Finding John Rae

by Alice Jane Hamilton

  “Too bad those two boys came with us. I could tell they wouldn’t make it. They were never strong enough. They aren’t even full-blood Cree or Ojibwa. It’s the blood that matters,” he muttered. Ouligback translated and I replied:

  “Whatever their blood is or is not, Thomas, it is our obligation to return them to their families alive.”

  Pelly Bay

  [MAY 1854]

  We arrived at the Hudson’s Bay Company depot and settlement by the shore of Pelly Bay on the northern coast of the mainland, with Beads and Johnston alive and in tow on the sledges. We had been able to purchase a dog from a passing native along the way; we were also lighter on provisions, which helped us move more efficiently during the return leg of our journey. I was encouraged to see a group of Esquimaux men, women and children cheerfully encamped next to our own people, and waiting for us. More were arriving with dogs and sleds. The speed of communication amongst the Arctic natives over vast distances never failed to impress me. It was not surprising that the news of our request for information had spread quickly.

  While my equipment was being unloaded, Hudson’s Bay Company men erected a tent for our meetings and stocked it with chairs and tables, paper and pencils and so on. I was pleased to see that our native visitors assisted them with good humour and energy, which bode well for collecting helpful intelligence from them. Before we retired to our respective buildings, tents and encampments, Company food was offered to all, and pleasantries were exchanged. Early the next morning, I positioned myself at a writing table in the interviewing tent. Two Company men stood at the entrance to organize the flow of visitors, Ouligback settled beside me to translate, and we began the interviewing process.

  “Kabloonans. Many of them. Walking, falling down. They looked so thin, like skeletons. Some had no strength to get up again and just lay where they fell. Others tried to help them to their feet.”

  “Mar-ko, ask them to describe what the men were wearing.”

  “They say the men were poorly dressed for the weather conditions, Ablooka. They were wearing light coverings, unfit for the winter cold, with small caps and some kind of cloth wrapped around their heads and necks. Their hands were barely covered with thin, stitched material that was wrapped around each finger. These coverings were full of holes.”

  I scribbled notes as quickly as I could while he spoke, not wanting to miss anything. “What was on their feet?”

  “Their foot coverings looked worn and ragged too; the men moved as if their feet were feeling much pain.”

  I winced. Frostbite. “Is it true that they were dragging a boat?” I asked.

  “Yes. The boat was on a sledge, which became stuck on the ice, again and again.”

  “What was in the boat?”

  “The people were nervous about coming too close to the Kabloonans, but it appeared as though the boat had many objects in it. It looked very heavy. It became stuck on pressure ridges rising out of the ice, and some of the men cried out as they tried to haul it up and over the icy mountains.” I thought of the boat being filled with equipment such as scientific instruments, weapons and ammunition, kettles for cooking, bedding, extra clothing, oil lamps, medicine, personal belongings, and so on. It must have weighed well over a thousand pounds.

  “Mar-ko, did the witnesses observe if anyone was in charge of the travelling party?”

  “A big Kabloonan was leading the march.” I wondered who the man was.

  “Was there any communication between the natives and the British sailors?” I inquired.

  “Not much,” Ouligback replied. “They say the Kabloonans were frightening.” I recalled that In-nook had mentioned similar remarks made by his people.

  “How was that so?”

  “The men were shouting things and making sounds that were unfamiliar, strange.” Ouligback went on to explain that to the ears of the Esquimaux, the sounds were more like angry spirit noises than human voices.

  “The local people were worried about the objects some of the men had strapped to their bodies. Long, hard sticks that looked as though they might be used as weapons of some kind. They had never seen people like this before, never seen the things that hung from their backs and shoulders.”

  Ouligback turned towards me, squinting. “I understand why the spectacle of the marching men, their rifles, and the strange sounds they made caused my people to be afraid,” he whispered. “We must try to explain to them who the men were, Ablooka, what they were carrying, and why they were crying out like that.”

  I put down my pencil and looked at him. “Of course, Mar-ko. Take all the time you need.” The exhaustive work we did together periodically caused me to overlook my interpreter’s strong connections to these Esquimaux people, some of whom could well have been his relatives. I felt a twinge of regret, along with pity for the natives and the confusion they must have experienced when they saw spectres of white men, marching and uttering words in an unfamiliar tongue, shouting wildly, carrying objects that made no sense to the observers, dragging a boat with mysterious contents. It is within the nature of all human beings to fear things we do not understand.

  —

  We had been conducting the interviews for a week, when Ouligback brought to my attention that there were other Esquimaux who knew more about what happened to the marching men, and who had apparently acquired many objects from them. I listened to this news with great interest, and decided that it would be wise for us to conclude these Pelly Bay interviews and move on to our Repulse Bay headquarters. Repulse Bay had better facilities for treating our ailing young men, and we would be able to accommodate more Esquimaux visitors with food and payments for additional information.

  “Mar-ko, please tell these people that they are very brave to travel so far from the North and pass along this important information to us. We will pack up and move on to the Hudson’s Bay Company settlement in Repulse Bay, where more food and supplies will be available. Tell them how to get there. Explain that we invite all of their countrymen to come and meet with us for sustenance and information, that we want to hear more, and that we will pay well for any items they may have collected from the Kabloonans. Tell them these objects have important spiritual meaning for us.”

