The Ancestors Are Happy: True Tales of the Arctic

By David F. Pelly

The Ancestors Are Happy is a masterfully woven tapestry portraying a landscape of stories, which also offers a compilation of personal tales from Inuit informants whose lives collectively span the 20th century, a period of remarkable transition for the North. It draws on the author’s experiences and encounters over forty years of living, travelling, and learning in Nunavut. David Pelly’s lucid text is rooted in oral-history collected from Inuit elders, for which work he was awarded the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal. Readers will be carried on a journey across Canada’s Arctic, into the land itself, and into the lives of a memorable array of northern characters. At the core is an exploration of Inuit cultural tradition, the hallmark of Pelly’s celebrated writing career, which includes nine previous books as well as hundreds of magazine articles. The ancestors are happy, say Inuit elders, when the stories from the land are told, and retold, and preserved.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crossfield Publishing
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781990326080

David F. Pelly

David F. Pelly is a modern-day explorer of the North's cultural landscape, who has lived in and travelled to the Arctic since the late 1970s. He is the author of several books and articles on the land and its people, including The Old Way North, Sacred Hunt, and Uvajuq: The Origin of Death. Much of his writing is based on oral history shared with him by Inuit elders. He lives in Ottawa.

Book preview

www.crossfieldpublishing.ca

[e-mail]

2269 Road 120, R7, St. Marys, Ontario, N4X 1C9, Canada

ISBN 978-1-990326-08-0 (epub)

Copyright the author. All rights reserved. November 2020

Copyright Crossfield Publishing. All rights reserved.

Pelly, David F. (David Fraser) - 1948, - author

ISBN-13: 9781999177928 (Crossfield Publishing Inc)

Lawrence Stilwell - cover design

Harald Kunze - creative director

David L. Pretty - editor

Maura Blain Brown - editor/indexer

Magdalene Carson - layout designer

Andrew Stewart - cartographer

Crossfield is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.

We are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, names, and experiences are attributed solely to the author.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: The ancestors are happy : true tales of the Arctic / David F. Pelly.

Names: Pelly, David F., 1948- author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana 20200392271 | ISBN 9781999177966 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Inuit—Canada. | LCSH: Inuit—Canada—Biography. | LCSH: Inuit—Canada—Social life and customs. | LCSH: Inuit—Canada—History. | LCSH: Canada, Northern—Social life and customs. | LCSH: Canada, Northern—History.

Classification: LCC E99.E7 P45 2020 | DDC 971.9004/9712—dc2

For my dear son Eric Ayalik Okalitana Pelly,

1995–2014,

who was truly a child of the North.

He was proud of his heritage,

loved his land, was never happier than when his feet were

on the tundra or a swift Arctic river was beneath our canoe.

We shared the exhilaration of being out on the land,

to which he has now returned, forever.

I take regular dream-trips there with him.

* * *

All royalties earned through sales of this book will be donated to the Ayalik Fund, a MakeWay Foundation donor-advised charitable fund.

Thank you for supporting this legacy.

www.AyalikFund.ca

The Ayalik Fund gives those Inuit youth who would otherwise not have such opportunities a chance to build self-esteem and confidence, through challenging outdoor adventure, meeting other young Canadians and social-cultural exploration.

The children of the North are the inheritors of this legacy of stories from the land. Three great-grandchildren of Tuinnaq and Mikitok Bruce (Ashley 7, Adine 5, and Randy 8) celebrate this connection at the old HBC trading post in Ukkusiksalik, 1999, where Tuinnaq grew up.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Inheritors of This Legacy of Stories from the Land

