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2020-08 Stallworthy of the Mounted: A Textual Analysis of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Arctic Presence, 1923-1935

Heumann, Michelle

Heumann, M. (2020). Stallworthy of the Mounted: a textual analysis of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Arctic presence, 1923-1935 (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/112411 master thesis

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Stallworthy of the Mounted:

A Textual Analysis of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Arctic Presence, 1923-1935

Michelle Heumann

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY

CALGARY, ALBERTA

AUGUST 2020

Abstract

On the surface, this thesis explores a few incidents in the life of an individual Mountie, Harry

Stallworthy. However, in depth it examines how Stallworthy’s work intersected with Canadian sovereignty and colonialism in a period of Canadian history when representations of Canadian icons (the North and the Mountie) were of great importance. It also develops a framework that could be used to analyze texts found in many archival fonds. This thesis investigates the way

RCMP officer Harry Stallworthy wrote differently for different audiences about the experiences he had while supporting the Canadian government’s attempts to establish control over the Arctic in the 1920s and 30s.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my thesis supervisors, Dr. George Colpitts and Dr. Karen Routledge, whose input, suggestions, and critique have been invaluable. I’m very grateful to have had the support and encouragement of two such excellent historians in making this thesis a reality. The History

Department offered many interesting classes, and I particularly benefited from the Canadian history classes I took from Dr. Heather Devine and Dr. David Marshall. As well, the support of the Coutts Family Western Canadian Graduate History Scholarship and the Queen Elizabeth II

Graduate Scholarship were both much appreciated.

During my undergrad years, I had classes with three English professors (Dr. Stefania Forlini, Dr.

Jenny McKenney, and Dr. Jason Wiens) who had a special interest in archival research, and who introduced their classes to the University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. This not only led me to the inspiration for this thesis, but also led to a period of contract work in the archives, where I learned even more about archival research from the talented and hard-working staff in Archives and Special Collections, which has been a major highlight of my time on campus.

When I told my husband Trevor that I wanted to quite my steady full-time job and go to university, he didn’t hesitate to be supportive. While neither of us had any idea how long this journey was going to take, all along the way he’s worked hard to provide for us, and I couldn’t have done this without him. I am very thankful for his patient support! 4

Dedication

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of my dad, Rick Bennetts, who passed away very suddenly, right when this project was to have been weeks from completion. During the period I was usually on campus writing in the Alan MacDonald Graduate Commons in the library, he would regularly come to buy me lunch at the Last Defence Lounge. It’s a period of study and spending time with Dad that I was very privileged to have. 5

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... Page 2

Acknowledgments...... Page 3

Dedication ...... Page 4

Table of Contents ...... Page 5

Introduction ...... Page 6

Chapter 1: RCMP Wives at Chesterfield Inlet, 1923 to 1924...... Page 33

Chapter 2: The Narratives of Arctic Patrols...... Page 61

Chapter 3: The Oxford University Expedition to Ellesmere Island...... Page 84

Conclusion...... Page 120

Appendix 1: Chesterfield Inlet Daily Diary from the day Maggie Clay was injured...... Page 125

Appendix 2: Excerpt from Stallworthy’s letter to Bill regarding the newspaper articles...... Page 126

Appendix 3: Stallworthy’s official report regarding falling into the crevasse...... Page 128

Appendix 4: Stallworthy’s letter to Bill regarding Nowya’s vision...... Page 129

Appendix 5: Pages from Stallworthy’s Chesterfield Inlet manuscript...... Page 131

Appendix 6: An excerpt from Stallworthy’s draft of his Oxford Expedition article...... Page 133

Appendix 7: An excerpt from Stallworthy’s official report on the Oxford Expedition...... Page 134

Bibliography: Primary Unpublished Sources...... Page 135

Bibliography: Primary Published Sources...... Page 137

Bibliography: Secondary Sources...... Page 139

Introduction

On July 24, 1923, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer Harry Stallworthy wrote to his

mother, who lived in England, from aboard the S.S. Nascopie , en route to his first eastern Arctic posting. He informed her that “the accommodation is very good on the boat very English, nearly all the crew (55 men) are from England. The meals are very good indeed, we even get tea before getting up in the morning and afternoon tea and cake. And a cup of cocoa and biscuits before going to bed.” 1 This focus on homeland and traditional food illustrates the paradox of

Stallworthy’s Englishness and remind the reader of his British imperial perspective as he went

north to enforce Canadian sovereignty. Stallworthy’s remarks reflect the fact that Royal

Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) service, linked to Canada’s sovereignty, was often carried out

by individuals of British origin, rooted in the identities and habits of home. But his letter to his

mother is also an example of how a Mountie who wrote to multiple audiences—official, popular,

and personal—left a written record communicating different facets of his Eurocentric identity,

values, and assumptions. Reading Stallworthy’s records of his time at Chesterfield Inlet and on

Ellesmere Island, and autobiographies of other Mounties who served in the North around the

same period, makes it clear that sovereignty and colonialism in Canada’s Arctic are inextricably

linked, and that southern ideas of Arctic sovereignty are, at their most basic, based on people of

European descent 2 surviving a challenging and unfamiliar environment in pursuit of what people understood to be ‘effective occupation.’ Stallworthy left multiple narratives about his most

1 Harry Stallworthy to Mother, 24 July 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 2 After Stallworthy’s time, the government also attempted to establish sovereignty by relocating southern Inuit communities further north. See: The Qikiqtani Truth Commission, Community Histories 1950-1957: Grise Fiord (Ausuittuq) (Iqaluit, NU: Inhabit Media, 2013). The Qikiqtani Truth Commission, Community Histories 1950-1957: Resolute Bay (Qausuittuq) (Iqaluit, NU: Inhabit Media, 2013). Frank J. Tester and Peter Keith Kulchyski, Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1994). Alan R. Marcus, Relocating Eden: The Image and Politics of Inuit Exile in the Canadian Arctic (Hanover, N.H.: Dartmouth College, 1995). Lyle Dick, Muskox Land: Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001). 7

formative northern experiences, framing these events differently for different purposes and at

different times. In a few cases, other authors also published their own accounts of Stallworthy’s

experiences. A textual analysis of writings by and about Stallworthy—including letters, RCMP

reports, lectures, and popular accounts—allows for consideration of the process by which

complicated human experiences in the North are narrated, reframed, and turned into iconic

stories, which in turn have been used to reinforce Canadian sovereignty and colonialism

narratives.

