AMONG THE ESKIMOS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3842, 4 December 1936, Page 10

AMONG THE ESKIMOS

TWELVE THOUSAND MILES POLICE TRIP. The Canadian Government’s Eastern Arctic patrol has just arrived back at Halifax (N.S.) after the conclusion of its 12,000 mile expedition cn R.M.S. Nascopie, writes an Ottawa correspondent. Inspector K. Duncan, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, found no serious crime in all the vast area fiom Ungava to Ellesmere Island, and westward to Chesterfield Inlet and Baker Lake. Only one violent death was reported. Ko-pa-le, an elderly Eskimo at Pangnortung, on Baffin Island, took his own life after brooding over an alleged moral lapse of his wife, committed before he married her many years ago. SEAL STOLEN. At Port Harrison, mt the east side of Hudson Bay, an elderly native requested a young woman to accompany him on his hunt, an old Eskimo custom before the arrival of the missionaries. The girl refused, and persisted in her refusal, so the hunter beat her up. Two young natives at Port Harrison appropriated a seal they had not killed, and also two rifles, the butls of which they used for firewood in a land where wood is scarce. At Pangnortung Major D. L. McKeant, in charge of the expedition, found a native, 0-nuk suk, still suffering severely from epileptic fits. Last year be had committed this native to the Government hospital at Pangnirtung, but the matron and nurse on duty there had to call ill the R.C.M.P. as the man became dangerous. The police officers cared for him the rest of the year, and this year, by arrangement with Inspector Duncan, O-nuk-suk has been brought down under police guard to a Halifax institution. R.C.M.P. officers at all northern ports reported on their patrols of the past year, the eastern islands of the Archipelago having been patrolled wherever there were natives. ICE TREK. At Craig harbour unfavourable weather held the police fairly close to the post. During the winter a Greenland Eskimo and his son made a journey of several hundred miles across the ice from Greenland to apply al Ihe R.C.M.P. post for jobs. They had previously been employed on police work. There being no work for them, they cheerfully made the long trip back with their dog team. The Craig harbour detachment includes Corporal R. W. Hamilton, and Constable A. G. K. McWhirter, with two natives and the native families. This tiny group is the sole human population on Ellesmere Island, which is larger than England. The population was increased during the winter by the birth of a daughter to one of the Eskimo families. PERILS OF MISSIONARIES. Another message from the same source says that all hope has been abandoned of solving the mystery of the disappearance of the Rev. Father Pigeon, the Roman Catholic missionary, who was lost in the Barren Lands over a year ago. Monsigneur Arsene Turquetil, the Bishop of the Eastern Arctic, returned to Chesterfield Inlet after another fruitless search for some trace of the lost missionary. He is convinced that Father Pigeon died in the desolate wastes north west of the Inlet, but search for his remains or his baggage has been fruitless, even in these treeless wastes.

Another near tragedy comes to light with the report of the disappearance for a time of the Rev. Father Didier, who went off in a snow storm last January, and after wandering vainly and blindly in the storm, dug a hole in the snow in which to shelter from the blast and to fight off the dreadful sleep which means death. Search parties from Chesterfield Inlet, led by Father Ducharme, discovered a small Eskimo boy who had seen some tracks in the snow. These were followed until blotted out by the storm, but led the missionaries near enough to Father Didier’s cache for the priest to see the lantern they carried, and so find his way stumblingly towards his rescuers. The danger of being lost in the

North was later exemplified by the narrow escape of the Rev. J. March, tne Anglican missionary at Eskimo Point, who, after visiting the radio station at Chesterfield Inlet, started out in a storm for the Hudson Bay Company’s post half a mile away. In that short distance he lost his way. and was stumbling blindly out into the Barrens when someone casuslly turned on a light in the station. The missionary saw the glimmer and made for it.