  Repulse Bay

  [JUNE AND JULY 1854]

  We left the dog and one sledge behind at the Pelly Bay depot, which was just as well because the temperatures had climbed above freezing during our journey to Repulse Bay. Most of the snow on the ground had disappeared, and we frequently became bogged down in mud. Swarms of black flies and mosquitoes harassed us along the way; it was an unpleasant journey, and our patience was hanging by a thread by the time we arrived at our destination. My spirits lifted, though, when I saw that an even greater number of Esquimaux were arriving to meet with us. They brought many items of British origin with them, including engraved silver cutlery and plates, badges, lengths of gold braid, compasses, watches, telescopes, pieces of firearms and a tattered Student’s Handbook, proof that there had indeed been contact between the natives and the men from the doomed Franklin Expedition. I thought of our interviews with the visiting natives at Pelly Bay, of their insistence that there had been little to no communication with the marching Kabloon-ans. I wondered how they had acquired all the objects they presented to us. From the dead, perhaps?

  As the weeks went on and more relics appeared at the table, it became apparent that the handbook was the only piece of written material among so many different kinds of items. I wondered how it had survived alone when no other papers were in evidence. Of course, if the Esquimaux found books amongst the men’s possessions, they would have had no use for them except as fuel. What had happened to the ships’ logs, notebooks and 2,900 books from their two libraries? What fate had befallen the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Donne, and even books published under the name of the expedition’s commander, Sir John Franklin? Had those cherished writings given the doomed British men any comfort while they waited for rescue?

  I traded tools
for every object our visitors brought to the table. They expressed appreciation for the items I gave them in exchange for the British sailors’ belongings. In my view, they gave us something of immeasurable value: tangible evidence and straightforward answers to difficult questions.

  For two months — the duration of the fleeting Arctic summer — I conducted meticulous and methodical cross-examinations of every person who brought relics and information. With Ouligback’s help, I spoke with them in groups, as individuals and in various combinations, looking for common threads and checking for possible inconsistencies in their stories. An increasingly alarming picture emerged as men, women and older children added more details to the stories we had heard from In-nook and the natives we met with at Pelly Bay.

  “Two large ships were stuck, far apart, in the sea ice. They were there for many winters. Kabloonans came off the ships, sometimes in small groups and, at other times, in large ones.”

  “The smaller groups had one boat with them, and the larger ones had two, which they had to drag and push across the ice on sledges. The boats were heavy, full of things, and they got stuck a lot.” This testimony concurred with what we had heard from the previous group.

  People pointed to the canvas walls of the interview tent. “The men put up sleeping places like this one, made of materials they brought from the ships.” The natives from whom we were now collecting testimony had learned of much more than the others we interviewed in Pelly Bay. They had seen not just marching men dragging boats, but places where the sailors had set up tents for shelter and rest. I wondered how many other natives caught sight of the ships as they carried on with their own nomadic lives, moving from place to place in search of sustenance.

  The fact that the men of the Royal Navy and the travelling Esquimaux had little contact with each other was disappointing. My own survival in the Arctic had often depended upon my interactions with the natives. They had taught me their methods of fishing, hunting and how to clothe myself in animal skins. Why had no native interpreters and guides been hired by the Royal Navy to join Franklin’s two parties, in case the ships became trapped? Such an arrangement could have been made possible with my assistance, because I was living in the Arctic and well acquainted with some natives who had good translation skills. How tragic, I thought. We gently encouraged our visitors to continue with their stories.

  “Some of our people were brave. They went close to a group of men who were walking, like this…” A woman lifted up her knees and stamped her feet, to imitate marching. She placed her hands on her stomach and groaned as if she were in pain. Others spoke of a brief attempt at communication between one of the men and a few natives.

  “They say that the man who seemed to be the leader of the Kabloonans tried to describe what had happened to a ship, by raising his arms and making gestures.” The interviewees told of how the man drew his arms and hands together, as if they were crushing something, after which he pointed to the ice and made the gestures again.

  “He must have been referring to the ships, Mar-ko. Are they saying that a ship was crushed, maybe both?”

  “They think he meant that a ship was crushed, but they are not certain of it. They heard that a second ship sank in one piece after a mysterious explosion happened on board, but these people aren’t sure about that, either.”

  “Did the white men ever ask for help?”

  “No, not for help, but the Kabloonan leader — the biggest man in the group — bought a small piece of seal meat from our people to share with his men. It was all they could spare, because food was scarce at that time, for everyone.”

  I urged them to continue telling their stories. My neck was sore from being hunched over a small table recording the testimony of every person who spoke, later cross-checking and reviewing it all in my quarters. There was no doubt, however, that the information they brought to us created a dramatic picture of the sightings of the missing men.

  Ouligback continued translating. “The people who saw the marching men did not feel safe, and the big Kabloonan seemed to want nothing more than meat from them, so both groups moved away from each other as quickly as possible.

  “Were the Kabloonans ever seen again?” I inquired.