Henry Webb Stallworthy, who went by Harry, was born in Gloucestershire, England, on

January 20, 1895. As a young man, he served for three years in the Gloucestershire Yeomanry, a cavalry unit, before traveling to Canada to visit a brother who had settled in southern Alberta. In

1914, when World War I broke out, Stallworthy joined the Royal North West Mounted Police

(RNWMP) in anticipation of being sent to the front as part of a Mountie unit. However, the

RNWMP was not dispatched until late in the war, and Stallworthy served the RCMP in the

Yukon in the meantime. He did not arrive in England as part of the Canadian Expeditionary

Force until June of 1918, where he was hospitalized with measles until mid-July. He arrived in

France in October and was assigned to the Canadian Light Horse, then was demobilized to

England in January of 1919. He was discharged from the military upon arriving back at RNWMP headquarters in Regina in March. 3 He completed his term with the RCMP back in the Yukon and was discharged in 1921. For a few years he pursued other interests, including running a chocolate shop in Calgary and doing some prospecting in the Yukon, before rejoining the

RCMP. In 1923, he was stationed at Chesterfield Inlet in the Eastern Arctic, where he spent two years. After this, his time in the south included a posting in Jasper, Alberta, where he met his

3 Canadian Expeditionary Force, “STALLWORTHY, HENRY WEBB (2684351),” RG 150, Accession 1992- 93/166, Box 9225 - 15, Library and Archives Canada, accessed February 25, 2018. 8

future wife, Hilda Austin. In 1930, he went hundreds of kilometres farther north than

Chesterfield Inlet, to Ellesmere Island, for two years, before he and Hilda were married in 1933.

In 1934, his record for exceptional Arctic service meant that Stallworthy was assigned by the

Canadian government to be the liaison for a group of scientists from Oxford University on their

expedition to Ellesmere Island. The head of the expedition was Edward Shackleton (son of the

famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton), who later wrote a glowing tribute in the RCMP

Quarterly after Stallworthy’s death. 4 After several years of southern postings and one more northerly one at Fort Smith, NWT, during the early years of WWII, Stallworthy retired in 1946, and he and Hilda moved to Vancouver Island, where they built and operated a thriving resort business, and traveled extensively during the off-season. During the 1950s, because of his experience working with Inuit, he was hired as a special consultant on the northern Cold War defense project, the DEW Line.5

In his foreword to Stallworthy’s biography, William R. Morrison acclaims him as “one of the most accomplished northern explorers in Canadian history,” who “played a vital role in one of the RCMP’s most important northern missions—the establishment of Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic.” 6 Tributes he received included induction as an Officer of the Order of Canada

when the Queen visited in 1973. Cape Stallworthy (on an island just off Ellesmere) was named

after him, and he was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He died in Comox, BC,

of heart disease, on December 25, 1976, at the age of 81. 7 After his death, his personal records

4 Edward Shackleton, “In Tribute: Sergeant Major Henry Webb Stallworthy,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly 42, no. 2 (Spring 1977): 4–5. 5 For a brief overview of the DEW Line, see: K. S. Coates and W. R. Morrison, “DEW Line,” in The Oxford Companion to Canadian History (Oxford University Press, 2004). 6 William R. Morrison, “Foreword,” in Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants: The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP , by William Barr (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2004), VII–X. 7 William Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants: The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2004), 322. Jack Fossum, “Henry Webb Stallworthy,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly 42, no. 2 (Spring 1977): 6–9. C.R. Harington, “H.W. Stallworthy (1895-1976),” ARCTIC 36, no. 3. 9

were donated to the Arctic Institute of North America collection at the University of Calgary

Archives and Special Collections. 8 A textual analysis of his letters, reports, speeches, drafts, and published articles produces a microhistory of the RCMP’s early twentieth-century effective occupation north of the treeline in the, which helped Canada establish sovereignty over the

Eastern Arctic. As a government agent, Stallworthy wrote formally for a government audience, casually and frankly in letters to family, and later quite dramatically about aspects of life in the

Arctic for a more general audience. The various reports, letters, and other manuscripts link the perceived civilizing role of the RCMP in the Arctic to a larger colonial discourse.

Despite the glamorous image of the RCMP officer wearing red serge while carrying out police duties, there was no formal uniform worn in the Arctic during Stallworthy’s day-to-day activities. Most of his clothing needed to be warmer than serge, and was made in the local style of furs and skins by Inuit seamstresses who were employed by the police for this duty. In

Chesterfield Inlet, the RCMP was one of three powerful organizations, alongside the Roman

Catholic mission and the Hudson’s Bay Company, in a crossroads on the north-west coast of

Hudson Bay where Canadian Inuit came to trade. On Ellesmere Island, the only people to police were occasional European explorers and Inughuit (northern Greenland Inuit) who had been hired by the police as guides. Surviving long patrols by dog sled, operating post offices, filing reports, keeping hunters from killing muskoxen, and searching for lost explorers were ways Mounties demonstrated the Canadian government’s authority over the Arctic.

A key text for considering Stallworthy and his work is Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants:

The Biography of Harry Stallworthy, RCMP written by William Barr. In the forward to the book, historian William Morrison writes that it “is not a political or administrative history. It is a

8 Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants , 2, 4, 11, XI. Hilda certainly played a key role in shaping his archive, as the collection includes her daytimers and notes from after Stallworthy’s death where she recorded her efforts to ensure that his work was remembered, and her distinctive handwriting can be found on documents throughout the fonds. 10 biography of a young man...a very interesting and likeable man,” and “also a revealing portrait of a marriage, and what it meant to be married to a man who was stationed in the Arctic for months and years at a time.” 9 Red Serge is a thorough biography of Stallworthy’s life, based largely on the University of Calgary archives and Barr’s interviews with people who knew Stallworthy.

