North Pole Legacy

by S. Allen Counter

  “Oh, I don’t know. But I think I would like for my son, Talilanguaq, and my grandson Ole to go with me.”

  “Let me see,” I said, counting on my fingers. “That’s Anaukaq, Kali, Avataq, Talilanguaq, Ajako, Ussarkaq, Kitdlaq, Ole, Malina, Aviaq, and possibly Vittus—a total of thirteen, counting myself and Navarana Qavigaq, the translator. That is quite a few people. It will be very expensive. But we shall see. If we have to take fewer people on the first trip, I will let Anaukaq and Kali decide who will join them.”

  “Maybe we can aim for a date next fall [1987], about a year from now,” I said. “But I promise you I will be back in the spring to let you know about my progress in arranging a visit. Just keep the faith.”

  “Yes, the fall or winter would be a good time because it might be very hot in the other seasons,” Anaukaq said.

  “I agree with my cousin,” Kali chuckled. “You know, Eskimos don’t like heat.”

  Everyone laughed, and on that cheerful note we ended our dinner.

  In spite of the enthusiasm I had shown in the presence of Kali and Anaukaq, privately I was less optimistic. I knew that it would be an enormous task to arrange a trip to America for both families. Just how I was going to do it, I did not know.

  As we stepped out into the cold darkness, we witnessed a final, unexpected salute to the end of my visit. At first I was startled. The scene before my eyes seemed surreal, even magical. In the pitch black of the night, as if by some theatrical orchestration, the sky suddenly lit up with lights so bright that I thought they came from unnatural or artificial sources. The lights formed radiant streams of white ghostlike figures, descending from a large circle in the sky directly above me. Some of these luminous apparitions seemed to have long tails and faces on their cometlike heads. As if on cue, the brilliant streams of light would drop straight down toward the ground and then sail back up again. Before long the light forms were all around us, dancing and moving in all directions, like special effects in a Steven Spielberg movie.

  Several of the young people ran out of their houses to enjoy what to them must be similar to our Fourth of July fireworks. But I was uneasy. For the first few moments, the lights looked so unnatural that I thought they might be exploding rockets. The fact that we were so close to the air base at Thule, the “northern defense line” of the Pentagon’s Early Warning System, only intensified my anxiety. I shivered as my imagination conjured up the ultimate conflagration while I stood at the top of the planet, staring at the night sky.

  It took several minutes for Anaukaq and Kali to convince me that I was actually witnessing the aurora borealis. They said that while they regularly see these northern lights, this was one of the grandest exhibitions they had ever experienced. As they explained it, the aurora borealis is a special game played by the spirits of their ancestors, a sport akin to football in which the ancestors kick a walrus’s head across the sky.

  Curiously and somewhat eerily, Anaukaq and Kali whistled when some especially bright lights appeared in the sky. Several of the youngsters who had joined us also whistled. To my amazement, the sound seemed to bring the lights down like comets, toward the whistler. In each instance, it looked as though there were a direct relation between the whistling and the movement of the light toward Earth. Groping for some explanation, I thought that perhaps the pitch of the whistle caused the cold air particles to move closer together in such a way as to create a temporarily denser conductive medium of lower resistance for sound and light. Kali and Anaukaq had a simpler explanation. They said that the ancestral spirits simply came to them when they called.

  When they were children, walking through a village alone, Kali said, they often were frightened by the aurora borealis if it came too close when they whistled. They thought that the ancestral spirits might come down from the sky and take them away to a strange place.

  “Maybe it is a good omen,” I said. “Maybe the spirits are telling us something.”

  The next morning Anaukaq and Kali bade me farewell as I left by helicopter for the Thule air base.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Keeping the Faith

  Nestled in a fjord surrounded by snow-covered mountains, Dundas Air Force Base at Thule is a colossal sprawl of nondescript military buildings and airplane hangars. Although its strange appearance restores a measure of primal fright even to the most jaded observer, it offers certain conveniences otherwise unknown in this remote corner of the earth. After weeks of melting ice in my “igloo” just to take a “bath,” it was therapeutic to step into a shower at the base. The hot, powerful cascade seemed to melt away the dirt, seal oil, and other vestiges of the unusual world I had just left. I let the water run for over an hour, all the while thinking about how I could help Anaukaq and Kali get to the United States—and once there, how I would arrange for their stay and their travel.

