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What Goes Around Comes Around:The Early Theatre of Mackenzie Inuit

Evangelization.Draft x rd

Walter Vanast

McGill Un ive rs i ty

Int ellec tua l Prop e rty

Corr ec t ions and sugg e st ions in vi te d

[email protected]


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What Goes Around Comes Around:The Early Theatre of Mackenzie Inuit Evangelization.

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

To arctic-coast tribes in pre-contact days history was a circle, as newborns received the name ii of

someone recently deceased and thereby became that person. But to whites who met them it led straight

from Adam to last judgment, when the dead would all rise and go to heaven or hell. How that was first

told to a delegation of Mackenzie Inuit iii is the subject of this article, as are the reasons it occurred in 1859

at Fort Simpson, a thousand miles south of the coast. iv Also discussed is the fate of some of the players,

including Hudsons Bay Company fur trade staff, competing Anglican and Catholic clerics, and a ten-

year- old girl the Inuit left behind. The encounter made for theatre-in-the round, in which actors addressed

not only each other, but the far off audience that dictated their lines. v

Th e Hudsons Bay Company in Br i ta in

The HBC in the mid-1850s entered a worrisome era, as expiry loomed to its monopoly in two

immense terrains: the charter to Ruperts Land would end in 1870 and the licence to the Northwest

Territory very soon. The licence, first issued in 1821 and valid for under twenty years, had seen one

renewal, but free trade was in vogue by the time a second was due. Showing doubt, parliament in 1857

subjected the HBC to hearings in London.

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

subject to the charter, 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 sought repeal of its charter.

To reach that goal, some residents had for a decade used Alexander Isbister, vi who lived in

London, to make their case. Son of an HBC servant and grandson of a chief trader, he had grown up at a

fur-trade post on the Saskatchewan River and had worked as an apprentice in the Mackenzie District (the

Territories largest and most distant part).

From 1838 to 1840 Isbister transcribed correspondence and learned bookkeeping at Fort

Simpson, the HBCs Mackenzie District headquarters. Then he quit, but since a year remained on his


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contract, the chief trader sent him to assist at the founding of Fort McPherson near the Mackenzie Delta

among the Gwichin, the northernmost tribe of what is now called the Dene Nation.

In 1841 Isbister returned to the Settlement school he had previously attended, where he was

groomed to become an Anglican missionary and sent to Britain the next summer to complete his training.

Hopes were high he would return one day to serve his own people, but sometime after arriving overseashe lost the urge to serve God. Four years later, having failed to complete degrees at two schools, he found

no employ despite many applications and fudging of his skills.

Even the Hudsons Bay Company, to which his family had ties, turned Isbister down for several

postsone as naval surgeon, the other as man-of-many-talents in Oregon. It was just then he found

means to harm the HBC and its governor, whom he hated: businessmen from the Red River Settlement

(later Winnipeg) had him present a petition to parliament to end the Companys rule.

Isbister seldom had an original idea, but was expert at conflating HBC conduct (as he saw it) with

issues elsewhere that had aroused the publics ire. He presented its malfeasance such that it echoed that of the East India Company, which had badly used natives, refused entry to missions, and caused a revolt.

Similarly, he called the state of Indians on HBC terrain worse than slavery, only recently abolished by

Britain, as they were not told of Jesus and had no chance to join the Christian faith. And he made much of

violence, though that had in fact been rare. [ref?] At no point did he recognize that the HBC and

indigenous peoples partook in an accommodation that worked well for both sides. All it took for natives

to protest was to stop bringing their furs. The Gwichin, for example, refused trade unless they got beads

of exactly the size and color they wantedand the Company always obliged.

Initially rebuffed by Parliament, Isbister kept up his criticism, especially by means of theAborigines Protection Society, of which he eventually became a director, and whose pamphlets he wrote.

The HBC, these charged, refused to spread Gods word, and that made its charter null. Helping him was a

book published in 1849 John McLean, an HBC employee who had also worked in the Mackenzie. Started

at Fort Simpson five years earlier when he was not, as he had hoped, put in charge of the district, it was

loaded with accusations, and in dramatic style presented laments as if spoken by a desperate native. vii

Published in London, McLeans book played on Britains fears of Catholic wiles. Married to the

daughter of disgraced Wesleyan missionary James Evans, who had died after being called to England to

explain his sexual misconduct at an HBC post, he firmly took the disgraced mans side. That meantblaming the Company for contriving his fall, arresting his work in gathering natives in agricultural

conclaves (then thought essential to conversion), and favouring Rome while discouraging Protestant

efforts. As the 1857 hearings began, that charge seemed valid if one looked at the Territoryit held not


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one Anglican cleric, while Oblates of Mary Immaculate, already present for over half a decade, had set up

several missions, and traveled as far as Great Slave Lake.

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

chapel. viii A driven man, nasty even to Oblates, he had asked a permit from HBC Governor Sir George

Simpson to descend the Mackenzie, and a late response almost let an Anglican cleric do it first.

Th e R eve r e nd Hunt e r

About the time that Father Grollier starting building at Fort Resolution, the Rev. James Hunter, a

fervent evangelical, took leave from St. Andrews, his Settlement parish. The reasons were several and

some he could not state, but it was a time of intense social turmoilill feelings between Presbyterians

and Anglicans (the latters bishop behaved badly in the conflict), agitation against the HBC, ill feelings

between clerics, and so on (Pannekoek). One senses he needed a break, a period of rejuvenation.

