gwich’in 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 constantly (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.

Not until Friday, when the Inuit boarded Gaudet’s boat, did the boy realize he was to stay. Then

he wailed so loudly and clung to his mother so tightly that, to Kirkby’s distress (1859e), she relented and

took him along. Only Attingarek, without parents to appeal to, was left behind.

At Fort McPherson weeks later a large group of Inuit met the boat, and when the delegates told of

their excellent treatment, many offered to go the next year. Yet matters related to Attingarek caused

conflict, for Chief Trader Ross had sent her father a present, which another Inuk wanted as well. At some

point, it turned out, 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.

Attingarek

Meanwhile Attingarek, “the poor little Eskimo girl,” stayed dull and withdrawn for weeks.

(Kirkby 1859f). The only one to comfort her was a Gwich’in boyxlv, an orphan from Fort McPherson who

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spoke her language. Also acquainted with her tongue was a Gwich’in womanxlvi at the fort, and it was

with her that Attingarek stayed. Each day she and others went to the Rev. Kirkby’s 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)

Sometime that winter, when the wife of Chief Trader Ross had a baby, she took Attingarek in as a

nurse and found her a “good, intelligent, and obedient girl” who learned with ease and exactly followed

instructions. The only problem was her new helper’s “unmanageable” name, so she replaced it with that

of her own mother, Maria Ross. (Healy 1923)xlvii

The change was formalized in March 1860 when the chief trader ordered a start on a post for the

Inuit. It was not, however, in the Delta near Tiktik’s people, but to the east on the Anderson River, on a

site he thought would serve both the tribe at its mouth and the one at the Mackenzie Delta. Not realizing

how far from her people that would be, Kirkby quickly baptized Attingarek so HBC staff at the new post

could tell her young friends.xlviii Baptizing the Loucheux boy as well, he turned rapturous in his wish for a

good outcome: “Oh, that they may prove as first fruits of an abundant harvest that shall yet be gathered

into the heavenly garrison from their respective tribes.” Kirkby (1860j-k) The wording was sure to please

the Church Mission Society in London, the agency that had sent him.

In addition to this break with her culture, Attingarek was denied the chance to meet again with

one of her fathers, an Inuit chief, who in 1861 at Fort McPherson told Gaudet 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.xlix

Despite the hope raised by Tiktik’s stay at Fort Simpson, the Rev. Kirkby did not contact the

Inuit, and it was by chance that three years later he met a group near the Delta.l Writing up the encounter

for the Smithsonian Institute, he claimed their good looks reflected high intellect, and backed it up by

telling of Attingarek. 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.

Youngsters in the North became sexually active when still children by today’s 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 Attingarek.

Mrs. Ross had come to depend on her so much and got along with her so well, she had hoped to take her

along with the family on a journey to England, but her husband refused because thirty-three-year-old

William Brass, one of his traders, wanted her for a wife. (Healey, 1923). The marriage occurred when she

was thirteen and carrying Brass’s child, and was likely performed à la façon du pays during Kirkby’s

absence, i.e. via a signed HBC contract.

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The missionary’s report of Maria’s 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 newlyweds

had been sent to a post far south of the treeline.li 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.

L’Envoi

Governor Simpson did not live to see the outcome of his policy toward missions. He had long

suffered a form of spells (Hargrave), and at the parliamentary hearings his memory failed badly on

several occasions. lii 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 Tiktik and his group he

founded a mission far downstream at Fort Good Hopeliii, and from there made journeys to Fort McPherson

to meet the Inuit. Shortness of breath felled him in 1864 at age thirty-eight. (Carrière) He had never

entered the Delta, yet Catholic histories tell how he realized his ideal, which was “to take the cross all the

way to the Pole.”(Champagne 121) The line paraphrases his last words, inscribed on his grave: “Jesus, I

die content, for your standard has been raised unto the ends of the earth.”liv

Similar words marked Canada’s 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.” lv Given that heady mix of national pride with Christian triumphalism, as well as

colonists’ pressure for soil,lvi the HBC recognized its charter would not be renewed, and after negotiating

gave up its rights in 1870.

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,lvii the language of his

youth in Montreal. Soon he reverted to the Catholic faith, lviii and 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.lix He ran the Good Hope post nearly five decades.