  “No, but after that winter season, the natives heard loud, cracking noises in the air. They didn’t know what to make of those sounds. A short time later, they found the remains of a Kabloonan settlement on the shore of a large island somewhere to the south.”

  I tried to imagine the terrible condition they were in as they continued their 1850 death march, in a futile search for rescue. I was surprised to hear that any of them had enough strength to set up camp at all.

  “Can you describe the scene where they died?”

  “Many men’s bodies, Ablooka. Fresh bones and the feathers of geese on the ground near the bodies. Barrels with black powder in them. Objects my people had never seen before, items made of materials other than bones and rocks.” Metal, I thought.

  “It is said that a boat was turned over on the shore of the island. The body of a large man was underneath. He was lying on his stomach.”

  “Did the body look like the big man who was marching with the others when the natives saw them earlier?”

  “No one is certain of that.”

  I shuddered and wondered about the identity of the man, and whether he had been a British naval officer, the owner of the gold capband I had purchased from In-nook. My telescope was resting on a table in the interview tent. A man pointed to it. “A tool like that was tied to him with a strap. An object was sticking out from under the body, too. From the way this man is describing the tool under the body,” Oulig-back said, “it sounds as though it may have been some kind of gun.”

  An officer, I thought. “Mar-ko, I am going to gather some of our own weapons and display them on this table. Ask these people to wait for a few moments.”

  I went to a nearby building where racks holding different kinds of guns belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company were stored under lock and key. A staff member let me in. After picking up a variety of rifles and shotguns, I returned to the tent and set them down in front of the group I was interviewing. I collected some pieces of the guns they had brought to us as relics belonging to the dead Kabloonans, and placed them alongside our own weapons. The natives’ eyes widened as they scanned the table full of objects. They murmured amongst themselves and pointed to the shotguns and rifles.

  “Ask them if they think our weapons resemble the objects the marching men carried and what was later seen at the encampment, Mar-ko.” As he relayed my question to his people, I could see from their reactions that they believed there were many similarities. “Yes, especially this one, Ablooka.” He pointed to a double-barrelled shotgun, and our visitors nodded in agreement.

  “Is it the same kind of object the people saw tied to the big man’s body, beneath the overturned boat?” I asked.

  “Yes, Ablooka. They say it looks the same.”

  I then fully understood why the natives had broken apart the guns they found with the bodies. Like In-nook, they did not understand the operation and function of guns, Kabloonan killing tools. They had ignored the kegs of gunpowder they found at the dead men’s encampment, figuring correctly that the strange material was of no use to them.

  “Please tell me more, as much as can be remembered about the boat and the people.”

  “Some of the dead Kabloonans were wearing many items of clothing. Other bodies had been stripped of flesh with sharp objects, probably knives. Missing hands, arms, feet, legs, heads. Bones lay in boxes, in piles, and some were scattered around the camp. The bones had been broken and the contents sucked out of them, like we do when we eat meat, Ablooka. We boil the animal bones and suck out the softened marrow, or scoop it off the top of boiling liquid and swallow it. It sounds as though the Kabloonans did the same thing with human bones.”

  The strain of what he was hearing from these people — his people — was showing on poor Ouligback’s
face. My stomach turned over several times, and I fought back nausea. Despite the fact that I had witnessed many gruesome sights during my years as a doctor and explorer, and even though I had killed and eaten thousands of birds and animals, the mental images of men dismembering their dead companions and sucking on pieces of their remains caused me physical discomfort.

  I swallowed and drew a deep breath. It would not do to show the others how I felt. “I know, Mar-ko,” I whispered. “Bone marrow is rich in nutrients.” So this was how they had the strength to keep moving, I thought. Dear Lord. Those poor, godforsaken, miserable men. How dreadful it must have been for them when they were on their death marches, dragging their belongings, kettles and cooking fuel, along with the severed joints, bones and other parts of their deceased comrades in boats on sledges across mountains of ice.

  A woman looked away while she spoke. “Pots for cooking flesh and bones. Pots with boiled bones inside them.” I asked how she knew the kettles to which she referred contained human flesh, and not the meat and bones of some kind of bird or animal.

  “Hair. Teeth. Pieces of white Kabloonan skin. Kabloonan bones. Many cut marks on bones. Bones cracked open.”

  “Boiled skulls with big holes. No flesh inside skulls. Flesh scooped out.”

  “Pieces of brains in white men’s cooking pots. Kabloonan flesh and bones like some kind of soup inside white men’s boots.”

  I swallowed hard. “Mar-ko, why would there be cooked flesh inside leather boots? Could this be how the men shared their food?” He shrugged his shoulders and nodded, his expression pained. The idea of it seemed unthinkable, but no other explanation came to mind. The remains must have been boiled with melting ice in some kind of vessel over a fire, then poured into the dead men’s boots. I blinked my eyes to banish the bizarre image of leather footwear filled with liquid and floating matter. As a physician, I was aware that a starving body feeds upon itself until the heart ceases to function. As an explorer who had occasionally suffered from want of food, I was no stranger to persistent hunger pangs. As a human being, I felt great compassion for the poor men who had been forced to adopt such extreme measures in a failed bid to survive.