Barr was also able to use the archives at the Scott Polar Research Institute in England, which gave this project access to details about the Oxford University Expedition that would have otherwise been beyond the scope of this thesis. Some of Barr’s research was added to the

Stallworthy fonds, giving future researchers access to copies Barr had made of documents from other archives, including Stallworthy’s RCMP service file. Overall, Barr presents a compelling and readable account of a Mountie who was very much a part of the history of Canadian Arctic sovereignty, although his name is not as well known as many other Arctic explorers. The main difference between Barr’s biography and this thesis is that Barr does not consider nor interrogate the variations between Stallworthy’s different versions of events, or Hilda’s influence in shaping those narratives. Barr draws from Stallworthy’s official reports, which were sometimes typed and even edited by Hilda, to build a biographical account. This project considers the differing versions of events and what those differences can demonstrate about the paper record of the

RCMP’s involvement in colonialism and Canadian sovereignty.

Three major episodes in Stallworthy’s Arctic career are the focus of this thesis, which

identifies the different ways he recorded the events, and how his narratives changed over time

and for different audiences. While Stallworthy did not publish an autobiography or memoir, as

many officers of the twentieth century did, he wrote to his brother regularly while stationed in

the Arctic. He also wrote magazine articles and official reports, keeping some draft versions, and

in his retirement began writing what may have eventually turned into a memoir. These

9 Morrison, “Foreword,” IX. 11 documents are available in the University of Calgary archives. The first chapter of this thesis analyzes Stallworthy’s first eastern Arctic posting, to Chesterfield Inlet (July 1923 to August

1925). Another European who lived there during the same time, Luta Munday, the wife of

Stallworthy’s supervisor, published a memoir of her time in the Arctic with her husband, and her observations are a valuable counterpoint to Stallworthy’s records.10 While he was there,

Stallworthy witnessed the tragic death of Maggie Clay, the wife of a colleague, an event that

seems to have haunted him for most of his life. The second chapter focuses on the patrols carried

out by Stallworthy when he was stationed at Chesterfield and on Ellesmere Island at Bache

Peninsula, and then at Craig Harbour. The RCMP patrol has been the celebrated subject of many

published works, and is also well represented in formal patrol reports in the RCMP archives in

Ottawa, allowing for depth of comparison and analysis. The final chapter examines the Oxford

University Expedition to Ellesmere Island (July 1934 to October 1935), led by Edward

Shackleton. It analyzes several accounts by different party members, including Stallworthy, to

discover how the expedition’s members framed their narratives to present a public image of a

harmonious expedition of discovery. However, Stallworthy’s RCMP reports clearly indicate it

was anything but. Stallworthy was assigned as the Canadian escort, giving advice on supplies,

liaising with the Inughuit guides, and policing the group’s hunting practices to preserve a

moratorium on muskox hunting. Not only did Stallworthy write extensively about his experience

on the expedition, two other members did as well. 11

This project compares texts created while the RCMP played a role in Eastern Arctic sovereignty, and demonstrates a need for scholarly microhistory and textual analysis of RCMP

10 Luta Munday, A Mounty’s Wife: Being the Life Story of One Attached to the Force, but Not of It (London: Sheldon, 1930). 11 David Haig-Thomas, Tracks in the Snow (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939). Edward Shackleton, Arctic Journeys: The Story of the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, 1934-5 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937). 12 records. There are many adventure story-like biographies of RCMP officers, but little modern scholarship that focuses on individual Mounties or their writing. There are several works that examine the big picture of sovereignty, or of the RCMP in the Arctic, but this leaves room for a close examination of the writings of the Mounties who served there, in order to consider their perspectives, motivations, and the impact they had on the Inuit they encountered – and the impact those people and experiences had on the Mounties.

Many texts on the Arctic, scholarly or not, mention the experiences of unnamed

Mounties, and a reader familiar with Stallworthy’s experiences can recognize him in some of

those accounts. For example, Canada's Eastern Arctic: Its History, Resources, Population and

Administration , a book published by the Department of the Interior in 1934, quotes Stallworthy’s

report on the search for the Krüger expedition, but does not mention him directly. 12 Ironically, in

Arctic Journeys , Edward Shackleton, who travelled in the Arctic with Stallworthy on the very

expedition the book is about, wrote about a nameless RCMP constable who had tried to save an

unnamed woman (actually Maggie Clay) who had been attacked by a pack of dogs, which was

perhaps the most famous incident of Stallworthy’s whole career. 13

The many different accounts explored in this thesis, written by Stallworthy and others,

will provide contrast and depth for an analysis of Stallworthy’s archival papers, and illuminate

the attitudes of one of the Mounties who carried out the government’s attempt at effective

occupation of the Canadian Arctic. A textual analysis of Stallworthy’s letters, reports, and later

manuscripts involves querying his choice of language between the different versions of the same

event, his intended audience and his relationship to them, and considering the web of duty,

family, education, and lived experiences that shaped his discourse. A further consideration is the

12 William Clark Bethune and Department of the Interior, Canada’s Eastern Arctic: Its History, Resources, Population and Administration (Ottawa: J.O. Patenaude, 1934), 39. 13 Shackleton, Arctic Journeys , 92. 13 vagaries of memory and how recollections of the past are formed and reframed for Stallworthy’s intended audiences, both in the letters written close to the time of the events and when he wrote manuscript versions many years later. It is apparent that supporting sovereignty was not an active concern of Stallworthy’s written record. The presence of effective occupation emerges from examining the fond as an archive of colonialism, and the papers in the fond demonstrate that for

Stallworthy the political implications of his presence in the Arctic were something he did not consider deeply, and he simply considered the RCMP to be an interesting and fulfilling career.

