Ship’s discovery puts Inuit hamlet ‘on the map’
GJOA HAVEN, NUNAVUT— The smiles, and tears, spoke for generations of Inuit who knew where to look for at least one of the Franklin expedition’s shipwrecks for more than a century.
They came from across Gjoa Haven, a hamlet of just over 1,000 people on the southwest corner of King William Island, filling the community centre’s gym to overflowing to hear how the historic shipwreck discovery unfolded last week.
Though they were far too polite to dozens of visitors from the south to say, “I told you so,” who could have blamed them if they thought it?
Leona Aglukkaq, a federal minister whose portfolio includes the environment and northern economic development, grew up in Gjoa Haven. It’s still her family’s home.
She led an official delegation to brief residents on the historic news, and how it may help the troubled economy of this remote community.
Wednesday night’s gathering, complete with a buffet of “country food,” such as dried caribou and frozen Arctic char, was an emotional reunion for Aglukkaq and her Inuit neighbours, not just another politician’s public meeting.
“I’m damn proud of this town,” she said to hearty applause from people tired of being asked: “Where is Gjoa Haven?”
“These are exciting times and Gjoa Haven is on the map,” Capt. Bill Noon, commander of the Coast Guard icebreaker CCGS Sir Wilfrid Laurier, told the audience.
“I’m so glad to be able to fulfil this dream here and share it with you,” he added. “You guys are going to carry on this dream. Good luck to all in the future with this project because it’s going to change this town.”
Divers from Parks Canada’s underwater archeology unit hope to start exploring the newly discovered shipwreck as early as this weekend. But it’s delicate and potentially dangerous work that’s too risky if the Arctic turns stormy.
Wednesday night, as snow fell outside in a biting, early winter wind, there was something even bigger to honour than a mid 19thcentury shipwreck: the selfless heroism of a boy who saved his friend’s life.
It was a poignant reminder of how lethal the Arctic still is more than 160 years after Sir John Franklin and his 128 men perished trying to find the western exit of the Northwest Passage, a route that now brings cruise ships full of tourists to Gjoa Haven.
In July, when the first warm days were breaking sea ice into drifting floes, Charlie Qirqqut, 10, was hopping from one to another with his friend Darcy Komangat, 12.
Darcy slipped on the ice and plunged into the sea. The water is so cold this far north that even on the warmest day it can suck the life out of a fully immersed adult in four minutes. A child might not get that long.
Charlie grabbed his friend’s arms. With all the strength the slight boy could summon, Charlie held onto Darcy as long as he could.
“He was holding onto him,” Mayor Allen Aglukkaq said Friday, “but he couldn’t pull him out.” It took five minutes or more for someone strong enough, a man in his mid-20s, to reach the floe and haul Darcy out, the mayor said. But Charlie was the biggest hero. And Aglukkaq, the federal minister, awarded him a certificate from the hamlet’s council for his bravery. As the boy walked back to his seat, clutching the paper that honoured him, tears streamed down his soft cheeks. The mayor hopes Nunavut’s legislature will recognize Charlie’s valour with an even bigger award, a commissioner’s plaque in his honour. These are heady days in Gjoa Haven, which hopes world attention on the Franklin wreck will help its people prosper and learn new skills, from tourism to heritage protection. It’s already a popular stop for cruise ships, which send hordes of tourists ashore in smaller boats to buy stone carvings, visit the hamlet’s new museum or, if they have time and the inclination, play nine holes on what’s billed as the world’s most northern golf course. The big money stays in the hands of cruise operators. As interest grows in Arctic tourism, now fed by global news coverage of the Franklin find, archeologists fear valuable sites that haven’t been fully studied will be trampled and looted by tourists. Aglukkaq, the mayor, used to listen to his grandmother, Joanne Hummahuk, tell stories from Inuit oral history of encounters with the Franklin ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. She died in 1972, at more than 90 years old. Finding one of the three-masters, well-preserved in relatively shallow waters far south of where Franklin’s expedition abandoned them, closes one chapter for the Inuit and opens another, the mayor said. He wants higher governments to help people in his community learn to be tourist guides and guardians of archeological sites scattered across a vast, barren landscape where it’s easy to pillage history without anyone watching. “We need people to start going on tourism courses,” he said. “We need to do the guiding. And with all the elders who are still around, we need to record more, to get more information from them.”
Parks Canada should also set up a permanent office in Gjoa Haven, the mayor suggested, where trained Inuit could work to protect archeological sites.
As he spoke in his small office in Gjoa Haven’s school, where the mayor counsels students during school hours, a teacher in the class across the hall was giving her pupils a lesson on how to Google.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, Inuit children boldly chatted with Noon and others he brought ashore from the icebreaker, like its helicopter pilot and undersea surveyors. The kids wanted to know what their jobs were and how they got them.
That opened some eager eyes and ears to new possibilities, the mayor said.
Gjoa Haven hopes to have a strong ally for more funds and training in Ottawa, since Aglukkaq oversees Parks Canada. And her boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has made the hunt for the lost Franklin ships, and Arctic economic development, high priorities.