Archdeacon Hunter’s 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

missionarylx who had testified against the HBC at the 1857 hearings. Medically trained, he had repeatedly

tried to abort the foetus after making his servant girl pregnant. Much nastiness followed and contributed

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to Hunter being denied the episcopal post. Returning overseas, he became a renowned London preacher.

(Peel)

In 1881 Maria Ross Brass (i.e. Attingarek) and her husband lived at Fort Nelson lxiand had six

surviving children, the youngest age three.lxii At one point the couple had sought an Anglican minister to

provide schooling, but an Oblate priest at another postlxiii talked them into letting a Catholic one come

instead. [ref.?] When Brass retired to southern Manitoba, Maria went with him, and it was there, at St.

Andrews (the former parish of the Reverends Hunter and Kirkby in what used to be the Red River

Settlement), that she died on Jan. 20, 1897 and was buried beside the church. (Brownlee)

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.lxiv That is not

to say this explains the failure to gain converts—it 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 Attingarek other youths from the coast stayed at HBC forts from time to timelxv, 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.

Tiktik’s people found little use for the fort on the Anderson River, which was too far away and

did not fit their annual spring migration south through the Mackenzie Delta. When it opened Chief Trader

Ross (1861a) wrote to Governor Simpson, not knowing he was dead, 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.lxvi

It would be understandable if Tiktik felt bitter about his journey far south on the Mackenzie, for

despite Attingarek’s remaining with whites, no fort had been built where he had asked. In 1871, in

response to 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 from Good Hope, the Inuit attacked it, seized the fur he had collected and threw it overboard. The

Company as a result abandoned what had been meant to be an annual affair. (Hardisty 1872a, b). Promise

of a fort for the Delta was again made from time to time, especially after American whalers in 1889

started trading nearby, but it all came to naught.

12

Nowhere is it recorded whether Tiktik was with those who those who assaulted Gaudet’s boat,

but the next spring he was at Fort McPherson (PRJ 1873), where it seems he was well known and

probably visited each year. There may have been times, however, when danger kept him on the coast, as

he played a central part in a feud that brought many murders. (Stefansson 1916)

Also causing demise was epidemic illness. When it claimed Tiktik’s wife in late 1885, she was

brought to Fort McPherson and lay frozen in the warehouse beside three Gwich’in. (PRJ 1885) That she

was taken there for eventual burial, rather than left above ground, was perhaps a first a first sign of

willingness to adopt Christian rites. It did not, however, point to a receptive attitude to the teachings of

two young clerics, Father Camille Lefebvre and Anglican cleric Isaac Stringer, who began competing for

their allegiance seven years later.

Details of the two men’s faiths, let alone conflicts in dogma, eluded the Inuit, but they were much

aware of a difference in tone. The priest’s hell-fire words soon led to his exclusion from the Inuit’s homes

in the Delta, while Stringer’s calm approach won friendship and respect.lxvii

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 Pacific

Steam Whaling Company’s main building, lxviii he managed its depot for whaling ships and its trading post

for natives, and simultaneously conducted his Christian work. As during Tiktik’s visit to Fort Simpson

forty years earlier, commerce and evangelization were closely tied. Yet neither that nor Stringer’s

engaging persona brought converts. Only after another near-decade of mission, and that by a far less

popular clericlxix, did acceptance of Jesus took place.

We don’t know when Tiktik died, 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. lxx She worked for the

Stringers in 1901, sewing beautiful caribou coats in which they were photographed in the fall on

returning to the South, and in which years later they were received by the king and queen in Britain.lxxi

Just after the century’s 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)lxxii held “a hearty service,” with many present, in their tent.lxxiii During that trip a few adults were

baptized, and by 1912 most of the Inuit in the region, including several hundred who had moved there

from Alaska, had joined the Anglican Church.

The Christian path of each—confirmation, marriage, etc.—can easily be traced from Anglican

records, including that of a second Tiktik, who in 1914 was one of a group who volunteered to tell of

Jesus to people far east along on the coast. lxxiv 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,

13

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 Commission’s final phrase was (in its geographic sense) fully effected.

14

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

Hudson’s Bay Company HBC or Company

Hudson’s Bay Company Archives HBCA

Fort Simpson correspondence books.