  Finding transportation to the United States was the first problem. There seemed to be only two possibilities. One was to obtain seats on the weekly, sometimes monthly, military flight from Thule to Copenhagen, and then take a commercial airliner from Copenhagen to the United States. As far as I knew, however, the Copenhagen flight was restricted to the Danish military and staff personnel serving at Thule. Traveling by such a circuitous route, moreover, promised to be not only time consuming but also prohibitively expensive.

  The second possibility was to hitch a ride on one of the American C-141 transports that regularly shuttled between the United States and Thule. Like the Danish flights, however, these too were strictly for military, scientific, and other personnel serving the base. The only difference was that the U.S. Air Force had contracted with the Ministry of Greenland to transport Eskimos between Thule and Sondre Stromfiord Air Base in southern Greenland. Perhaps they could extend this policy to flights destined for the United States, I thought. I decided to meet with both the American and Danish base commanders to explore these options.

  In the dining hall at the base, I had a chance meeting with Maj. Quincy Sharp, director of base operations. A tall, statuesque, soft-spoken man in his early forties, Sharp was the lead pilot in a fleet of B-52 bombers. He had flown numerous missions over the North Pole and knew about Matthew Henson and Robert Peary, but he did not know about Anaukaq and Kali, and their story fascinated him. He agreed to help me arrange a meeting with base commander Col. James Knapp, whom I had written earlier for permission to use base facilities.

  The next day Colonel Knapp greeted me warmly at base headquarters. He too found the story of the two Amer-Eskimo men fascinating and advised me on the procedures for obtaining official permission from the Department of Defense to use military aircraft. Things were looking up.

  I hoped that the Danish authorities would react similarly to my proposal, recognizing it as an opportunity to show some good will toward the native population. Denmark has governed Greenland since 1916, when American control of the territory, first claimed by Peary and Henson, was relinquished as part of a trade for the Danish (now American) Virgin Islands. Yet even before then relations between the Danes and the Eskimos were strained. Early Danish explorers, for example, captured Polar Eskimos and took them back to Denmark for exhibition. To the astonishment of many Danes, some of the Eskimos would steal away from Denmark in canoes in an effort to return overseas to their homeland, only to drown far out at sea.

  Some Eskimos still complain, not without reason, about what they regard as a condescending attitude on the part of the Greenlandic Danes. One day during my visit to Moriussaq, I met a Danish technician who had been sent from Thule to repair some downed communication lines in the area. I shared some of my tea with him and inquired about his feelings toward the Eskimos. He said that he and many of the other Danes in Greenland called the Eskimos “junkyard Indians.” When I asked why, he said it was because the Eskimos were frequently seen around the refuse and junk heaps of the Danish and American military installations, sorting through the discarded material for wood, metal, and other things. This, he said, was one of the many things th
at lowered them in his eyes.

  But other Danes I met in Greenland, particularly those with whom I collaborated, sincerely cared about the welfare of the Polar Eskimos and treated them as equals.

  In the end, the Danish authorities at Thule referred my inquiries about transporting Anaukaq and Kali to their government offices in Copenhagen and Washington.

  When I arrived in Cambridge, an autumn snow had given the old Harvard Yard a picture-postcard beauty. The branches of the huge elm trees strained from the thick, cottonlike snow, and large icicles hung from the roofs of the gracefully aging red-brick buildings.

  In my University Hall office, I found stacks of letters inquiring about Anaukaq and Kali. Many of the letters were from Matthew Henson’s relatives all over the country. They had read the stories in newspapers and journals about my encounter with their Amer-Eskimo kin, and they wanted to meet them too. I was reminded of the statement Matthew Henson made in 1947, following the appearance of a series of articles highlighting his life. He said that he heard from relatives he didn’t even know he had.

