National Post (National Edition)
Inuit veteran of Korean War tells of the journey from tundra to trenches.
THE MEMOIR OF AN INUIT VETERAN OF THE KOREAN WAR IS PUBLISHED AFTER FOUR DECADES IN THE MAKING
From the Tundra to the Trenches Eddy Weetaltuk University of Manitoba Press/ First Voices, First Texts 280pp; $27.95
Eddy Weetaltuk was born on Strutton Island in James Bay in 1932. As was the practice at the time, the government of Canada issued him what was called an Eskimo disc number. His was E9-422. It was engraved on a small, metal disc and was to be worn at all times.
He grew up thinking Inuit weren’t allowed to leave the north. This wasn’t quite true, but an understandable assumption based on way his people were treated by the government: why would he have to wear a number if not as a means of restricting movement? But Weetaltuk wanted adventure, so he snuck out, changed his name to Eddy Vital to throw off pursuit that wasn’t coming, and eventually joined the army. They gave him a new number — SC-17515 — as well as all the adventure a young man could want: shipping him to fight in the Korean War, Japan and occupied Germany, where he ended up with another number — Detainee 24 — after running afoul of the military police. After returning home, Weetaltuk decided his was a story worth telling, which began the four-decades long process of getting this book into print.
In 1975, Weetaltuk submitted the manuscript, as well as a handful of drawings, to the National Museum of Man. They were interested in it, but wanted him to add scenes of traditional Inuit life (presumably because, at the time, you couldn’t have a book by an Inuit author without dog sleds and whaling). Weetaltuk complied, the Museum dithered, lost the drawings for a time, and eventually archived the manuscript. It wasn’t until 2002 that the project generated renewed interest. There was some confusion about ownership (Eddy had never ceded it), but once that was sorted, another round of revisions began. Again, Weetaltuk was happy to comply; he wanted to do whatever he needed to have the book in print. He died in 2005, having nearly completed the last round of approvals.
From the Tundra to the Trenches eventually found a home at the University of Manitoba Press’s First Voice, First
Weetaltuk is a natural raconteur; he writes in an anecdotal, matter-of-fact tone that doesn’t dwell on scenery or imagery, instead focusing on events and people. It’s a style that perfectly captures the mixture of banality and horror of being on the front lines of the Korean War. Where one moment his unit is dodging napalm, “The grass and the bushes were on fire and the heat was already burning our flesh,” a short time later, told for laughs — at one point, Weetaltuk and another soldier go to great pains to sneak out of camp for a night on the town, not realizing that their entire unit has done the same until they all run into each other sneaking back in — there is a much darker subtext. The soldiers (and their commanding officers) were in fact out taking advantage of the depressed economy of post-Second World War Japan to spend a few dollars on “girlsans,” often leaving with promises to return and take care of them.
When Weetaltuk found his way back to the North after nearly twenty years, he saw that the shift away from hunting and the traditional way of life that had been well-underway when he left had kept on — forcing his people into more centralized villages where a lack of jobs made reliance on the government inevitable, and poverty had become a major issue.
Meanwhile the arrival of “a new generation of white people,” who were “less friendly than those he grew up with,” moved in to take advantage. An army of construction workers, engineers and support crew arrived in his town for a hydro-electric project, buying “alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, and sometimes love too,” only to disappear when the project was done. He returned to a different North, one with more pronounced problems of racism, poverty and alcoholism.
Weetaltuk saw his time in the army as a point of pride for his people, and he wrote his memoirs, in part, to “help young Inuit to find the inspiration to strive to maintain their heritage.” But he had another hope: to write a book that would find an audience beyond his home. He’s more than achieved that wish. It’s a book that is endlessly interesting; an account of a traditional way of life now lost, a gripping first-hand account of a front-line soldier during the war, and an honest account of a young man’s adventures and misadventures. It is to all our benefit that it has, at last, found its way into print.