Fort Good Hope post journal.

Peel’s 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

Anglican Church of Canada. Dioceses of the Mackenzie and Yukon.

1909-26 Registers of Eskimo Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and Death 1909–26. Public

Archives of Alberta 70.387.

15

Aborigines Protection Society.

1856 Canada West and the Hudson's Bay Company: A Political and Humane Question of Vital

Importance to the Honour of Great Britain, to the Prosperity of Canada, and to the

Existence of the Native Tribes, being an Address to the Right Honorable Henry

Labouchère, Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.

London. Pamphlet. Web. Canadiana.org

Alunik, Ishmael, Eddie D. Kolausok, and David Morrison.

2003 Across Time and Tundra: The Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic. Raincoast Books; U. of

Washington P.m Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Anderson, James

1852a to Governor, 1852, 01, 07. HBCA B200/b/29

1852b to Augustus Peers, 1852, 25, 08. HBCA B200/b/29

Anderson, R.M.

1910 Photo album. NAC. PA 187698.

1910 Amer. Mus. of Natural History, New York. Anderson-Stefannson Expedition. Anderson

Photos. Filing No. 57.2 (98). Photo 16997, June 16, 1910.

Armstrong, Alexander.

1857 A Personal Narrative of the Discovery of the Northwest Passage. London. 1857.

Ballantyne, Robert M.

1848 Hudson's Bay; or, Every-Day Life in the the Wilds of North-America. Edinburgh and

London,1848. Web. Canadiana.org.

Barr, William

2002 From Barrow to Boothia: The Arctic Journal of Chief Factor Peter Warren Dease, 1836-

1839. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Bell, John

16

1826 to Edward Smith and Peter Dease, 1826, 21, 08. HBCA B200/b/3

1830 to Smith, 1830, 08, 08. HBCA B200/b/3

1831a to Smith, 1831, 31, 01. HBCA B200/b/6

1831b to Smith, 1831, 09, 08. HBCA B200/b/7

1832 to Smith, 1832, 31, 01. HBCA B200/b/7

1841 to Lewes, 1841, 04, 07. HBCA B200/b/14

1843 to Lewes, 1843, 03, 04. HBCA B200/6/16.

1850 to Governor (from Fort Simpson), 1850, n.d., fall. HBCA B200/b/25.

Bodfish, Capt. Hartson H.

1936 Chasing the Whale. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1936. Entry for 1895, 04, 06.

Boreski, Thomas G.

2000 “Griffith Owen Corbett.” Web. DCBO. 2011/01/01.

Brannan, Robert Louis.

1966 Under the Management of Charles Dickens: His Production of “The Frozen Deep.” New

York: Cornell UP.

Breton, P. E.

1963 Irish of the Arctic. Edmonton: Editions de L'Hermitage.

Brisebois, Charles

1825 to Edouard Smith, 1825, 07, 01. HBCA B200/b/1

Brownlee, John

2011 Personal Communication.

Burch, Ernest S.

17

1994 “The Inupiat and the christianization of Arctic Alaska.” Etudes/Inuit/Studies 18.1-2: 81-

108.

Carrière, Gaston

1977 Pierre-Henri Grollier. Dictionnaire Biographique des Oblats de Marie Immaculée au

Canada, vol. 2, U. of Ottawa, 114-115.

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 Dease

Expedition.” Symposium on Early Investigations of the Western Arctic, Twentieth Annual

Conf. of the Can. Archeological Assn. Calgary, V 8-10. Quoted in Coates 1991.

Champagne , Joseph Etienne

1949 Les Missions Catholiques dans l’Ouest Canadien, 1818-1875. Ottawa: L’Institut de

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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. Ottawa:

Carleton UP.

Dallas, A. G.

1861 to W.L Hardisty, 1863, 22, 05. HBCA 200/b/34

David, Robert G.

2000 The Arctic in the British Imagination 1818-1914. Manchester: Manchester UP.

18

Duchaussois O.M.I., Pierre.

1937 Mid Snow and Ice: The Apostles of the North-West. Buffalo: Missionary Oblates of Mary

Immaculate.

Fitzgerald, James Edward

1849 An Examination of the Charter and Proceedings of the Hudson's Bay Company, With

Reference to the Grant of Vancouver's Island. London. Web. Canadiana.org. [check]

Galbraith, John S.