  I contacted each of the family members and explained my hopes of arranging a visit to the United States for Anaukaq and Kali the following fall. All the American Hensons I spoke with expressed a strong desire to receive their Eskimo kin and to be a part of a general reunion. Some lived in Boston, some in New York, some in Maryland, others in Washington D.C., the Midwest, even California. I later learned that Matthew Henson’s eighty-three-year-old niece, Virginia Carter Brannum, the last living offspring of his closest sister, Eliza Carter, was living in Washington, D.C. A delightful woman of great poise and remarkable memory, she told me how her Uncle Matthew used to send her money to help take care of her mother. When I met and interviewed her, she shared with me her personal letters and other memorabilia from Henson.

  In the meantime, following up on my conversations in Thule, I contacted the U.S. offices of the Danish government about possible support for my plans. The Danish officials with whom I spoke expressed complete surprise to learn of Anaukaq’s and Kali’s existence. I was told that my request would be considered by the proper authorities, who would contact me when a decision was reached.

  I also wrote to the U.S. Air Force and the Department of Defense and requested permission to fly Anaukaq, Kali, and their families to America free of charge aboard one of the regularly scheduled C-141 transports. This kind of project, I was told, was unprecedented and would require special consideration.

  Anaukaq and Kali had essentially defined an itinerary for their trip when they said that they wanted to visit their fathers’ grave sites and meet their American relatives. Matthew Henson was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York. He had lived mainly in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., the Maryland area, and, for a brief time, Boston. Most of his closest relatives were in those cities. Robert Peary was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, just outside Washington, D.C. His surviving descendants lived for the most part in Maine, New York City, the Washington, D.C. area, and Maryland.

  Though I hadn’t heard from any of the American Pearys since my return, I still hoped that eventually they would agree to meet with their Amer-Eskimo relatives. Even if they didn’t, I suspected that Kali would want to come and visit his father’s grave.

  Anaukaq and Kali had given no time limit for their visit but agreed with their sons that about two weeks would be all the time the group could spend away from their families, dogs, and work. This would allow us time only to tour the most important family sites on the East Coast and give receptions at each place.

  By now I had determined that the major expenses in the United States would be room and board in each city. If all the Greenlandic family members that Kali and Anaukaq had requested were to come along, this would be a very costly proposition. Most of the American Hensons were working people who had big hearts and a lot of pride but did not have much extra money. They wanted to do all that they could to help me make the Eskimos’ visit to America a pleasant one. They offered to contribute what they could to help me bring their relatives to the United States and to transport and house them.

  My only complication with the Hensons was that relatives at each location wanted the Eskimos to stay with them longer than with the other kin. In response to this problem, I recommended that we hold a single large family get-together in one city and, from that base, take short excursions into the other cities. I left the choice of the city for the American Hensons to decide, but the relatives and friends could not agree. I then recommended Washington, because it was the city where Henson and Peary first met and it is readily accessible to anyone living along the eastern seaboard.

  About a month later, I received a letter from the Danish government indicating that they would not provide support for Anaukaq and Kali’s trip to America. This was disappointing. I had thought that at the very least the Danish authorities would have provided us with transportation from Thule to Copenhagen.

  Some weeks later, I heard from the U.S. Air Force, my last hope. I nervously opened the letter to read that my request had been turned down. This was a crushing blow. I sat for minutes, just staring at the letter, remembering how optimistic Anaukaq and Kali had been when I last saw them and trying to decide how I would break the news. But after a while, I pulled myself out of my depression and started to write to the air force and the secretary of defense, this time with an offer to pay for seats on one of the C-141 transport jets. I still had faith.

  Meanwhile, I decided the time had come to contact the American Pearys and find out whether they had had a change of heart. When I reached the family representative, I was once again met with a polite but cold tone. I talked about my recent visit with Kali and made it clear that he still hoped to meet his American relatives. After an extended silence, the spokesman said, “I guess if you give them free transportation, they would go anywhere with you.”