Foreword by the Honourable Paul Okalik

Map of Nunavut

Map of Nunavik

Preface

Retrospective

Introduction

Arctic River Diary

Stories of the Land

Uvajuq

The Mystery of the Sallirmiut

Inuit Mapping

Understanding Traditional Navigation

Across Boothia

A Dog Sled Journey Back in Time

Thomas Simpson

He Could Have Changed the Destiny of Franklin’s Ill-Fated Expedition

The Expedition of Radford and Street

A deadly encounter with Inuit

J.W. Tyrrell

First of the Modern Barrenlands Travellers

The Legend of John Hornby

Going Home to Kutgajuk

The Mysterious Disappearance of Father Buliard

The Journey of Their Lives

Perry River to Gjoa Haven

Ivujivik

Sharing the Hunt

Iqaluktuuq

Hockey Night in Nunavut

Spring Seal Hunt

Mountains of the Tuurngait

People of the Land

Introduction

Iquginnaq

Mannik

Qupirrualuk

Martha Kutsiutikku

Kaomayok

Manernaluk

Annie Tatty

Sheetoga

Kudloo

Attima

William Tagoona

Nungak

Tahiuq and Three Generations On

Ekvanna

Ayalik’s Canoe Trip

Envoi

The Ancestors are Happy

Glossary of Inuktitut

Acknowledgements

Photo Credits

Index

About the Author

Foreword by

the Honourable Paul Okalik

I have had the good fortune of knowing David Pelly for many years. On one occasion, he was even my guide in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, for a trip out on the land. I can’t say it was a resounding success as, let’s just say, I’m not a very good hunter. Suffice Suffice it to say, David found some muskox and returned me safely into town with his skillful guidance. ;-

David is a true trooper, who takes the time to learn about the subjects he is going to write of and has always been understanding and open to learning of the Inuit in my homeland of Nunavut. I have had the joy of reading his work about Inuit, in particular. He writes with respect and clarity, which allows the reader to learn in a truly honest and insightful way.

This latest collection of stories from our wise elders across our homeland is an extension of his thoughtful and respectful dialogue with my fellow Inuit.

Qujjanamiiq Taviiti,

Paul Okalik

First Premier of Nunavut, 1999 – 2008

Nunavik

Preface

I had the very good fortune to go north in the 1970s, a few short years after Inuit moved from the land into communities. I watched the tail end of that transition, and the myriad changes which followed. Many friends, men and women of my own generation, who were also my teachers, were born in the previous era and raised out on the land. I had ample opportunity to know their parents; these elders who’d spent most of their lives out on the land were the last remaining repository of the oral tradition. All of this was a distinct privilege, and a simple matter of lucky timing.

As a writer, I try to form a narrative by linking events together. That’s just what we writers do. In this case, the collection of stories itself provides what narrative there is. As my publisher suggested, I could have provided the links so the book in itself feels a story. I contemplated providing an account of how I came to know each of these tales, since there’s a personal story behind each one. But, in this case, I didn’t want to intrude. Better, I thought, to delete the links so readers are left with the North itself as the context and the land as the essential setting for all of these tales. In the scheme of things, my travel and experiences are not important. That primacy belongs to the tales from the land.

The collection opens with Arctic River Diary as a tip-of-the-hat to how I first came north, as a canoeist in 1977. It was perhaps inevitable. That’s as personal as it can get. My parents put me in a canoe before I could walk. My mother was a skilled canoeist. As a young man at the turn of the century, my grandfather courted my grandmother by paddling across Lake Rosseau to visit her. In those days before roads, access to that part of Ontario was exclusively by rail, steamship and (for him) canoe. As a young man, my grandfather canoed in Algonquin with his boyhood and lifelong friend Lawren Harris, who so eloquently captured the power of the landscape in his paintings.

As I grew up, I heard about Grandfather’s summer trips to the North, flying in to the tributary waters of James Bay to fish the lakes and streams by canoe. The salmon he brought home are the stuff of family legend. I clearly recall a Sunday dinner when he described in glowing terms the just-published book he was reading, Dangerous River by R.M. Patterson, about canoe travel on the Nahanni. Growing up with this sort of mythology swirling around my consciousness, and with wilderness canoeing in my bones, it was inescapable fate that I’d also seek out adventure in wild places.

I found it up north, as well as my life’s passion, my work, and a reason for being. Although I loved canoeing regularly in the North over a span of more than 40 years, mostly in the barrenlands, it was not my strongest connection to the place. I hope that the tales collected here reflect what was even more important to me about the Arctic: its people, culture and history, as well as the captivating tapestry of stories from the land.

An acquaintance of mine, Jon Turk, whom I admire greatly, recently wrote the following in his book The Raven’s Gift: During expeditions, the often razor-thin margin between life and death depends on a tactile, sensory awareness of the environment that incorporates but also transcends logic. Like most of what Jon says or writes, that’s certainly worth thinking about. Not only do I agree with this statement, it’s fundamental to my thinking behind this book. I came to the North as an expedition person and that adventurous spirit kept me there and drove me towards a diverse array of experiences and fulfillment. To be clear, it was all a grand adventure – I have no pretensions of being an explorer. Nevertheless, as Jon said, the physicality of such travel can be dangerous at times, and I’m lucky to be alive to talk about it all now. There are no heroics to that; I’m simply indebted to the sensory awareness that nature and nurture provided me.