2000 “Sir George Simpson.” DCBO. 2007, 11, 12.

Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on the Hudson’s Bay Company.

1858 Report from the Select Committee together with the proceedings of the committee,

minutes of evidence, appendix, and index. London. Canadiana.org. 2008, 02, 10.

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, Révérend Père.

1858 “Missions Etrangères: Vicariat du Mackenzie, Souvenirs: récit inédit d'un voyage du R.

P. Grollier au Fort Simpson en 1858.” Missions de la Congrégation des Missionnaires

Oblats de Marie Immaculée. March 1886, 409-19.

Hardisty

1871a to Andrew Flett at Peel’s 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

19

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: Women’s Canadian Club, 1923. Web.

Hooper, Lieut. W. H.

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).

Hudson’s Bay Company, Fort Good Hope journal.

1822-1834. HBCA, B/80/a/1-12.

Hudson’s Bay Company, Peel’s 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.

1858c to CMS, 1858, 11, 05. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A91.

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.

20

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

Kirkby, William West

1859a Journal, 1859, 15, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859b Journal, 1859, 20, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859c Journal, 1859, 22, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859d Journal, 1859, 23, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859e Journal, 1859, 26, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859f Journal, 1859, 27, 08. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1859g Journal, 1859, 08, 09. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

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.

1862 to CMS, 1862, 29, 11. NAC MG17 B2, CMS Reel A93.

1865 “A Journey to the Youcan Russian America.” Smithsonian Institution Annual Reports

19: 416-20.

Lewes, John

1842 to Governor Simpson, 1842, 07, 09. HBCA B200/b/16.

21

1843 to Governor Simpson, 1843,30, 07. HBCA B200/b/19.

Levasseur, Donat

1995 Les Oblats de Marie-Immaculée dans le Grand Nord du Canada 1845-1967. Edmonton:

Western Canadian Publisher.

Lewes, John

1842 to Governor, 1842, 09, 07. HBCA B200/b/16.

Mackenzie, Alexander

1855 to Gntlm. in Charge, 1855, 10, 12. HBCA B200/b/32.

Mackenzie, Hector

1840 to R. McLeod, 1840, 28, 07. HBCA B200/b/17.

McCarthy, Martha

1995 From the Great River to the Ends of the Earth. Edmonton: U. of Alberta P.

McGhee, Robert.

1988 Beluga Hunters: An archeologic reconstruction of the history and culture of the

Mackenzie Delta Kittegaryumiut. Hull: Can. Mus. of Civilization. (Original edition 1974:

U. of Newfoundland).

McGoogan, Ken.

2005 Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of

Arctic History. Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2005.

MacLeod, Margarett Arnett, ed.

1947 The Letters of Letitia Hargrave. Ed. Margaret Arnett MacLeod. Toronto: The Champlain

Society, 1947. [I must find the date of letter with comment about G. Simpson’s spells]

McLean, John and W. Stewart Wallace

1932 John McLean's Notes of a Twenty-Five Year's Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory.

Toronto: Champlain Society (reproduction of the 1849 original).

22

McPherson, Murdo

1840 to J. Bell, 1840, 02, 06. HBCA B200/b/12.

Morton, Desmond

2001 A Short History of Canada. Toronto: McLelland.

Nuligak, [Robert]

1966 I, Nuligak. Maurice Métayer, transl. and ed. Toronto: Martin.

Owram, Doug

1992 Promise of Eden: The Canadian Expansionist Movement and the Idea of the West, 1856-

1900. Toronto: U of Toronto P (first issue in 1980; 1992 version has new introduction).

Palssen, Gisli

2001. Writing on Ice: The Ethnographic Notebooks of Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Hanover:

New England UP.

Payment, Diane

2003 “Marie Fisher Gaudet (1813-1914): ‘la Providence du fort Good Hope.’" Ecclectica. 2

:1-14. Web. 2009, 03, 12.

Peel, Bruce.

2000 “James Hunter.” DCBO. Web. 2007, 12, 04.

Peers, Augustus (Peel’s River journal entries)

1849 1849, 04, 07. Peel’s River House. Journals kept by Angus [sic] R. Peers. NAC MG19,

D12, Reel H2341.