However, whatever his personal views on sovereignty, his official reports, by the very nature of them being Canadian governmental correspondence, re-enforce sovereignty simply by existing as a record of actions carried out in the Canadian government’s pursuit of Arctic control.

Stallworthy was stationed in the Arctic because, in the early 1920s, the Canadian government decided to establish an RCMP presence on Ellesmere Island. This step was taken largely due to lobbying efforts by controversial explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, who urged the

Canadian government to better secure its sovereignty over the Arctic, preferably by funding

Stefansson’s own exploration efforts. 14 In Acts of Occupation: Canadian and Arctic Sovereignty,

1918-25, by Janice Cavell and Jeffery Noakes, the authors weave a coherent narrative out of the

exchange of letters and telegrams that resulted in the establishment of an RCMP presence on

Ellesmere. While Stefansson was quite controversial because of his methods, he did bring

attention to the Arctic, and the fact that Inughuit were crossing the strait between Greenland

(which was a then a territory of Denmark) and Ellesmere Island to hunt “Canadian” muskoxen,

14 Stefansson and Stallworthy met in Toronto in 1943, and Stefansson subsequently lobbied the RCMP to give Stallworthy a long-overdue promotion. Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants, 297. 14 and that the de facto representative of the Danish government in the area believed that Ellesmere

Island was a “no man’s land”. 15

The Canadian government responded by establishing a RCMP post at Craig Harbour,

named after John Craig, the commander of this first RCMP expedition to Ellesmere, who “was

appointed a justice of the peace, coroner, police constable, game officer, and fisheries officer” in

order to fulfill all the roles needed to establish sovereignty. 16 Ironically, the Mounties hired

Inughuit as guides, since no one knew Ellesmere better. While Cavell and Noakes do not explicitly discuss the implications of this, it is evident that no one considered whether the

Inughuit might in fact already have established effective occupation over the Arctic Archipelago.

Given Craig’s attitude that the Arctic was a northern Canadian empire, 17 and his influence on

government policy due to several positions that gave him significant political influence, it seems

clear that he and those who supported his decisions about Arctic policy had ambitious, imperial

goals. The authors conclude that between the 1920s and 40s, Canadian Arctic sovereignty

became a part of popular culture, which helped support Canada’s effective occupation of the

Arctic Archipelago.18 Stallworthy and his colleagues were part of that effective occupation, however, as can be seen from his correspondence, his perspective was more about interesting work and surviving cold and hunger, and less about politics and sovereignty.

In order to exercise sovereignty on Ellesmere, the Canadian government worked to protect the muskoxen that Inughuit were hunting. In 1917, muskoxen had been protected under the Northwest Game Act ; they were not to be hunted except by Indigenous people in extreme need. But passing the law was only a meaningless gesture unless it could be enforced, thus the

15 Janice Cavell and Jeffrey David Noakes, Acts of Occupation: Canada and Arctic Sovereignty, 1918-25 (Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, 2010), 44. 16 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation , 164. 17 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation , 183. 18 Cavell and Noakes, Acts of Occupation , 242. 15 need for a police presence, which would demonstrate Canada’s power over animal resources, protecting muskoxen from extinction and Canadian territory from foreign incursions. 19 The

influence of the police on the lives of Inughuit was profound. Attitudes, trade goods, and

diseases were among the things brought by the RCMP and other explorers, and in return, the

Inughuit employees helped them survive, particularly on their long patrols, as they attempted to

complete the survey of the high Arctic. 20 In Muskox Land: Ellesmere Island in the Age of

Contact , Lyle Dick argues that the very nature of historical study means that scholars

are always dealing with fragments of evidence that may afford a glimpse into the past but cannot tell the full story. As well, the surviving evidence is coloured by the cultural or individual experience and presuppositions of the witnesses and then filtered again through the historian's perspectives...By giving due consideration to a range of voices, as well as the complexity of factors bearing on historical process, it may be possible to achieve a balanced and comprehensive account...to counterbalance the monolithic verities in exploration literature. 21

Dick’s caution regarding the colouring of evidence is particularly relevant to a textual analysis.

Having different versions of the same events as written by the same person at different periods in

his life provides a rich historical record, ripe for analysis, and adds to the contours of the history

of the Arctic and the RCMP. Much has been written about the RCMP and their role in

Canada/Canadian history, however, few texts have been written specifically about their role in

the Arctic, and none based on textual analysis of autobiography or memoir of the Mounties

themselves.

Important context on the RCMP and their role in Arctic sovereignty can be found in

Shelagh D. Grant’s Polar Imperative , inspired by her visit to the former detachment at Dundas

Harbour on Devon Island, and her subsequent questions about the efforts to establish effective occupation and demonstrate sovereignty. Originally, the British Admiralty had staked a

19 Dick, Muskox Land , 273, 276. 20 Dick, Muskox Land , 323. 21 Dick, Muskox Land, 481-482. 16 discovery claim to the Arctic islands; however, in 1880, Britain transferred them to Canada, which “represented a new way of acquiring sovereign authority other than discovery, war or subjugation.” Grant writes that in the late nineteenth century, “new discoveries were now a matter of national honour and prestige, initially for Britain and later for the United States,” 22 and

these changing attitudes were the root of the Canadian version of effective occupation. The idea

of effective occupation as a legal practice, which could be carried out “through acts by

government such as the provision of basic services, administrative structures for governance and

enforcement of a nation’s laws,” dates back to 1905.23 Grant also argues that Canada’s successful sovereignty claim had as much to do with other countries’ reluctance to pursue their own claims as it did with Canada’s effective occupation. In 1884, Britain’s willingness to assist in the rescue of the starving Greely party, an American scientific expedition, from Ellesmere Island, demonstrated “Britain had accepted the responsibility on behalf of Canada for an expedition stranded in a territory now owned by the new Dominion,” and that the disastrous loss of life for the Greely party discouraged any potential US claims. 24 While the US “refused to acknowledge