During eleven years at posts ix further north, Hunter had formed warm ties with Company staff and married a daughter of Chief Factor Donald Ross and his wife Maria, the regions most senior couple. x

At the Settlement, too, he had fine relations with HBC men. So he felt the stress as the Companys charter

was challenged, its licence put at risk, and its treatment of natives grossly distorted in Britain. Worse,

rebellion against the HBC was preached by a local colleague with a spotty past: the Rev. Griffith Corbett,

member of the high branch of the Anglican church. (Boreski)

Ambition, too, nudged Hunters break. Already an archdeacon, he might one day gain the

bishops post xi, and one way to raise the chance was to blaze a new path for missions. But the reason he

gave in public and in which he fiercely believed was to battle Rome, whose priests had gone far into theTerritory 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 on the Beaufort

Sea.(1857, 1858a-c)

Hunters intended route played into whites fascination with the Arctic xii, 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 had vanished while looking for the Northwest Passage.

What also brought prestige was the Arctics meaning to Christians, for to them the last phrase of Jesus Great Commission, unto the end of the world, was an order to tell of God at the globes most

distant sites. xiii 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. xiv


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That Hunters prospects were good was shown by a converted Inuk from east of Hudsons Bay

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

tribes to make Christian. xv Having him along might have helped evangelize the Inuit of the Mackenzie,

but he passed away, supposedly because of the climate. (Hunter 1858a)

The death did not blunt Hunters drive, for he also hoped to convert the Dene, the MackenziesIndians, who were said to be well disposed toward the gospel. Hence his rush to get to Fort Simpson,

where the officer in charge, Chief Trader Bernard 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 kintheir partners were sisters.

Mi ss ionar ie s on t h e M a cke nz ie

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 at Fort Resolution met Father Grollier. The Oblatewas making his mark, for in addition to converting Indians, he had recently sealed the marriage of a

mixed-blood woman xvi and an HBC employee, Charles Gaudet. (Payment) As it pained the priest to see

the enemy advance, he joined Hunter on the boats to Fort Simpson. (Grollier)

Hunter watched along the route as the half-breed crewsdescendents of fur-trade men from

Quebec, and strongly in favour of the Catholic faithencouraged Dene to pray with Father Grollier and

accept his blessings. At Fort Simpson, however, another dynamic took hold. When Dene there embraced

the priest, Chief Trader Ross sent him back to Great Slave Lake. (Grollier; Hunter 1858e)

Though Hunter now had the Mackenzie to himself, it brought no advantagenatives showed nointerest in his teaching, and the mother in law of Charles Gaudet opposed his work. A forceful Mtisse,

she spread word that a minister was lhomme dune femme, a man linked to a wife, while priests

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

Roman Church and joined the Church of England. xvii

Career concern likely underlay the young mans shift. Recently promoted from servant status, xviii

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

all that had to do with the pope. The switch was Hunters only success, xx and in July, as Father Grollier

gleefully put it, he left in shame to rejoin his dear other half.Hunters view of Inuit had by now greatly changed: rather than peaceful and eager to learn, they

thirsted for blood and were deceitful. (1859) Killings would soon occur as they had vowed to avenge a

Gwichin murder of his Inuit wife. The minister, as a result, had not gone north beyond the Arctic Circle

to Fort McPherson, where Inuit had recently begun to trade.


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Th e M a cke nz ie Inu i t

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

1804, the Inuit had stayed away because of fear of the Gwichin. Intermediaries in trade between Inuit

and whites, the latter were determined to keep that position, and killed if it was threatened. Each spring

they spent time with Inuit near the Deltas upstream edge (known to whites as Point Separation),

sometimes camping together for months, but peace always ended if Inuit spoke of going to Good Hope. xxii

In July 1840, while Isbister and an HBC clerk headed north to found Fort McPherson, much

closer to the Delta than Good Hope, Gwichin massacred many Inuit men, women, and children. (H.

Mackenzie) The message was effective, for an Inuk brought by the Company from Hudsons Bay to help

with translation had nothing to do, and was removed. When two years later his services were again

offered to the clerk, he refused as there was no intercourse whatever with Inuit. (Bell 1843). xxiii

Later that decade the Inuit thought the HBC gave guns to the Gwichin to do them in, as each

time they approached the post one or more were killed. (Richardson 214-15; Peers 1849). It took indirect

contacts via gift-bearing natives, already employed as hunters by the fort, to show that whites meant no

harm. Helping make that point was Inuit contact with Europeans during the search for Franklin. In 1848,

for example, John Richardson and his assistant John Rae passed through the Eastern Delta (home of the

tribe that figures in this story) and did not fire when natives swarmed the boats.

Gradually, Inuit desire to trade at Fort McPherson overcame their fear. Despite a massacre in

1850 contrived by a Gwichin emissary for the HBC (in which one of its servants took part) xxiv , three

Inuit entered the post three years later, and thereafter each spring thereafter a few more appeared.

[reference?]

That was not enough, however, to bring in the amount of fur neededbusiness had dropped a lot

since in 1847 Fort Yukon opened across the mountains and took over trade with the Gwichin of that

region. To raise profit to prior levels, there had to be far more contact with Inuit. Problem was, if they

came in number to Fort McPherson, war with the Gwichin would likely occur. One solution was to place

a fort deep in the Delta, but that Chief Trader Ross (1858) would not do without access to translation.

C h il dr e n for t h e HBC

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

and Gwichin lasted longer than conflict, a Gwichin chief made an annual trading journey to Inuit terrain,

and the tribes met each spring. Intermarriage also occurred, so for years they had heard each other speak.

Similarly, some Gwichin had long had contact with HBC staff at Fort Good Hope and Fort

McPherson or worked for those posts, and knew enough English to translate between it and the Inuits


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language. But that skill, it appears, was lost at strategic times: when HBC clerks met with Inuit ,

translation by Gwichin could be very poor. xxv

To address these issues, Charles Gaudet, now in charge at Fort McPherson, in late 1858 visited

the Inuit. 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 train as an interpreter (Ross 1859), theInuit needed time to reflect.