1852 1852, 31, 08. NAC source as above.

Petitot, Emile

1865 to Oblate Director General L. Fabre in Rome, 1865, 21, 03. Oblate Archives, Rome.

Porter, Sophie E.

23

1895 Jesse H. Freeman log,1895, 04, 06. Old Dartmouth Historical Society, Roll 1010, frame

362-422. Catalog # 1080.

Porter, Andrew

1985 “‘Commerce and Christianity’: The Rise and Fall of a Nineteenth-Century

Missionary Slogan.” The Historical Journal 28.3: 597-621.

Rae, John

1851 to Sir George Simpson, 1851, 04, 23. In Rich, Rae’s Correspondence, 174-175. Web.

Rasmussen. Knud

1924 The Mackenzie Eskimos, after Knud Rasmussen’s Posthumous Notes. Ed. H. Osterman.

Copenhagen: Gyldenhalske Boghandel, 1942.

Rich, Edwin Ernest and A. M. Johnson.

1953 Rae's Correspndence with the Hudson's bay Company on Arctic Exploration 1844-1855.

Hudson's Bay Record Society. Web.

1828 "Dr. Richardson's Narrative of the Proceedings of the Eastern Detachment of the

Expedition."in Narrative of a Second Expedition to the Shores of the Polar Sea in the

Years 1825, 1826, and 1827. London: J. Murray, 1828. 193-202. 1971 reprint, ed. M. G.

Hurtig, Edmonton.

1851 Arctic Searching Expedition: A Journal of a Boat-Voyage Through Rupert's Land and the

Arctic Sea in Search of the Discovery Ships Under Command of Sir John Franklin.

London. Greenman Press, New York, 1969, Vol. 1, 214-15.

Ross, Bernard Rogan

1858 to HBC governor 1858, 29, 11. HBCA B200/b/33

1859 to HBC governor 1859, 26, 03. HBCA B200/b/33

1861a to HBC governor 1861, 20, 03. HBCA B200/b/33

1861b to Charles Gaudet, 1861, 26, 03. HBCA B200/b/33.

Simpson, George

24

1854 to James Anderson, 1854, 10, 11. HBCA B200/c/1

1859 to Bernard R. Ross 1859, 15, 06. HBCA B200/b/34.

Simpson, Thomas

1845 Narrative of the Discoveries of the North Coast of America: Effected by the Officers of

the Hudson's Bay Company During the Years 1836-9. London: Richard Bentley, 102.

Smith, Edward

1826 to Governor, 1826, 29, 11. HBCA B200/b/3

1830a to John Bell, 1830, n.d., 10. HBCA B200/b/6

1830b to Governor, 1830, 28, 11. HBCA B200/b/6

1831 to Governor, 1831, 03, 06. HBCA B200/b/7.

Stanley, Brian

1983 “‘Commerce and Christianity’: Providence Theory, the Missionary Movement, and the

Imperialism of Free Trade, 1842-1860." The Historical Journal 26.1: 71-94.

Stefansson, Vilhjalmur

1906 Diary, 1906, 17, 02. (Palssen 122).

1907 Diary, 1907, 05, 02. (Stefansson 1914, 180).

1912 Diary, 1912, 18, 04. (Stefansson, 1914, 380-1; missing from Palssen).

1914 The Stefansson-Anderson Arctic Expedition of the American Museum: Preliminary

Report. Anthropological Papers of the Amer. Mus. of Natural History, XIV, part 1.

1916 Diary, 1916, 29, 02. Typed transcript. Dartmouth College Library Stef. MSS 98 (5): V-9.

Stringer, Isaac.

[Date?] Journal. ACCT, M74-3, Stringer Family Fond,Series 1-B, Box 5.

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25

[date?] Journal. ACCT, M74-3, Stringer family fonds, Series 2-C, Box 14.

Vanast, Walter

2006 “ ‘Une Faute d’Orthographe’: A Sexual History of Missions to the Mackenzie Inuit.”

Unpublished article.

2007 “The Bad Side to The Good Story: Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Christian Conversion in

the Mackenzie Delta 1906-1925.” Religious Study and Theology 26: 77-116.