Canadian title...it is significant that it made no attempt to challenge the claim in the international

courts,” and without official resistance from any other countries, the Canadian government

amended the Northwest Territories Act in 1925, including a requirement that non-Canadian

explorers apply for a research permit. When the government created the Arctic Islands Game

Preserve in 1926, it further signalled Canadian administrative authority over the area. 25

A landmark event in the history of southern justice being applied to the North is

discussed in two key texts: Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923 , by

22 Shelagh D. Grant, Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America (Vancouver; Berkeley: Douglas & McIntyre, 2010), 95. 23 Grant, Polar Imperative , 12. 24 Grant, Polar Imperative , 171. 25 Grant, Polar Imperative , 235-6. 17

Shelagh Grant, 26 and Thou Shalt Do No Murder: Inuit, Injustice, and the Canadian Arctic , by

Kenn Harper. 27 Both books analyze the first murder trial of Inuit, who were accused of killing

Robert Janes, a trader. Government polices made no account for Inuit cultural practices or worldview, and the Canadian government had no official Inuit policy until after WWII, as they were not part of the Indian Act , so unlike other Aboriginal groups in Canada, “they were technically full-fledged Canadian citizens without any privileges,” such as the right to vote. 28

The event was the RCMP’s first major law enforcement action in the Arctic, and the

consequences of the trial and the surrounding events affected RCMP/Inuit relations for decades

to come. In 1905, the Northwest Territories Act was amended, and Lieutenant Colonel Frederick

White of the RCMP was appointed commissioner of the Northwest Territories. Because he was

also comptroller of the NWMP, “reports from the commissioner to the government were

funnelled through the comptroller’s office in Ottawa, inadvertently giving White more visibility

and influence than he otherwise deserved...the dual appointments created an impression that the

Arctic was run as a police state.” 29 The impression of the Arctic as “a police state” was not an inaccurate one, as the Mounties were there on behalf of the government, and one man was in charge of both the police and the government of the Northwest Territories. Although this arrangement would now be seen as a conflict of interest, it confirms historian William R.

Morrison’s claim in Showing the Flag that the RCMP had a high level of influence over Arctic

policy. 30

26 Shelagh D. Grant, Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002). 27 Kenn Harper, Thou Shalt Do No Murder: Inuit, Injustice, and the Canadian Arctic , 2017. 28 Grant, Arctic Justice , 16. 29 Grant, Arctic Justice , 29-30. 30 William R. Morrison, Showing the Flag: The Mounted Police and Canadian Sovereignty in the North, 1894-1925 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985), xix. 18

Government policies also did not take into account the true attitudes of Inuit toward the southerners. During the early contact period, before the Arctic police presence, relations between the Inuit and the whalers or traders were mostly non-confrontational; however, this was likely due to the fact that if a qallunaaq (a non-Inuit person of European descent), was angry or aggressive, the need to appease him and defuse the situation resulted in excessive deference, which “was likely responsible for the image of the Inuit as ‘a friendly, peaceful race.’ Most Inuit relationships with outsiders were influenced by a response known as ilira , which resulted in a show of deference or subservience when faced with frightening or intimidating individuals.” 31

Rosemarie Kuptana, then the President of the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (now called Inuit Tapiriit

Kanatami), wrote that

the Qallunaat developed a particular approach to Inuit. They took their authority for granted and presented a greater air of superiority since the Inuit were obviously so appreciative, eager to please and becoming increasingly dependent. The prejudices and ideologies of the day asserted that the Inuit were indeed inferior, and that the Qallunaat knew what was best for the Inuit. The Inuit concept of ilira, or fear and awe of Qallunaat, described the relationship from the Inuit perspective. Given these historical circumstances and this relationship of subservience and dominance, it was impossible for real consultation to take place. 32

This situation led to systemic miscommunication, and, ultimately, a “fear of the police was passed down to [Inuit] children and grandchildren.” Then, when Inuit/trader violence seemed to have been eradicated, “southern officials assumed that the trial [of Nuqallaq, Ululijarnaat, and

Aatitaaq for the Janes murder] had achieved its objectives and that the Inuit now ‘respected’

Canadian law. In reality, it was not respect for the law that had ended the violence, but fear of the law.” 33 Or perhaps more accurately fear of the enforcers of the law, rather than any kind of fear

31 Grant, Arctic Justice , 16-17. For more on the concept of ilira, see Kenn Harper, Thou Shalt Do No Murder: Inuit, Injustice, and the Canadian Arctic , 2017, 300-302. . 32 Rosemarie Kuptana, “Ilira, or Why It Was Unthinkable for Inuit to Challenge Qallunaat Authority,” Inuit Art Quarterly 8, no. 3 (Fall 1993): 5–7. 33 Grant, Arctic Justice , 238. 19 coming from understanding southern law and the consequences of breaking it. It does not appear that many Mounties, including Stallworthy, were aware of this cultural trait of conflict avoidance as it applied to contact with non-Inuit, and as such, any of their accounts of apparently submissive Inuit should be analyzed with this in mind.