Inuit families consisted on average of a mother, a father, and two children who by age ten

provided help with chores and hunts. Giving one up meant loss of labour in the present 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). xxvi So to agree to the HBC request, benefits

had to be large.

The following likely happened in winter and spring. The tribe decided to let two children go, but

in return wanted a trade post to themselves, away from the Gwichin. Then Gaudet told them their requestwould carry more weight if discussed directly with Chief Trader Ross, and arranged for leaders to

accompany him in July to Fort Simpson, a journey (depending on weather) of four to five 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. Having no interpreter to send in from Hudsons 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. The commitment was surprising, given his habit of being tight-

fisted, but it was a calculated response to blows the HBC had taken in Britain.

Th e London h e ar ings

For the HBC the atmosphere at the 1857 hearings could not have been worseand much of that

was of its own, unintended making. When two decades earlier the licences first expiry approached, the

Company had banned the sale of alcohol to natives, installed the Rev. Evans and other Wesleyan

missionaries on the trade route south-west of Hudsons Bay, and sent two of its men to explore the

Arctic. xxvii Large parts of the coast were defined and new terrain, later found to be a giant island, was

named after just-installed Queen Victoria. As a result renewal of the licence was smoothed and the

Companys governors (George Simpson in North America and his senior in England) were knighted.xxviii

Given that success, exploration of the coast had again seemed a good tactic in the 1850s prior to

seeking a second renewal. Besides, the search for Franklin made for good timingwhere naval ships with

large crews had failed to determine his fate, small parties living off the land might succeed and boost the

Companys image. The initiative, however, brought the opposite of its intent. A first effort, by the officer


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in charge of the Mackenzie District, xxix proved fruitless and a second, by Chief Factor John Rae, in charge

there in just before him in 1849, brought a disaster in public relations.

Travelling alone except for native helpers, Rae learned from Inuit that the last survivors from

Franklins ships had eaten dead sailors before dying themselves. Rushing to England, he expected praise

for his work, but instead faced anger, as the awful news could not be believed. Franklins widow began acampaign to discredit him and the Company, and was strongly supported by Charles Dickens.

In his journal H ousehold Words Dickens had always placed Inuit in noble light, but now showed

by analogy to African tribes that they craved human meatso it was they who had eaten Franklins men,

and Rae was wrong to have trusted their word. He also wrote a play, The Frozen Deep , about an escape

from the Arctic in which a starving naval man did not kill and eat his weaker companion but died to save

his life. xxxThe heroic part was played by Dickens himself and brought the audience to tears as he gasped

his last on stage. Queen Victoria came to see it and was deeply touched. (McGoogan; Brannan; Nayder).

The play was on stage in one part of London while in another the parliamentary committee heardfrom Isbister and the Rev. Corbett (who had come from the Settlement to support him) of high prices for

trifles, blindness to native needs, failure to back missions, and payment of sops to clerics to stifle

complaint. xxxi Sir George Simpson looked deceitful when he denied cannibalism had ever occurred among

starving tribes and a letter was produced describing that very act by Gwichin outside the gates at Fort

McPherson. xxxii 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. xxxiii

Adding to the damage were recent jeremiads against the HBC,xxxiv

broadsides from theAborigines Protection Society (1856), complaints by naval figures involved in the Franklin search, xxxv

and campaigns against it by a small clique of former employees. xxxvi And since much of this alluded to the

Mackenzie (including claims of agricultural potential, which could make it a haven for colonists and an

ideal place for missions), xxxvii the district became a focus of committee questions. From the start, the

hearings tenor signalled that licence renewal was unlikely, and that was borne out late the next year.

Th e atr e at Fort S impson

Having lost its licence, the HBC in 1859 faced a rapidly approaching crisis: the prospect of expiryof its Ruperts Land charter in just over a decade. To have any hope of extension, it would have to regain

public favour and raise its repute among churches. And given what had been said in London, that required

exemplary behaviour along the Mackenzie, even though it was not part of Ruperts Land. The Company

needed to be seen trading vigorously with Inuit (whom it was accused of ignoring), and helping to convert


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them and other far-off tribes. So the governor wrote to Chief Trader Ross, ordering him to aid missions as

much as he could. xxxviii

The HBCs role in the Territories, the letter explained, was no longer as ruling body, but as

private individuals. [ref?] Clerics would now be charged for travel and freight, but that did not mean

less assistancequite the contrary. A new minister, William Kirkby was on his way north, and was tohave free board at Fort Simpson while his house was under construction. And Father Grollier, too, would

also be going there: he was to join Rosss brigade during its return journey north, and stay at the fort till a

boat left for the lower Mackenzie.

Chief Trader Ross received the letter in July 1859 when he went south with his brigade to the

Methey Portage xxxix to exchange the years furs for supplies. xl Debarking here was the Rev. Hunter, who

was going home, and coming aboard was Kirkby. xli

As happened each summer at Mackenzie District posts, the clerks departure was timed to reach

Fort Simpson around the time the Chief Trader returned from the Portage. Ross with the Rev. Kirkby andFather Grollier aboard arrived August 14, and Gaudet from Fort McPherson the next day. What made for

excitement was the presence on his boat of Tiktik (a chief) and four other Inuit: a man, a woman, their

boy, and Attingarek, a nine-year-old girl, who had come without her parents. xlii

The crowd ashore xliii was thrilled by the Inuits height, intelligence, good nature, exotic dress, and

remarkably fine looks. (Kirkby, 1859a) The children could easily pass for Europeans. xliv 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 Inuit could not be gathered on farms (then a mainstay of mission tactics among southernnatives), but spent 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 Kirkby to the fort to be built

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

Shortly after, Ross met the Inuit in the mess room, packed with observers, and told them he

would place a fort wherever they wished. But he needed an interpreter and asked that the boy and girl be

left with the minister for training. When the men agreed, Kirkby lept with joy.