Like Jon, expeditions carried me into distant corners of the Arctic where I found the stories, although my expeditionary exploits were tame compared to his. Jon continued: "In Russia, people called me a puteshevstinek, a traveler who told stories … There is no space in my traveling lexicon for cynicism, criticism, and doubt. Instead, I’ve learned to listen, accept, and record." One of my favourite Inuit elders called me Taututtiaq, loosely and gently translated as enthusiastic looker or the one with a watchful eye because, in her view, I observed and recorded everything. I took it as a compliment, as I believe it was intended. She, and others, also taught me to listen, accept, and record. That is the essence of this book.

Another elder, Felix Kopak, once said to me: "Sometimes I don’t believe what people tell me. I was told long ago, when I first started learning how to hunt, they told me that when you take the ugjuk [bearded seal] by the flippers you fall backwards, and I didn’t believe this. I thought as long as I get a good grip of both the flippers, I can just pull the seal right out faster, I didn’t believe what people were telling me so when I caught a bearded seal by our tent, and it was upside down with its head downwards, I grabbed it by its flippers and pulled it as hard as I could and I suddenly fell right down fast to the ice – that’s what happened to me. Because the seal is very slippery when they are moulting – that’s why it’s so easy to fall backwards because they are slippery and easily comes out." At first blush, this just seems to be a simple hunting story, but you need to know that he told me this after many hours, stretching over several days, of recorded interviews about his life, his experiences and his memories.¹ It was his way of summing up his thoughts at the end of our work together. It was his gentle way of telling me to listen, accept, and record without cynicism, criticism, and doubt. That was a long time ago but I took his subtle-but-sage advice to heart.

1 Much of Felix Kopak’s story is documented in Ukkusiksalik – The People’s Story (Dundurn, 2016)

The result is this book. It’s been a long time in the making, with the stories collected here as a sampling from decades of work across the North. In some sense, this is a small way of giving back, by providing this volume of some gifts received. I hope it will serve multiple audiences, both southern and northern. Within the North, those yet to come will have access to some tidbits and tales their elders passed down. I’m not alone in finding satisfaction in that.

Some years ago, I attended a very special mid-winter evening with elders who had gathered to celebrate old stories and traditional knowledge. There was much talk of the generations which had gone before, and the wealth of stories and knowledge that had been passed down through the ages. When it ended, I remember stepping back out into the frigid Arctic air, drawing an icy breath, and looking up to see the northern lights dancing across the southern sky overhead, as if obeying the laws of pathetic fallacy. An older, very perceptive Inuit friend, who was standing close by, stopped to look up with me and reflectively said: Our ancestors are happy.

It was the most perfect ending to a memorable evening.

Retrospective

Introduction

After more than 40 years of travelling and living in the North, listening to and writing down tales of the land and its people, I’ve collected a lifetime’s worth of personal stories. This book may hint at a few of them, although that’s not my principal purpose. By the same token, I’ve had the good fortune to intersect with other people’s wealth of stories, all of which are rooted in the land I love. Some of those are shared here.

The author greeted by Mannik, his old friend and first teacher from years earlier, upon arrival in Baker Lake at the end of a six-week canoe trip

One time I was out hunting for caribou north of Baker Lake with Mannik, a dear old friend and my first teacher in the Arctic. Suddenly, without comment, he lay down flat on the tundra, and pressed his head to the ground. He could hear the caribou, he said. I tried it and, of course, he was right. In a sense, the land spoke to us, and we found the caribou needed to feed his family. In my multiple hunting trips with Mannik, he never once failed in that regard. For Mannik, this was pure practicality but I never forgot the unintended allegory of that event and it became a driving force behind my work. I like to think of the North as a landscape of stories. It’s as if the land itself – rivers, tundra, glacial scrapes in the bedrock, eskers, and sea coasts – are all woven together by the stories of the people who walked there over the last few thousand years. Beyond mere survival, it’s this thing called the story that has tied the people to the land, and preserved their place in it. It’s carried their history down through the ages, in a tapestry fabricated of ancestors, animals and the land.