2011 “Oblate Defeat. Father Camille Lefebvre, Reverend Isaac Stringer and the Competition

for Mackenzie Inuit allegiance: 1892-1894 . Primary data from diaries and

correspondence.” Web. [reference not yet entered in body of text]

Van Kirk, Sylvia

1983 Many Tender Ties. University of Oklahoma Press.

26

i These words open an address by Zarathustra’s 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.”

ii Until the late nineteenth century only Inuit from the Delta’s eastern side came each spring to its southern tip,

and it is they who are the actors in this account. Whites in the 1890s sometimes refer 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.’s Across Time and Tundra.

iii For the debate see “The Bad Side to the Good Story” by W. Vanast, whose work came after Ernest S. Burch’s

outstanding study of rapid conversion on the Alaska coast.

iv For Britons’ providential view of the conjuncture of Christianity and commerce see A. Porter. Stanley tells

why it was expected to reach complete “consummation” between 1857 and 1860 and why that failed.

v I must add the references for the theater in the round concept

vi Settlement hereafter.

vii Via their spokesman, Alexander Kennedy Isbister.

viii For early Oblate work in the Territories see Levasseur ch. 5, “Jusq’au Grand Nord.”

ix Cumberland House on the Saskatchewan.

x For many years Donald Ross was in charge of Norway House, a major HBC transport hub and depot. He died

in xxxx, his wife Maria in xxxx.

xi Griffith Owen Corbett, of the high wing of the Anglican Church.

xii 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.

xiii Xxxx Anderson.

xiv See David, The Arctic (an almost impenetrable academic tome) for details of Britons’ obsession with the

Arctic.

xv The 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." For British

fascination with the Arctic see the turgid volume by David.

xvi Psalms 72:8, KJV. The idea for this line comes from Martha McCarthy’s From the Great River to the Ends of

the Earth, a superbly researched, fluid account of Mackenzie Dene missions.

xvii Hunter (1857) had years earlier heard these kind comments about Inuit of the Hudson’s 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.

xviii Xxxx-Marie Fisher.

xix “Mr. Gaudet was last year admitted into the Church of England by Archdn. Hunter.” (Kirkby 1859b)

xx Gaudet 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.

xxi An Orangist: 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).

xxii A few Dene joined the Anglican faith, but only briefly.

xxiii James Lockhart, whose report was not transcribed into the Fort Simpson correspondence book, but

paraphrased in a letter by Ross (1858).

xxiv Oulibuck . He had been with Dease and Simpson during their late-1830s explorations along the coast, starting

in from the Mackenzie. He spent the 1840-41 trade year at McPherson (McPherson 1840) , where 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). When in 1843 the chief trader offered to send him back to McPherson, the clerk there did not

accept: “I shall not have want of Oulibuck the Esquimaux’s future services as we have no intercourse whatever

with that nation.” (Bell 1843) In July 1843 the family left the Mackenzie with the annual brigade and were sent

on to Norway House, from which they made their way home. (Lewes 1843).

xxv At Point Separation in 1850.

xxvi Fort Yukon.

xxvii Early in the century, when Fort Good Hope belonged to the Northwest Company, Gwich’in profited from

war with Inuit, for then, as in 1817 and 1819 when Peter Dease was in charge, they received gifts from the post

to end it.(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. In general, conflict emerged if Inuit wished to meet whites or were about to do so. In 1840 Gwich’in

massacred a dozen Inuit men, as well as women and children when the Peel’s River post, near the Delta, was

about to open (H. Mackenzie). A few years later they shot Inuit entering the Peel (Richardson 214-15), and Inuit

as a result thought whites gave Gwich’in guns to kill them (Peers 1849). In 1850, when Inuit met an HBC boat

near the Peel, Gwich’in 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 deli1berately shot them” (Bell 1850).

xxviii For translation problems see J. Anderson 1852a and b; A. Mackenzie 1855; Ross 1858 and 1859.

xxix See Nuligak’s tale (13, 30, 32, 54, 58, 120, 127) of his 1890-1910 youth as “a poor orphan. ”

xxx Peter Dease and Thomas Simpson. William Barr gives an exquisite introduction to his edition of Dease’s

diary during the 1836-9 explorations.

xxxi See Fitzgerald for sarcastic 1849 comments (119-120) on the HBC’s tactics prior to the licence renewal.