Most early works on the RCMP were uncritical, and the first historian to write a scholarly text focused on the RCMP’s Arctic history was William R. Morrison, who published Showing the Flag in 1985. He wrote an analysis “of how, why, where, and to what extent the Mounted

Police contributed to the history and development of Canada’s northern frontier,”34 in response to the glut of “narrative histories” that were available. Such early narratives “left major questions of national and northern concern unanswered,” and scholarly interpretations of the RCMP’s northern service were almost non-existent. 35 Morrison credits the influence of the RCMP reports

as having “shaped the history of the north,” especially regarding the regulations that were created

to govern muskoxen hunting, 36 and while the RCMP obviously had an effect on Inuit they encountered, Morrison argues that Inuit “made a deep impression on the police as well.” Most southerners who spent time in the north “respected the Inuit” for being “self-reliant,” in stark contrast to how the police, and most southerners, perceived “Indians.” 37

Stallworthy’s Arctic service began in 1923, and Morrison claims that 1925 “was the approximate date when they had demonstrated Canadian sovereignty over the entire inhabited north and much of the uninhabited territory as well.” 38 The RCMP had succeeded in bringing the

Arctic “into the orbit of government control,” which he called a “mixed blessing.” 39 Morrison

34 Morrison, Showing the Flag , xv. 35 Morrison, Showing the Flag , xiii. 36 Morrison, Showing the Flag , xiv. 37 Morrison, Showing the Flag , xv. 38 Morrison, Showing the Flag , xv. 39 Morrison, Showing the Flag, xviii. 20 elaborates on the two different types of sovereignty that were at work in the Arctic: symbolic and developmental. Symbolic sovereignty was to show that the Canadian state was active in the north, demonstrated, for example, through postal service, “an internationally accepted proof of sovereignty”, even though the post office on Ellesmere Island was “entirely symbolic.”

Developmental sovereignty was based on specific policies designed to bring a territory under government control, such as the creation and enforcement of laws. Morrison claims that this made the RCMP into agents of colonialism, as it was “an agent of external control” rather than

“a domestic police force” 40 and he makes a strong case for the RCMP having had enormous influence on the development of northern policy, and its implementation. This process was successful from a government perspective largely because the Mounties relied on Inuit expertise for their survival and did not insist on doing things only in the European way, as some explorers had tried and failed before. 41 He paints them as well-intentioned agents of colonialism who nonetheless brought disease and significant societal change to the people they encountered.

Morrison only touches on the popular image of the Mountie, perhaps to avoid any association with the narrative histories that were full of such tropes, or perhaps because this topic was explored quite fully in Visions of Order , published in 1982. It is arguably the most important source on the myth of the Mountie, at least until The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney was published in 1998. In Visions of Order , Keith Walden argued that “the modern era” was “an age

of anxiety,” which created a “yearning” for a “universal standard of truth and morality.” 42 He observed that modernity equalled increasing social fragmentation, and that in reaction to the uncertainties that these changes caused, people looked for a clear-cut hero, and that “the Mountie

40 Morrison, Showing the Flag , 1-2. 41 Morrison, Showing the Flag, 141. 42 Keith Walden, Visions of Order (Toronto: Butterworths, 1982), 19. 21 became a convenient peg on which to hang a whole cluster of attributes.” 43 People wanted to see

the characteristics they assigned to the RCMP, whether they actually existed or not, and eagerly

consumed “the uncritical, repetitive, and shallow narratives that, until recently, characterized

police history.” 44 These narratives demonstrated order and progress, and painted the Mountie as

a hero that inspired a fragmented society. Michael Dawson took analysis of the myth further in

The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney , as he used Disney’s purchase of the licensing rights to

the Mountie image as inspiration to dissect historical views of the RCMP. He argued that

unifying myths are an important aspect of nation building, and that English Canadians needed a

narrative in resistance to Quebecois nationalism and American influences. 45 Particularly through

their Arctic service, the myth of the RCMP contributed to nation building by being less divisive

than developments in western Canada had been, as “French-Canadians did not see in northern

development an English-Canadian ‘plot’ to keep the spoils for themselves.” 46 The “square-jawed

Victorian gentlemen” 47 gave the developing Canadian national identity something to rally around; a classic good versus evil myth that clearly resonated with many consumers of popular culture. This gave rise to an increase in merchandise using the image of the Mountie, an image that the RCMP officials hoped Disney would help protect. However, neither of these texts examine the Mounties’ own accounts to see if they self-identified as heroic gentleman in a

Victorian tradition of masculinity, leaving a gap for this work to be done through a textual analysis of autobiographical writing. While some Mountie narratives clearly do subscribe to this idea of the red serge hero, Stallworthy does not seem to have identified himself that way.

43 Walden, Visions of Order , 27. 44 Walden, Visions of Order , 94. 45 Michael Dawson, The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney (Toronto: Between The Lines, 1998), 23, 25. 46 Dawson, The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney , 126. 47 Dawson, The Mountie from Dime Novel to Disney , 53. 22

In her article “Arctic Wilderness,” Shelagh Grant argues that “Identity myths are particularly invincible owing to their ability to arouse strong emotions of pride and veneration.” 48

With the attempt to bring sovereignty to the Arctic, “an arctic dimension was added to the nationalist rhetoric linking the wilderness ethos to Canada's unique identity as a northern nation.” 49 Thus, the myth of the noble Mountie identity and the nationalist rhetoric about Arctic wilderness became inextricably linked to Canadian perspectives on the north and its place in

Canada. This nationalist rhetoric reflects on the implications of the RCMP’s presence in the

Arctic as a colonial agent, which, Grant argued, must be considered by asking whether or not the

Arctic is truly postcolonial even now. In his essay “Indigenous Knowledge and the History of

Science, Race, and Colonial Authority in Northern Canada,” Stephen Bocking points out that during “much of the twentieth century, concerns regarding sovereignty combined with an appetite for northern resources to impel Canadians’ interest in ‘their’ North. This interest has been exemplified by persistent efforts to enlist the True North in representations of national identity – and thus to assert that ownership of this northern space extends beyond those who live within it.” Accordingly, certain northern narratives became linked to powerful institutions and were incorporated into how Canada understood itself, and consequently, Bocking argues,

“conservation became a chief tool of colonialism, justifying control over Aboriginal hunting,” 50 creating long-term consequences for the Indigenous hunters.