  “I don’t think Kali and his family are looking for anything free, sir,” I responded. “They just don’t have the resources to pay for such a trip. The only way they will ever get to the United States to see Admiral Peary’s grave is for us to help them.”

  “Well, we won’t help,” he replied. “You give them the free transportation if you want, but we will not help you bring them here.”

  I was disappointed that the Peary-Staffords had not softened their position and sad that I might inadvertently be hurting their family by insisting on inviting Kali to come along with Anaukaq. Nevertheless, I could not understand how they could reject Kali outright.

  Around the same time, I heard from the Amer-Eskimos Hensons through the translator in Greenland. Anaukaq had taken ill and was being kept in the tiny Danish and Eskimo-run infirmary at Qaanaaq. The diagnosis was prostate cancer. Like most elderly people, Anaukaq hated hospitals and wanted to go back home to his family. When he entered the hospital, he told the translator that he would be well enough to return to his family in a short time but added, “Tell Allen if I am going to visit America, it will have to be soon. Please don’t you leave the area before I get out of the infirmary, because I want you to go to America with Kali and me as our translator when Allen comes to get us.”

  When I contacted a Danish physician who had treated Anaukaq to inquire about his condition, he told me that his prostate cancer, like other cancers, was fairly unpredictable. “It is difficult to tell,” he said. “In his present condition, he could go on living for years, or he could succumb earlier. I think he has a strong will to live now.”

  Understandably, Anaukaq’s family also felt a greater sense of urgency about the trip. Fearful that Anaukaq’s health might deteriorate quickly in the months ahead, they suggested that we plan the visit for the spring of 1987 rather than the ensuing fall. I agreed, even though the new timetable would make it even more difficult to work out our plans.

  As a result of the nationwide publicity about my meeting with Anaukaq and Kali, I was receiving dozens of letters and telephone calls from journalists and film
crews—all wanting me to tell them how to reach Anaukaq and Kali. From the articles that appeared in Newsweek, the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and other newspapers, Anaukaq and Kali had attained a kind of celebrity, and many in the media simply wanted to get their story. I could just imagine some of the callers descending upon their villages with their note pads, tape recorders, and cameras. Some reporters and photographers all but demanded that I reveal to them Kali’s and Anaukaq’s whereabouts. In fact, one U.S. wire-service reporter called me to say that he had received permission to travel to Thule by convincing the air force that he was going to do a story on the military in Greenland, but that he really wanted to do a story on Anaukaq and Kali. He insisted that I tell him how to locate the Amer-Eskimo families and expressed anger when I refused.

  Even in Denmark, a number of newspapers carried articles on Anaukaq and Kali for the first time, prompting new interest in the Polar Eskimos. Some Danes tried to contact them. Others claimed that they had known of Anaukaq and Kali all along, but apparently never thought the information of interest to the public.

  Perhaps the most disturbing news I received from Greenland during this depressing period, however, came a few weeks later. I learned from the Amer-Eskimo families in Greenland that some of the American Pearys had contacted them and had tried to dissuade them from traveling to America with Anaukaq and his family. The Amer-Eskimo Pearys were shocked, confused, and eventually angered by this effort. The American Pearys had never reached out to make contact with or even to acknowledge them as relatives in over eighty years. Now these same people, who had earlier tried to convince me that Kali was not Robert Peary’s son, claimed to be acting with Kali’s best interests in mind. The irony of this was not lost on the Eskimos.

  The Amer-Eskimos told me that the Peary-Stafford family had enlisted the help of an adventurer who traveled to the area for Arctic photographic work. It appears that this man, like so many others, became aware of Anaukaq and Kali only after they had come to national and international attention in 1986. Eventually he put together a team of filmmakers from England and traveled to the area to film Anaukaq and Kali in the spring of 1987, just before they were to leave for America.