There are special places, each with their own story attached, scattered all over the Arctic map. According to Inuit who used to live in the magnificent Pelly-Garry Lakes complex on the Back River, near the southeastern extremity of Hanningajuq, there is an island called Uqaallajujuq that speaks to those who walk upon its shores. I was told about this place by my friend Edwin Evo in Qamani’tuaq, previously known as Baker Lake, who spoke from personal experience. If you beach your canoe on this island, and step out, he told me, the island will speak, to welcome you and wish you well on your journey. It’s actually the voice of a dead Inuk who was brutally murdered on that island more than 100 years ago. He didn’t cry out when he was killed and, to this day, he speaks kindly in Inuktitut to all who visit.

A few hundred miles farther south, there is another island in Baker Lake itself, called Tuunngaqtalik, meaning the place of spirits. As everyone in the nearby community knows, a piece of your equipment will often go missing if you camp on that island, mysteriously taken by unseen tuurngait, the tiny spirits that inhabit much of the North. Another old friend in Qamani’tuaq, Barnabus Pirjuaq, related innumerable accounts of this happening and warned: if you fail to believe this, you do so at your own peril. The stories of the North often exhibit a similar powerful merging of myth and reality.

While living in Cambridge Bay, in the Arctic archipelago, I had the immense privilege of working with a small group of elders to collect and preserve a foundational legend which was similarly rooted in the land. It is the story of the man named Uvajuq, from long before any qallunaat ventured north, when people lived forever. It’s been told for centuries by Inuit of the region from Coppermine to King William Island and is referred to as The Origin of Death in local tradition.

One remarkable aspect of this experience was that no single elder could recall the entire story. Each one, independently, recounted the specific parts that they’d retained, and together, they were able to assemble the old legend before it was lost forever. That version, back from the brink of extinction, is what appears here. It serves as a testament to the power of oral-history and a vivid parable from the landscape of stories.

Notwithstanding the importance of Inuit oral-history to my own work over the years and the northern mythology that has seized the Canadian imagination, not all stories of the Arctic have this provenance. There are remarkable tales to be told from the exploits of early non-Native travellers in the Arctic. That has long been an integral part of the northern legend for me, and so it is now a small part of this collection as well. One difference I hope you will notice is that, wherever possible, the usually unnamed Inuit characters in these accounts have been identified. This was often made possible by previous oral-history work, either my own or others. For me, that’s an important feature but, in any casez, I suggest the dichotomy is appropriate since these are all stories from the land.

The author out on the land for a week-long caribou hunt with friend and mentor Barnabus Pirjuaq, spring 1984

Nothing speaks more powerfully of the land than the personal accounts of the people themselves. Over the years I’ve had both the pleasure and the honour of interviewing dozens and dozens of northerners, sometimes on tape, sometimes just making notes as folks recounted their personal tales. It was always an engaging process. A few of those are offered here, in the vein of ordinary people telling their extraordinary stories. What a privilege it is for me to act as the vehicle for transmission of their stories.² None were more enthusiastic participants than Tuinnaq Kanayuk Bruce. She was also remarkable in that she was the only elder I know who was widely and frequently referred to as Mrs. Bruce. This was surely a sign of widespread respect, and a measure of the indivisible force that she and her husband Mikitok Bruce were throughout more than 60 years of marriage. Both of them were born in the 1920s, and they died in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

2 The unedited versions of these stories, and scores more, in the form of interview transcripts, are preserved in the Nunavut Archives, as part of the David Pelly fonds no. NU-7.

David Pelly says he was in effect taught how to collect oral-history by Inuit elders during his years in Baker Lake. They had stories to tell and asked him to write them down. In this scene, well-known Inuit artist Ruth Annaqtuusi Tulurialik shares with the author the tale depicted in one of her drawings.

From that marriage came a gift to the future, in part evident in the important ways in which their children have contributed to Nunavut. Undoubtedly, they all owe their diverse success to the strength of their roots on the land and in Coral Harbour, as well as the values passed down to them by Tuinnaq and Mikitok. These two understood the importance of Inuit traditional knowledge, not only in the Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit sense as a way of seeing the world, but equally in the old stories as a reflection of where they had come from and the documentation of Inuit history.

Born in 1925, Tuinnaq Kanayuk Bruce embodied a remarkable collection of well-documented stories, like a folk musician who leaves behind a repertoire of ballads. She loved to tell stories, some of which we heard many times. She took great pleasure in knowing that they’ve all been recorded for posterity. As she got older, she would occasionally say: Have you recorded the story about the __________ and then smile when I reassured that, yes, we have that one recorded already.

I once spent two days listening