One of the RCMP’s biggest responsibilities in the north was to enforce the Canadian government’s game laws. In their book Kiumajut (Talking Back): Game Management and Inuit

48 Shelagh D. Grant, “Arctic Wilderness - And Other Mythologies,” Journal of Canadian Studies 33, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 27–42, 29. 49 Grant, 31. 50 Stephen Bocking, “Indigenous Knowledge and the History of Science, Race, and Colonial Authority in Northern Canada,” in Rethinking the Great White North: Race, Nature, and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada , ed. Audrey Lynn Kobayashi, Laura Cameron, and Andrew Baldwin (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2011), 39–61, 44. 23

Rights, 1900-70 , Peter Keith Kulchyski and Frank J. Tester write that “It is important at the outset to clarify the perspective used in making the claim that racist and ethnocentric assumptions drove much of the science of game management and the development of state policy.” They believe that there is an important distinction between “racism” and

“ethnocentrism,” as “the first term refers to a set of relations of domination organized around perceived skin colour or racial difference and effectively theorized by Frantz Fanon (1966); the latter term refers to a set of relations of domination organized around cultural difference and may include refusals to recognize the difference itself.” They firmly “reject the idea that racism and ethnocentrism can be muted by reference to a particular historical moment, as in ‘well, that’s just the way folks talked back then.’” They argue that “Although discourse we can now identify as racist may have been common – in fact institutionalized and hence normalized by the state and related social institutions – this does not counter the claim that certain acts of speech and constructed images are racist.” 51 Thus, they believe that discourse can reflect a historical reality

and still be racist. A similar definition of ethnocentrism is “the tendency to judge foreign

peoples, groups, and other cultures by one's own cultural standards, thereby implying their

inferiority.” 52

Ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism are very closely linked, as Eurocentrism is the ethnocentrism of someone from Europe, and in the case of British-born Mounties, specifically

English Eurocentrism. Eurocentrism is a “focus on European culture, history, and politics at the expense of the rest of the world, usually in the belief that Europe is innately superior and that its development has not relied upon exchanges and influences from outside. Further, the values of

51 Peter Keith Kulchyski and Frank J. Tester, Kiumajut (Talking Back): Game Management and Inuit Rights, 1900- 70 (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 18. 52 Stephen Greymorning, “In the Absence of Justice: Aboriginal Case Law and the Ethnocentrism of the Courts,” The Canadian Journal of Native Studies XVII, no. 1 (1997): 1–31. 24

European societies and intellectual thought are regarded as universal.” 53 This is modeled in the

Canadian justice system “when Anglo-European cultures came in contact with Aboriginal cultures, [and] Anglo-European laws appeared to mold justice to suit the attitude, behaviour and needs of Anglo culture.” 54 This was not just to suit “Anglo-European culture,” but to establish

sovereignty over the geographic area formerly managed by the Aboriginal inhabitants who had

their own cultural norms and forms of justice.

The Mounties who wrote about the Arctic drew a definite line between the remote and

the civilized, wishing to return to civilization, where they would share their stories about the

strange customs of the inhabitants on the physical margins of Canada. In “Notes on the

Postcolonial Arctic,” Graham Huggan provides a framework for writing about colonization in

the Canadian Arctic, important when considering the writings of Mounties who were

establishing sovereignty. Even in the modern era, the Arctic is often still seen as “marginal,

colonial, and indigenous.” However, these labels reinforce the idea that the Canadian

government is responsible for sovereignty and security in the Arctic, and therefore “’taking

advantage’ of the Arctic has thus become fully embedded within contemporary neoliberal

government policy in Canada.” Viewing and interacting with the Arctic as just “indigenous”

further marginalizes the inhabitants and also appropriates them “as key national symbols,” which

curbs their “cultural and political autonomy,” and does not allow the inhabitants of the Arctic to

interact with the world on their own terms. Calling the Arctic “marginal or colonial in effect

53 Noel Castree, Rob Kitchin, and Alisdair Rogers, “Eurocentrism,” in A Dictionary of Human Geography (Oxford University Press, 2013). 54 Greymorning, “In the Absence of Justice: Aboriginal Case Law and the Ethnocentrism of the Courts.” 25 instantiates the very marginalization and colonialism it invokes.” 55 Thus the records of the

Mounties leave a paper trail of the colonialism they helped extend in the Arctic.

In “A Beginner’s Guide to Textual Analysis,” media studies scholar Alan McKee

examines the methodology of textual analysis, giving it a description beyond the “intuitive”

method used in literature studies, even though the results of the method remain “an educated

guess.” Textual analysis relies on the theory that “there is no such thing as a single, ‘correct’

interpretation of any text,” but rather that there are many different possibilities, “some of which

will be more likely than others.” Ultimately, textual analysis examines how “we make and share

sense about the world,” in particular, about the writer of the text under examination. A text can

be interpreted in a variety of different ways when compared to other texts, and while McKee

does not explicitly spell out the consequences of that statement, an example is that when studied

alongside modern texts about sovereignty issues, Stallworthy’s texts would be interpreted

differently than if they were to be studied alongside fictional adventure narratives written in the

mid-twentieth century, an area with research potential for other scholars. 56

In “Textual Analysis” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods ,

Jennifer Morey Hawkins describes it as “a methodology that involves understanding language,

symbols, and/or pictures present in texts to gain information regarding how people make sense of

and communicate life and life experiences.” The key to understanding this information is

understanding “the broader social structures that influence the messages present in the text under

investigation,” and is a poststructuralist methodology that recognizes that multiple interpretations

of a text can exist and be “valued when it comes to determining what texts tell us about cultural

55 Graham Huggan, “Notes on the Postcolonial Arctic,” in The Future of Postcolonial Studies , ed. Chantal Zabus, Routledge Research in Postcolonial Literatures (New York: Routledge, 2015), 130–43, 134. 56 Alan McKee, “A Beginner’s Guide to Textual Analysis,” Metro: Media & Education Magazine; St Kilda , Autumn 2001. 26 phenomena occurring within the sociopolitical, and historical time the text was created.” Not only does the writer of the text need to be considered, the reader’s own experiences and influence on the text must be considered. Further, the reader should “look for both clues that are present and items that are missing,” important when considering a fragmented fond. As well, consider “(a) the analyst’s worldview, (b) cultural, historical, political, and social understanding of the environment within which the text was made, and (c) attempting to understand what the author or creator of the text intended at the time the text was written/created.” It is also important to remember that “what the creator intended may not be what the receiver receives,”57 a caution that is particularly relevant when considering colonial narratives.