At the sessions end the chief trader was about to hand out gifts when he had 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, kneeling xlv 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. xlvi

On Monday in Kirkbys room the visitors left nothing untouched. A clock and umbrella intrigued

them most, but they were not content to look. Wanting goods to take home, they made signs for knives,


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scissors, and needles, and Kirkby took them to the store and purchased it all. Then, through a translator, a

Gwichin who had come on the boat from Fort McPherson, he spoke at length of salvation, intent on

making them fully understand it and feel it, so as to carry it back to their countrymen.( 1859c) That

shows either that the Gwichin could translate very well, or that the minister had no idea how few of his

words were getting through a common feature of nascent missions.By Tuesday the men and the boy wore European suits, the girl a dress and bonnet 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 without fail (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 Gaudets boat, did the boy realize he was to stay. Then

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

took him along. Only 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. It turned

out that at some point the girl had had been given away by her family to another, 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.

A tt ingar ek le arns Eng li sh

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

(Kirkby 1859f). The only one to comfort her was a Gwichin boy xlvii , an orphan from Fort McPherson

who spoke her language. Also acquainted with her tongue was a Gwichin woman xlviii at the fort, and it

was with her that Attingarek stayed. Each day she and others went to the Rev. Kirkbys school, and as

they gained skill in saying letters and body parts, she cheered up. Smart as the rest, she turned out

perfectly happy and anxious to learn. (Kirkby 1859g-h)

When sometime that winter Chief Trader Rosss wife 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 followedinstructions. The only problem was her unmanageable name, so she replaced it with Maria. (Healy

1923) It was the name of her own deceased mother, and of her niece, the Rev. Hunters young daughter,

who had died the prior year just before he reached home. In making that choice, Mrs. Ross (though

unaware and in a distant fashion) was following the Mackenzie Inuits practice of giving the name-soul


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of a recently deceased person to a newborn. Attingarek did not fall into that category, as she was by then

ten years old, but in many a way she was entering a new life. xlix

The change in name to Maria Ross was formalized in March 1860 when the chief trader ordered a

start on a post for the Inuit. It was not, however, among Tiktiks people, but to the east on the Anderson

River, on a site he thought would serve both the tribe at its mouth and the Mackenzie Inuit. Not realizinghow far from her people it would be, Kirkby quickly baptized Attingarek so staff at the new post could

tell her young friends. l Baptizing the Loucheux boy as well, he turned rapturous in his comment: 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)

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. li

Despite the hope raised by Tiktiks 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. lii 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 todays standard, and

whites took very young brides. As Franklin noted in the 1820s, The girls at the forts . . . are frequently

wives at 12 years of age, and mothers at 14, (Van Kirk, 101) and that is what happened to Attingarek.Mrs. Ross got along with her so well, she wanted to take her 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 took place when she was thirteen and carrying Brasss child, and was

likely performed la faon du pays, i.e. via a signed HBC contract, during Kirkbys absence.

The missionarys report of Marias 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 couple had

been sent to a post far south of the treeline. liii 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 somethingof Jesus.(Kirkby, 1862) None of that came about.

Le n v oi


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girl pregnant. Much nastiness followed and contributed to Hunter being denied the episcopal post.

Returning overseas, he became a renowned London preacher. (Peel)

In 1881 Maria Brass (i.e. Attingarek), her husband, and six children lived at Fort Nelson, an HBC

post in what is now northern British Columbia. lxiii lxiv At one point the couple sought an Anglican cleric to

provide schooling, but an Oblate at another post lxv talked them into inviting a Catholic one instead. [ref.?]When Brass retired they moved to southern Manitoba, and there at St. Andrews (the former parish of the

Revs. Hunter and Kirkby) Maria died in 1897 and was buried beside the church. (Brownlee)

For decades nothing came of missions to the Mackenzie Inuit. Some years clerics met them at

Fort McPherson, and on occasion in their homes in the Delta, but scandal, mental illness, low funds, lack

of drive, fear of violence, or some other issue always negated those efforts. lxvi That is not to say this

explains the failure to gain convertsit may be that no matter how strong the churches efforts, the Inuit

were not yet ready to change belief.

The same might be said of extraction, the process of taking heathens to a mission site, teachingthem 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 time lxvii , but as far as one

can tell, exposure to divines and later contact with their own people never helped the Christian cause.

Tiktiks people rarely used the fort on the Anderson River, which was too far away and did not fit

their spring migration through the Mackenzie Delta. When it opened Chief Trader Ross (1861a) wrote to

Gov. 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.lxviii

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

despite Attingareks 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 instead sent Gaudet into the Delta with a boat, the

Inuit seized the fur he had collected and threw it overboard. (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.No record tells whether Tiktik helped storm Gaudets boat, but the next spring he was at Fort

McPherson (PRJ 1873), where it seems he came yearly. But there may have been times when danger kept

him home, as he played a central part in a feud that brought many deaths. (Stefansson 1916)


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14

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

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

was taken there for eventual burial, rather than left above ground, perhaps showed a 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 the Rev. Isaac Stringer, who competed for their allegiance seven years later.Details of the two mens faiths, let alone conflicts in dogma, eluded the Inuit, but they were much

aware of a difference in tone. The priests hell-fire words soon led to his exclusion from the Delta, while

Stringers calm approach won friendship and respect. lxix

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 Companys main building, lxx he managed its depot for whaling ships and its trading post

for natives, and simultaneously performed his Christian work. As during Tiktiks visit to Fort Simpson ,

commerce and evangelization were closely tied. Yet neither that nor Stringers engaging persona broughtconverts. Only after another near-decade of mission, and that by a far less popular cleric lxxi , did

acceptance of Jesus took place.

We dont 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. lxxii She worked for the

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

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

A year later 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)lxxiv

helda hearty service, with many present, in their tent. lxxv During that trip a few adults were baptized, and by

1912 most of the Inuit in the region, including two hundred who had moved there from Alaska, had

joined the Anglican Church.