Coates has discussed the self-serving aspects of the HBC’s 1836-39 Dease and Simpson explorations.

xxxii James Anderson, to whom Gov. Simpson’s 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 Majesty’s Government and the English public” (1854)

xxxiiiOn 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

Peel’s River was from John Ballantyne’s 1848 adventure book Hudson’s 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.

xxxiv All Rae’s testimony: Q+A 365-696; not understanding the tariff: 482-484; not lowering prices: 532.

xxxv The Company’s sins were painted as bad treatment of natives and failure to aid missions. The latter charge

related to its enemies’ claims that the Mackenzie could support agriculture—which meant natives could change

from a nomadic life to farming, thought essential to conversion. James E. Fitzgerald’s 1849 jeremiad against the

HBC commented (119-20) on the Mackenzie’s fine weather and soil, even at Peel’s River. 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 domestic cattle, which were kept at several posts. John McLean, who denigrated the

HBC in his 1849 book, had assisted the trader-in-charge at Fort Simpson in 1843-44, and was in command at

Fort Resolution in 1844-45 (the first year it was part of the Mackenzie District), after which, faced with lack of

promotion, he quit the HBC and became its opponent. Endless charges came from Alexander Isbister, former

HBC apprentice at Fort Simpson in 1839-40 and at Peel’s River in 1840-41, who spoke in London for

disgruntled citizens of the Red River Settlement, spearheaded a written assault on the company’s rights,

concocted an 1856 tract against it (Aborigines Protection Society), and testified at length at the 1857 hearings.

( Q+A 2392-2598 and 6072-6098). See Cooper for an irritating, ostentatious, theory-soaked hagiography of him.

Thomas Kennedy, Isbister’s young uncle, after leaving the HBC led searches for Franklin sponsored by the

latter’s widow, whipped up opposition in Upper Canada to the Company’s monopoly, and spoke to Toronto

businessmen about the Mackenzie’s wasted riches (Aborigines Protection Society). Like Fitzgerald, he had not

been in that district and likely got his information from McLean and Isbister. Naval Lieutenant W. H. Hooper

told in 1853 (366-74) of an HBC man’s part in a massacre of Inuit by Gwich’in. 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.

xxxvi By aiding Rome, it is true, 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.

xxxviiAlso known as Portage La Loche, or the Grand Portage, twelve miles long, in what is now northern

Saskatchewan.

xxxviii The Mackenzie’s trade year went from late June one year to late June the next.

xxxix Kirkby had with him John Hope, a young mixed-blood teacher from the Settlement, where he was a recent

graduate of the St. John’s Academy, which had Anglican staff.

xl Kirkby journal, CMS reel A93, NAC. The girl’s age: 1859, 08, 09; the rest of the paragraph, 1859, 15, 08.

Tiktik’s name, 1860, 19, 03.

xli Over a hundred people were present, including crews of boats from most district posts to pick up goods, and

those of the chief trader’s brigade (who spent winter at the Mackenzie’s Big Island).

xlii One might postulate this had something to do with sailors’ contact with Inuit during the searches for

Franklin). Sir John Richardson had passed through the Delta’s Eastern Channel in 1848 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 halted when a sudden break in the ice “caused a number of very ludicrous exposes.” And

when the ship Plover wintered 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 Franklin’s 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 the time far away from their wives)

[citation]

xliii The evangelical or “lower” branch of the Anglican Church included kneeling in its liturgy.

xliv At the service’s end, Kirkby thanked HBC staff for their “noble efforts” to erect a church.

xlv “William Flett—8 years old, speaks Loucheux and Eskimo. He is from Peel’s River, a pure Indian, and

unbaptized though called by the above name.” (Kirkby 1859g)

xlvi She was the wife of James Flett, who had been at La Pierre’s House, a subsidiary to Peel’s 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.

xlvii Maria was also the name of the young daughter of her own sister, the wife of Archdeacon Hunter. The girl

had passed away just before he returned home from the North in the summer of 1859Mrs. Ross did not know it,

but she was engaging in a practice distantly similar to that of the Mackenzie Inuit, who gave the name-spirit of a

recently deceased relative to a newborn.

