Chapter 9 ~ Tapestry Threads

The government officer at Fort Chimo was Sam Dodds, a former meteorologist, whose wife, Dedee, had once been keeper of Canada’s oldest lighthouse. They had received a telegram telling of our arrival and were at the airstrip to give us a royal welcome and an invitation to dinner.

Mr. Dodds also insisted we sleep under a roof instead of pitching our tent and accordingly gave us use of a small storeroom near to his office. So we inflated our air mattresses and unrolled our sleeping bags indoors, where we were well protected from the flies and the weather.

There was a tiny stove in the office kitchen where we were allowed to prepare supper and breakfast; we collected drinking water in jugs from Mrs. Dodds’ domestic tank and washing water was delivered from the Koksoak river in water carts driven by Eskimos, and we were permitted to take our main meals at a mess hall for engineers and labourers, where the chef was a magnificent French Canadian cook.

Before entering the mess, we were told we must conform to the rule, “No Talking.” It was similar to a rule observed in many northern mining and lumberjack camps, and the reason was explained to us: “If the men speak, they argue. If they argue they fight. So, no talking.”

Intrigued at the prospect of dumbly dining, curious and silent, we entered the dining hall only to discover the rule was not in operation. There was a pleasant low buzz of conversation, although no one lingered over his meal. The oilcloth covered tables were stacked with food, sauces, jams, pies and cakes, but again, almost everything came out of a tin. Fresh meat was a rarity and the cook, who was more of an artist than a tradesman did wonders with ancient tins of moose meat. The men were not accustomed to women about the place and there was a noticeable “laying on of hands” upon the hair and shoulders, like an archbishop’s confirmation class, or decoration day at Buckingham Palace.

Outside, an enormously fat husky puppy lay in waiting, he was named Hercules and he had the Augean Stygian task of eating up all the unwanted mess hall tidbits. He was the fattest dog I ever saw. The temperature was much warmer at Chimo than at Frobisher, and the mercury usually stood at about sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit at midday. The flora was different from Baffin Island’s and familiar southern flowers were evident. There was yarrow springing from the fine sandy ground, Indian paintbrush, violets and Grass of Parnassus, which did service brightening up the breakfast table before being identified and pressed.

Mosquitoes were thick and I wore my beekeeper’s bonnet in addition to a fairly efficient fly repellent sprinkled on exposed surfaces.

Although it was warm, I was obliged to wear gloves, my sleeves rolled down, and my pants tucked inside my socks to avoid being bitten too much.

We had to wait in Chimo until we could get on a small plane going to George River in East Ungava Bay, and while we stayed there, the Dodds’ family were generous hosts and did all they could to make us feel at home. Shortly after meeting Mrs. Dodds she plunged the conversation into the Eskimo handcraft industry and she wanted to know what was made in Frobisher Bay and how it was marketed. She had been in Chimo only three months, but already she had set up a weaving loom and taught a deaf Eskimo woman how to use it. The usual practice of numbering the foot treadles was too difficult for the woman who had never been to school, so Mrs. Dodds solved the problem by colouring the foot treadles to correspond with the pattern.

Fifteen years in the North had shown her the great need for Eskimo women to be taught how to cook white man’s food upon which they were becoming increasingly dependent. She had undertaken teaching the womenfolk of Chimo how to bake bread and cook packaged foods.

Recipes on packets were always printed in English and sometimes in both English and French, but never in Eskimo Syllabics. She said there was a great need for syllabic cookery books to be made available alongside the goods sold in the Hudson’s Bay Company stores, which have no commercial competitors in the Eastern Arctic, if you discount the few newly formed Eskimo co-operatives.

While living at Baker Lake, West of Hudson Bay, an elderly Eskimo woman had come to her and complained her gums were bleeding through eating White Man’s food. Mrs. Dodds said she had looked at the woman’s mouth, and, “Sure enough, her gums were cut. I asked her what she had eaten and she showed me a package of macaroni which she had tried to eat – raw.”

The woman had treated it like biscuits and had not known it should be cooked.

“From then on, I taught any Eskimo woman who wanted to learn, and before I left Baker Lake, they were even making doughnuts and loving them,” said Mrs. Dodds.

Her cookery lessons were unsponsored, and, of course, free.

Only twelve Eskimo men were steadily employed in Chimo out of a labour force of nearly eighty, and Mr. Dodds was hard pressed, giving relief rations to families which were hungry. It was a difficult task, because the men had to be encouraged to go out on the land hunting and fishing to support themselves. On the other hand, it was easy for undernourished men to feel disinclined or too lazy to set out on a difficult journey with an empty stomach.

The Hudson’s Bay Company trader claimed the government was ruining the Eskimos with too much kindness; so did the staff at the nursing station; and there was an undercurrent of resentment among many traders and missionaries against the introduction of Northern Service Officers by the government, men expressly appointed to look after the interest of the Eskimos. The newcomers were usurping old powers.

Mr. Dodds did what he could to prevent families from going hungry. He said he hoped for an improvement in the Chimo economy when development of rich local deposits of iron ore and asbestos provided opportunity for work to all the employable at Chimo.

While visiting at a house one evening, I met an English speaking Eskimo woman who had regular employment in Chimo, and who, alone, supported her three children fathered by casual white men. She had also adopted a fourth child into her small family.

The adopted child had been underfed, was sickly and was in a louse-infested blanket when she took him in, but he had grown into a fine boy. He attended school regularly and spoke both English and Eskimo. The woman had a reputation as an industrious worker and she was obviously a good mother. She rented a wooden frame house and had one or two modern amenities such an oil fired motor washing machine and she was waiting for delivery of a refrigerator by boat when the supply ships came in during the sealift period. Apart from her daily work, she took in sewing in her spare time and during the summer, she cut hair for the annual influx of construction workers.

As we talked to each other, I realized I had heard of her before, although I had never known her name. Many years prior to our meeting in Fort Chimo, an unkempt, neglected Eskimo child had been flown to a hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The child was severely ill and had travelled from a remote camp on the Koksoak River. A young Eskimo woman had attended the child throughout the long and difficult journey.

The girl had pneumonia, and she was so badly undernourished it was feared she was too weak to recover and would die. The doctors at the government hospital fought hard to save her life. The nurses bathed and cleaned her and eventually her body responded to treatment but she remained impassive and impervious to everything that was said to her, until one day, a nurse entering the room slammed the door and saw the child took no notice.

It was discovered she was deaf. Also she was dumb because of her deafness. The child was given every chance to live a normal life. Being an Eskimo she became a ward of the Canadian government and she was educated in Halifax, where the only Maritime School for the Deaf is located. A generous Englishwoman assumed the role of personal guardian during school holidays and realising the child’s limitations through deafness and the delay in recognising her condition, helped her to travel extensively in North America and Europe. The child was taught to ice skate and became a champion skater, and that was when I first met her, when I interviewed her for a Halifax newspaper.

The girl had also inherited a remarkable Eskimo sewing skill and was a wonderful needlewoman. She was sent by her benefactress to a private academy in Halifax, and when she was old enough, she went to the United States to attend a university for the deaf.

When last I saw her, she had grown into a beautiful young lady, poised and well educated and still with an Eskimo’s gentle nature. The Eskimo woman I met in Fort Chimo supporting her family of four children, was the girl who had carried the sick, deaf child to the Halifax hospital years ago. Fate had been kind to both of them, and had finally led me across both their paths, though they were more than a thousand miles and two cultures apart.