The conversions seemed remarkably rapid, 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. lxxvi

The path of each new Christianbaptism, confirmation, marriage, etc.can easily be traced

from Anglican records, including that of a second Tiktik, who in 1914 was one of a group whovolunteered to tell of Jesus to people far east along on the coast. lxxvii In the same way that Europeans had

taken the gospel to the Delta, these new converts felt compelled to take it to the end of their world. It

could not happen just yet, as foul weather stopped their advance and ruined the boat supplied by the


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15

mission, so it took other people and efforts. But in time the Great Commissions final phrase was (in its

geographic sense) fully effected.


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16

A r c h iv a l Sour ce s and Abb r evi at ions

American Museum of Natural History, New York

R. M. Anderson photos (Anderson-Stefansson Expedition)

Anglican Church of Canada.

General Synod Archives, Toronto (Stringer Papers)

Public Archives of Alberta (Register of Baptisms etc.)

Dartmouth College Library

Stefansson Papers.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online DCBO

Hudsons Bay Company HBC or Company

Hudsons Bay Company Archives, Provincial Archives of Manitoba HBCA

Fort Simpson correspondence books.Fort Good Hope post journal.

Peels River post (i.e. Fort McPherson) journal. PRJ

Personnel sheets.

National Archives of Canada NAC

Church Mission Society Papers. CMS at NAC

R. M. Anderson 1910 photos.

Northwest Territory Territory

Oblates of Mary Immaculate Archives, RomeE. Petitot correspondence.

Old Dartmouth Historical Society

Whaling records.

Questions and answers by number at the parliamentary

committee hearings concerning the HBC, 1857. Q+A

Red River Settlement Settlement

Not e c on ce rn ing dat e s and nam e s.

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.


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17

C i tat ions

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

1909-26 Registers of Eskimo Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, and Death 190926. Public

Archives of Alberta 70.387.

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

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

Pamphlet. Web. Canadiana.org

Alunik, Ishmael, Eddie D. Kolausok, and David Morrison.2003 Ac ross Time and Tundra: The Inuvialuit of the Western Ar c tic. 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


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18

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

1839. McGill-Queens University Press.

Bell, John

1826 to Edward Smith and Peter Dease, 1826, 21, 08. HBCA B200/b/31830 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 C hasing the Whale . Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1936. Entry for 1895, 04, 06.

Berger, Francesco.

1931 "The Mid-Victorian Entertainers: A Nonagerian's Memories." The Times 14 Apr, 12.

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 Ar c tic . Edmonton: Editions de L'Hermitage.

Brisebois, Charles

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

Brown, Jennifer S. H.


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19

1987 I Wish To Be As I See You: An Ojibway-Methodist Encounter in Fur Trade Country,

Rainy Lake, 1854-1855, A r c tic Anthropology, 24, 1: 19-31.

Brownlee, John

2011 Personal Communication.Burch, Ernest S.

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

108.

Carrire, Gaston

1977 Pierre-Henri Grollier. Dictionnaire Biographique des Oblats de Marie Immacule 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 Ar c tic , Twentieth Annual

C onf . of the C an . A r c heologi c al Assn . Calgary, V 8-10. Quoted in Coates 1991.

Champagne , Joseph Etienne

1949 Les Missions Catholiques dans lOuest Canadien, 1818-1875. Ottawa: LInstitut de

Missiologie de lUniversit Pontificale dOttawa.

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.


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20

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.

Duchaussois O.M.I., Pierre.

1937 M id Snow and I c e: 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 Hudsons Bay Company.

1858 Report from the Sele c t C ommittee together with the pro c eedings of the c ommittee,

minutes of eviden c e, 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, Rvrend Pre.

1858 Missions Etrangres: Vicariat du Mackenzie, Souvenirs: rcit indit d'un voyage du R.

P. Grollier au Fort Simpson en 1858. M issions de la C ongrgation des M issionnaires

Ob lats de M arie Imma c ule . March 1886, 409-19.

Hardisty

1871a to Andrew Flett at Peels River, 1871, 10, 03. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1

1871b to governor, 1871, 30, 11. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1

1872a to Donald A. Smith, 1872, 28, 02. HBCA B200/39/vol. 1


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21

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, L etters

Healey, W.J.

1923 Women of Red River: Being a Book Written from the Recollections of Women from the

Red River Era. Winnipeg: Womens Canadian Club, 1923. Web.

Hooper, Lieut. W. H.

1853 Ten Months Among the The Tents of the Tuski, With Incidents of an Arctic Boat

Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, As Far As the Mackenzie River and Cape

Bathurst. London: John Murray (AMS Press, New York, 1976).

Hudsons Bay Company, Fort Good Hope journal.

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

Hudsons Bay Company, Peels River [i.e. Fort McPherson] journal (PRJ). HBCA.

1873 1873, 05, 06.

1885 1885, 04, 11.

Hudsons Bay Company personnel sheets. HBCA. Web.

Bernard Rogan Ross; Donald Ross. .

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.

1859 to CMS, 1858, 30, 11. NAC MG17-B2, CMS Reel A80


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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.

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

Levasseur, Donat

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

Western Canadian Publisher.

Lewes, John


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23

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 Franklins Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of

Arctic History. Toronto: Harper-Collins, 2005.

MacLeod, Margarett Arnett, ed.

1947 The L etters of L etitia H argrave . Ed. Margaret Arnett MacLeod. Toronto: The Champlain

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

McLean, John and W. Stewart Wallace

1849 John McLean's Notes of a Twenty-Five Year's Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory.

Toronto: Champlain Society (1932 reproduction of the original). Web.

McPherson, Murdo

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

Merriman, C. D.