xlviii Baptism of natives in that era involved assigning a European name, often one from the Bible, and only rarely

did ministers choose one of liking to the Catholic Church, such as the name of Jesus’ mother, to whom Rome

gave what Protestants thought idolatrous praise. That was all the more so since the pope had recently proclaimed

the doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate had pushed for the doctrine in

Rome.

xlix Perhaps 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.

l Kirkby was en route from Fort Simpson to the Yukon.

li Fort Halkett, on the Liard.

lii For Simpson’s testimony see Q+A 702-2125, Feb. 26 and 27, 1857.

liii The first Fort Good Hope, opened in 1805, was located on the Mackenzie a few days’ travel from the Delta; in

the late 1820s it was moved a week’s travel upstream to just south of the Arctic Circle.

liv The inscription is from Grollier’s grave at Fort Good Hope: “Je meurs content, O Jésus, votre étendard est

élevé jusqu’aux extrémités 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 Polaires, published in Paris, won him membership in

the Académie Française. 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.”

lv Leonard Tilley, government leader in New Brunswick, suggested the text. (Morton 97-98)

lvi See Owram’s informative Promise of Eden about the West’s appeal to farmers and politicians.

lvii Father Grollier until his death in 1864, Father Jean Séguin starting in 1861, and Father Emile Petitot, from

1864 on. Also present was Oblate religious brother J. P. Kearney, for whom Grollier’s imperious ways were a

cross to bear. Séguin and Kearney stayed half a century, as did Gaudet. Breton’s 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 missionaries ” (opp. p. 80). The book softens Grollier’s 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.”

lviii Petitot to Oblate Director General Joseph Fabre in Rome, Mar. 21, 1865, Oblate Archives, Rome

lix HBCA personnel sheet. HBCA. Web. http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/hbca/biographical

lx Griffin Owen Corbett belonged to the high Anglican Church (another reason for his not getting along with

Hunter). In addition to stoking Red River’s populace against the HBC, he testified to its anti-mission stance at

the 1857 hearings (Q+A 2656-2888, p. 150-169 ). A fine précis of his twisted personality and bizarre ecclesiastic

path tells that the local bishop called him “a most dangerous man.” (Boreski).

lxi On the Liard west of Fort Simpson,in what is now British Columbia, the fort was part of the Mackenzie

District.

lxii The 1881 Canadian census lists James 18, Margaret 16, Jane 14, William 10, John 8, Thomas 3. Maria’s

ethnic origin was given as “Esquimaux,” but in later years in other documents as Indian and Métis (the former is

not unusual given that some whites until early the next century referred to Inuit as Esquimaux Indians). Maria’s

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 trader’s wife) and of her later life. In his youth Brownlee’s nearest

relatives denied they carried native blood, then considered a shame—but he followed a hunch and doggedly

traced through the decades. He and his family proudly bear their Métis status.

lxiii Fort Liard.

lxiv A 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 d’orthographe’:

a sexual history of missions to the Mackenzie Inuit.” The faute was the Oblates’ way of referring to Rev. Robert

McDonald’s fathering in the 1860s of a child by the Peel’s River HBC trader’s wife—which required him to stay

away for several years in the Yukon. Later Anglican missionaries include McDonald’s 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 Séguin, superior at Good

Hope, and one his priests, Emile Petitot. Séguin made a long visit to the Delta Inuit’s 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 Gwich’in—after visiting

them he told stories that required his knowing the language when in fact (as Séguin pointed out) he did not.

lxv The main examples are three males: George Greenland (Arveuna), David Copperfield, and Kalukotok.

lxvi “I 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.

lxvii These comments are based on my transcription of the diaries and correspondence by and about the two men

in church and HBC archives.

lxviii Formerly a pool hall for sailors and quarters for the Pacific Whaling Company’s on-shore captain.

lxix Charles E. Whittaker.

lxx For 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).

lxxi The fame the royal visit brought, as well as stories about his time in the Arctic, helped make Stringer

Archbishop of Rupert’s Land, one of the Anglican Church in Canada’s most senior positions.

lxxii Though 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.,

lxxiii At Nalugogiak

lxxiv For 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 Tiktik’s daughter, 1912, 10, 07; her marriage, 1912,

12, 07; baptism #270, of Tiktik’s son Mark, 1913, 11, 01; Tiktik married again, 1922, 01, 01; Tiktik confirmed,

1925, 29. 06.