2009. C harles Di ck ens .The Literature Network (Jadic Inc.)

Morton, Desmond

2001 A Short H istory of C anada . Toronto: McLelland.


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Nayder (Nayder 1-24) [xxxxxx]

Nayder, Lillian

1996 "The Cannibal, the Nurse, and the Cook in Dickens's "The Frozen Deep." Victorian

Culture and Studies 19 (1991): 1-24Nuligak, [Robert]

1966 I, Nuliga k . Maurice Mtayer, transl. and ed. Toronto: Martin.

Owram, Doug

1992 P romise of Eden: The C anadian Expansionist M ovement 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.

Pannekoek, Frits

2000 David Anderson, DCBO . Web.

Payment, Diane

2003 Marie Fisher Gaudet (1813-1914): la Providence du fort Good Hope." E cc lec tic a . 2

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

Peel, Bruce.

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

Peers, Augustus (Peels River journal entries)

1849 1849, 04, 07. Peels 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.


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25

1895 J esse 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-CenturyMissionary Slogan. The H istori c al J ournal 28.3: 597-621.

Rae, John

1851 to Sir George Simpson, 1851, 04, 23. In Rich, Raes C orresponden c e, 174-175. Web.

Rasmussen. Knud

1924 The M ack enzie Es k imos, after Knud Rasmussens P osthumous 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

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

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


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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, Edward1826 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 H istori c al J ournal 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 Ar c tic Expedition of the Ameri c an M useum: P reliminary

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.

Stringer, Sarah Ann

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

Vanast, Walter

2006 U ne Faute d O rthographe : 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.


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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 M any Tender Ties . University of Oklahoma Press.

i These words are from an address by Zarathustras animals during his convalescence. [source]

ii What was given to the child was the name-spirit, which needed a home after its prior owner had died,

and which could create havoc or illness if it were not given refuge. See Stefansson [get reference]

iii Until the late nineteenth century only Inuit from the Deltas eastern side came each spring to its

southern tip, and it is they who are the actors in this account. Whites in the 1890s sometimes refer to themas 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 Ac ross Time and

Tundra .

iv Porter describes Britons providential view of the conjuncture of Christianity and commerce. Stanley

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

v

Mission work, Noel Dyck (1980) first suggested, was like a morality play 1980). While improvingtribal ways, clerics also touched an audience at home. Values conveyed were those of Europeans, to

whom at the same time they gave cause for imitation. Jennifer Brown broadened the concept to traders.

Like clerics, they were deeply involved in directing, orchestrating, and acting out a script. For both

missionaries and HBC clerks it was theatre-in-the-round, watched by indigenous peoples on one side,

directors, share-holders, and the church-going public on the other. And natives, one might add, were all

along staging plays of their own; newcomers and original peoples were actors in each others

simultaneous dramas.

vi See Cooper for a theory-soaked hagiography of him (by far the most irritating and ostentatious of all

books related to the Northwest and the history of the fur-trade.)

vii In 1843-44 McLean at Fort Simpson assisted the Mackenzies chief trader, who had shot off his own

right hand. When the wounded man left McLean did not receive command, but was put in charge at Fort


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Resolution, the first year it was part of the district. He began writing his polemic at once, quit in 1845,

and on the way south married the daughter of Wesleyan minister James Evans, who was also at discord

with the HBC.

viii For early Oblate work in the Territories see Levasseur, ch. 5, Jusqau 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.

xi Archdeacon since 1853, Hunter was secretary of Northwest missions for the Church Mission Society. In

1855 after study in England he gained a Lambert M.A. from the Archbishop of Canterbury. His bishop,

David Anderson, had held the post since 1849, was surrounded by controversy and bickering and showed

no skill or drive in advancing missions. (Pannekoek 2000).xii For British fascination with the Arctic see David, The A r c tic , a turgid academic tome.

xiii 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."

xiv Psalms 72:8, KJV. The idea for this line comes from Martha McCarthys From the Great River to the

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

xv Hunter (1857) had years earlier heard these kind comments about Inuit of the Hudsons Bay region

from HBC surgeon John Rae, and was unaware of his harsh view of Mackenzie Inuit, met during his 1848

Franklin search expedition with John Richardson.

xvi Marie Fisher.

xvii

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

xviii Gaudet was then postmaster, the lowest officer rank. The next levels are clerk, chief trader, and chief

factor. In this article, chief trader designates both the title and responsibility for the district.


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xix 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).xx A few Dene joined the Anglican faith, but only briefly.

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

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

xxii Early in the century, when Fort Good Hope belonged to the Northwest Company, Gwichin profited

from war with Inuit, for they received gifts from the post to end it. Such was the case in 1817 and 1819

when Peter Dease was in charge. (Simpson 102) For conflict and contact between the tribes after 1821 see

the Good Hope Journal (1822, 16, 10, HBCA B80/a/1; 1826, 22, 06 and 1826, 08, 09, B80/a/5; 1828, 20,

09, B80/a/7; 1829, 20, 06 and 1829, 21, 07, B80/a/8; 1830, 22, 06, B80/a/9; 1834, 23, 06 and 1834, 23, 08

and 1834, 14, 09, B80/a/12) and the Fort Simpson correspondence books: Brisebois 1825, Bell 1826,

1829, 1830, 1831a and b; Smith 1826, 1830a and b, 1831, 1832.

xxiii Oulibuck had been with Dease and Simpson during their late-1830s explorations along the coast,

starting from the Mackenzie. He spent the 1840-41 trade year at McPherson (McPherson 1840), where his

wife and two children joined him. The next two years he was at Fort Simpson (Bell 1841; Lewes 1842),

and was then sent home. (Lewes 1843).xxiv The 1850 massacre took place at the Deltas southern edge. Inuit met an HBC boat, and Gwichin

ensured they would not get invited to Fort McPherson: The Indians first traded all the bows and arrows

of their foes then crept into the surrounding bushes and deliberately shot them (Bell 1850).

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

xxvi See Nuligak, 13, 30, 32, 54, 58, 120, 127, for the tale of his 1890-1910 youth as a poor orphan.

xxvii

Peter Dease and Thomas Simpson. Barr gives an exquisite introduction to his edition of Deasesdiary.

xxviii See Fitzgeralds sarcastic 1849 comments (119-120) on HBC tactics prior to the licence renewal.

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


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xxix James Anderson, to whom Gov. Simpsons instructions ended with the line I rely on you sparing no

effort to distinguish yourselves by success and so to secure for the Honourable Company and their [sic]

officers the approbation of Her Majestys Government and the English public (1854)

xxx (Brannan;Nayder 1-24) Brannan;Nayder 1-24

xxxi Isbisters testimony: Q+A 2392-2598 and 6072-6098. Corbetts: [I must put in figures]

xxxii On being read an account by William Kennedy of cannibalism in Labrador, Simpson insisted (Q+A

1558-1564) that famine was never severe enough to bring such ends. The letter read to him (Q+A 1606-

7) re Peels River was from John Ballantynes 1848 adventure book H udsons B ay. A former HBC clerk,

Ballantyne had not seen the Mackenzie, but had a friend in the district. Besides, when he left York

Factory he traveled to Montreal with John MacLean, who had just quit the Company and who had started

a book (MacLean 1849) highly critical of the HBC.

xxxiii All Raes testimony: Q+A 365-696; not understanding the tariff: 482-484; not lowering prices: 532.

xxxiv

xxxv Naval Lieutenant W. H. Hooper told in 1853 (366-74) of an HBC mans part in a massacre of Inuit by

Gwichin. Naval Surgeon Armstrong 1857 (155, 167, 198) praised the Inuit and pointed out that clergy

had done good work among them on the Labrador coast, yet none could be found on the Arctic Coast.

xxxvi Thomas Kennedy, Isbisters young uncle, after leaving the HBC led searches for Franklin sponsored

by the latters widow, whipped up opposition in Upper Canada to the Companys monopoly, and spoke to

Toronto businessmen about the Mackenzies wasted riches (Aborigines Protection Society). Like

Fitzgerald, he had not been in that district and likely got his information from McLean and Isbister.

Kennedy and McLean had both worked for the HBC in Ungava, and after leaving the Company lived near

each other in southern Ontario.

xxxvii The charge that the HBC blocked missions related closely to claims that the Mackenzie could

support agriculture. If true, it meant that natives could change from a nomadic life to farming, thenconsidered a sine-qua-non to native conversion. James E. Fitzgeralds 1849 jeremiad against the HBC

commented (119-20) on the Mackenzies fine weather and soil, even at Peels River, and McLeans book

backed him up. General Sir John Lefroy, an expert on magnetic force, who had passed 1843-44 in the

Mackenzie District, denied at the hearings (Q+A 158-364) that farming there could support colonists, yet


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on a final note (Q+A 361) mentioned he had shared the HBC boats with cattle, which were kept at several

posts.

xxxviii By aiding Rome the HBC might offend evangelicals, but it had other power groups (including

Catholics in Lower Canada) to consider. To show an even hand, the Company fostered comity by helping

Anglicans set up at certain posts, Catholics, at others. It was not a policy that could last.

xxxix Also known as Portage La Loche, or the Grand Portage, in what is now northern Saskatchewan.

xl A trade year went from late June one year to late June the next.

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

recent graduate of the St. Johns Academy, which had Anglican staff.

xlii Kirkby journal, CMS reel A93, NAC. The girls age: 1859, 08, 09; the rest of the paragraph, 1859, 15,

08. Tiktiks name, 1860, 19, 03.

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

goods, and those of the chief traders brigade (who spent winter at the Mackenzies Big Island).

xliv 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 Deltas Eastern Channel in 1848 and had close

contact with its people. Overt descriptions of sex between sailors and native women by other parties off

the coast (though further west) were recorded in subsequent years . In 1849 an orgy on the ice near 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 P lover 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 other episodes undoubtedly occurred, but were not put to pen. That

young Mackenzie Inuit girls were beautiful and sexually desirable, however, was not something recent.

Richardson had also come through the Eastern Delta in 1826, when he was Franklins second-in-

command, and reported in euphemistic terms how the females had given his party glances that could

scarcely be misconstrued, and that young girls had a considerable share of beauty. (Richardson, 1828).

In the 1850s the beauty of Inuit women had not escaped HBC men. 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]


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xlv The evangelical or lower branch of the Anglican Church included kneeling in its liturgy.

xlvi At the services end, Kirkby thanked HBC staff for their noble efforts to erect a church.

xlvii

William Flett8 years old, speaks Loucheux and Eskimo. He is from Peels River, a pure Indian,and unbaptized though called by the above name. (Kirkby 1859g)

xlviii She was the wife of James Flett, who had been at La Pierres House, a subsidiary to Peels River west

of the Mackenzie Mountains. The couple and their children had come south on the same boat as the Inuit.

The husband had no relationship to the orphan boy.

xlix Mrs. Rosss account does not match details in the HBCs personnel sheet for Chief Trader Bernard

Ross, which states that he did not marry until 1860, and that a first child, Alex Christie, arrived in 1861,

which was well after the time Attingarek was baptized as Maria. The sheet also indicates that Ross wenton furlough to Dublin, Ireland, from 1862-64, yet suggests the Ross family was at St. Andrews in the

Settlement in Feb. 1863, when their second child, Francis Curtis, was baptized. If this is true, Attingarek

worked for Mrs. Ross from sometime in 1861 to June 1862, when the family started for Europe. Mrs.

Ross was in her nineties when she told the story about renaming Attingarek, and her recall may have been

foggy.

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

might think Kirkby would not choose 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

Marys immaculate conception, a doctrine for which the Oblates of Mary Immaculate had pushed in

Rome. Yet many fur trade women, including a country daughter of Governor Simpson, carried the

name Maria or Mary. Archdeacon Hunter had named one of his children Maria after his mother-in-law,

the wife of Chief Factor .

li 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.

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

liii Fort Halkett, on the Liard, from which no post journal has survived.

liv For Simpsons testimony see Q+A 702-2125, Feb. 26 and 27, 1857.


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lv The inscription is from Grolliers grave at Fort Good Hope: J e meurs c ontent, O J sus, votre tendard

est lev jusquaux extrmits de la terre . (Choquette photograph, 58). The same quotation appears on

the title page of a 1937 history of northern missions, M id Snow and I c e, by French Oblate Pierre

Duchaussois, who held a doctorate in literature. Its original version,A

ux Glaces

P olaires , published in

Paris, won him membership in the Acadmie Franaise. The wording in the English volume: Oh my

Jesus, I die happy, since I have seen the Sacred Standard of Thy Cross lifted up at the very ends of the

earth.

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

lvii See Owrams informative P romise of Eden about the Wests appeal to farmers and politicians.

lviii Dickens financial need (as he now had several households to maintain) and desire for adulation from

then on drove a bizarre career of exhausting recitations and solo performances on several continents of

scenes of his own works. The depictions, in which he played all the characters, were so intense that

women often fainted. After his death his collection of art, mostly of scenes from his work, including

paintings of the Frozen Deep by the famed painter who had done the sets, were sold. From time to time

they turned up at Sotheby auctions. The manuscript and related items were also auctioned off (other

versions went on sale in 1890 when Wilkie Collins, his collaborator and co-author of the play, died in

1890. Francesco Berger, who as a young man did the music for the play, continued to tell of the

experience (as in his 1931 London Times article The mid-Victorian entertainers, a nonagerians

memories) (Berger 12)

lix Father Grollier until his death in 1864, Father Jean Sguin starting in 1861, and Father Emile Petitot,

from 1864 on. Also present was Oblate religious brother J. P. Kearney, for whom Grolliers imperious

ways were a cross to bear. Sguin and Kearney stayed half a century, as did Gaudet. Bretons 1963

hagiography of Kearney shows a photo of a nasty-looking Grollier (opp. p. 16) and one of Charles Gaudet

and his family with the comment staunch friends of the missionaries (opp. p. 80). The book softens

Grolliers deathbed words (p. 53) so as not to imply he reached the pole: I die happy now that your

standard is raised here at the ends of the world.lx Petitot to Oblate Director General Joseph Fabre in Rome, Mar. 21, 1865, Oblate Archives, Rome

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


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lxii In addition to stoking Red Rivers populace against the HBC, Griffin Owen Corbett testified to its anti-

mission stance at the 1857 hearings (Q+A 2656-2888, p. 150-169 ). A prcis of his twisted personality

and bizarre ecclesiastic path tells that the local bishop called him a most dangerous man. (Boreski).

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

Mackenzie District.

lxiv The 1881 census lists James 1 8, Margaret 1 6, Jane 1 4, William 10 , John 8, Thomas 3. Marias ethnic

origin was given as Esquimaux, but in later years in other documents as Indian and Mtis (the former is

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

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 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 FortSimpson (such as her employ as servant by the chief traders wife) and of her later life. In his youth

Brownlees relatives denied they carried native blood, then considered a shameyet he doggedly traced

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

lxv Fort Liard.

lxvi 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 U ne

faute dorthographe : a sexual history of missions to the Mackenzie Inuit. The faute was the Oblatesway of referring to Rev. Robert McDonalds fathering in the 1860s of a child by the Peels River HBC

traders wifewhich required him to stay away for several years in the Yukon. Later Anglican

missionaries include McDonalds brother Kenneth, who left because of his own sexual scandal, Wm.

Carpenter Bompas stopped his Inuit work when made bishop, and Thomas H. Canham, who disliked

McDonald and feared Inuit violence, arranged in the 1880s to get moved from Ft. McPherson west across

the mountains. The Catholic clerics were Jean Sguin, superior at Good Hope, and his priest, Emile

Petitot. Sguin made a long visit to the Delta Inuits homes and wished to return, but was not allowed by

the Oblate hierarchy. Petitot was never able to control his homosexual appetites and suffered withparanoid schizophrenia that quickly cut short all four of his stays with the Delta Inuit; his experience of

them may be far less than his writings tell. He did the same with Yukon Gwichinafter visiting them he

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

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


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lxviii The Kogmollit... 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.

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

men in church and HBC archives.

lxx Formerly a pool hall for sailors and quarters for the Pacific Whaling Companys on-shore captain.

lxxi Charles E. Whittaker.

lxxii 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 churchregisters 1910, 05, 08; 1921, 01, 01; 1925, 13, 07. Nuligak 86. Rasmussen 44 (in 1924 at Igdluk).

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

Archbishop of Ruperts Land, one of the Anglican Church in Canadas most senior positions.

lxxiv Though bishop of the Yukon (then called the Diocese of Selkirk) Stringer helped out in the Diocese of

the Mackenzie, which had either no bishop or a weak one who preferred not to visit the coast.

lxxv At Nalugogiak

lxxvi For the debate see The Bad Side to the Good Story by Vanast, whose work came after Burchs

outstanding study of rapid conversion in Alaska.

lxxvii 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 Tiktiks daughter,

1912, 10, 07; her marriage, 1912, 12, 07; baptism #270, of Tiktiks son Mark, 1913, 11, 01; Tiktik

married again, 1922, 01, 01; Tiktik confirmed, 1925, 29. 06.

Documents

Perfect Kneeling y Rd