Norman Fairclough’s book Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research brings up the important aspect of considering ideology when analyzing a text. He defines ideology as “representations of aspects of the world which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of power, domination and exploitation,” and argues that it is important to make “reference to relations of power and domination between” social groups.58 This is an important consideration when studying the relationship between the

RCMP and the people indigenous to the area being claimed as sovereign Canadian territory.

Fairclough states that are three things to consider when analyzing the meaning of a text: “the

production of the text, the text itself, and the reception of the text.” Meaning can be found not

just in the words on the paper, but also in the assumed knowledge of the reader. Interpretation “is

also partly a matter of judgement and evaluation: for instance, judging whether someone is

saying something sincerely or not, or seriously or not; judging whether the claims that are

explicitly or implicitly made are true; judging whether people are speaking or writing in ways

57 Jennifer Morey Hawkins, “Textual Analysis,” in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods , ed. Mike Allen (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc, 2017). 58 Norman Fairclough, Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research (London: Routledge, 2003), 9. 27 which accord with the social, institutional etc. relations within which the event takes place, or perhaps in ways which mystify those relations.” 59 Written works often refer to other texts, a process called “intertextuality,” which is “how texts draw upon, incorporate, recontextualize and dialogue with other texts,” 60 and as Stallworthy was not writing in a vacuum, his writing was

influenced by the writing of people around him, including newspaper reporters, other Mounties,

and explorers.

A textual analysis of Stallworthy’s Eastern Arctic career offers an opportunity to study

sovereignty and colonialism in the case of an individual, and, by reducing the historical analysis

to different forms of writing by a single person in a single archival fond, this project can be

framed as a microhistory. In their essay “Microhistory and the Recovery of Complexity,”

Giovanni Levi discusses the development of microhistory, defined as the history of a moment, a

situation, or a person that demonstrates a historical context on a small scale. 61 Microhistory is also “asking how every or any man makes sense of his circumstances.” 62 Generalizations must be carefully made: consequences should not be generalized, but the questions that rise from the consequences can be general, as they “contextualize the interpretation of events that none the less preserve their specificity.” However, “microhistory does not, none the less, aim to set up small scale events or individual histories in opposition to Grand Narratives, abandoning the search for general truths.” 63 The authors make a case for microhistory being non-linear, following themes rather than chronology, unlike macrohistory, which tries to present a chronological big picture, especially in biographical writing. To the authors, “uncertainty,

59 Fairclough, Analysing Discourse , 10-11. 60 Fairclough, Analysing Discourse , 17. 61 Giovanni Levi, “Microhistory and the Recovery of Complexity,” in Historical Knowledge: In Quest of Theory, Method and Evidence , ed. Susanna Fellman and Marjatta Rahikainen (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 121–32, 125. 62 Levi, “Microhistory and the Recovery of Complexity,” 127. 63 Levi, “Microhistory and the Recovery of Complexity,” 128. 28 inconsistency, non-linearity” are important components of microhistory, tactics used to alter the reader’s “perception of reality,” because reality is inconsistent, and historical knowledge only partial. 64 Although this project does follow a chronological series of events Stallworthy experienced, it is a selective analysis of particular episodes separated by different spans of time.

It also does not follow a traditional historical biographical account, which would not usually skim over large portions of the subject’s life. This thesis instead examines particular moments and events that punctuated Stallworthy’s time as a Mountie.

In her discussion on analyzing letters in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of

Texts From Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century History , Miriam Dobson advises questioning

how the intended readership shaped the text, and how or why particular letters have been

preserved. 65 She advises that “letter-writing is seen to be part of an individual’s attempt to establish the meaning of their life (rather than just reflect or communicate existing truths). A clear example of this kind of construction can be found in cases where an individual devotes significant energy to preserving, and perhaps doctoring, their collection of personal correspondence.” 66 Her observation certainly is relevant to the work the Stallworthys did to

preserve his records and memories later in his life, as Stallworthy and his wife, Hilda, were both

clear about their intent to preserve his stories for posterity. Even the fact that he wrote and saved

that writing demonstrates his level of literacy, as does the fact that he was “able to narrate and

order [his] experiences.” 67 Stallworthy had a specific reader in mind when writing his letters to

his brother and mother, which “encourages us to think about texts in terms of dialogue, and to

remember that the act of writing can never be a fully solitary act, for the writer is always

64 Levi, “Microhistory and the Recovery of Complexity,” 129. 65 Miriam Dobson, “Letters,” in Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts From Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century History , ed. Benjamin Ziemann (London ; New York: Routledge, 2009), 57–73, 57. 66 Dobson, “Letters,” 60. 67 Dobson, “Letters,” 61. 29 responding to previous interactions and earlier exchanges...moreover, the letter-writer is aware of what society expects from a letter both in terms of the form and the content...they do not offer a transparent window into the mindset of the author, but they do allow the careful historian to examine the complex web of relationships between individual, family, and society that shapes a person’s sense of self and their understanding of the world they inhabit.” 68

In his classic book, A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis , Robert Berkhofer provides methodological tools for analyzing historical texts, arguing that historians should consider how the historical actor demonstrates his internal feelings and his external responses, as is clearly demonstrated though Stallworthy’s differing accounts of the same events. 69 Of

particular relevance here is Berkhofer’s observation that “A diary can reveal social rules, ideals,

personality quirks, social groupings, governmental organization, family life, and many other

things about a man and his times,” 70 and while Stallworthy’s fonds do not contain a diary nor is

there any evidence he wrote one, his letters to his brother certainly function in a similar way.

Berkhofer also provides a list of steps to guide historical analysis, the first of which is to

“study...the actor’s situation, his interpretation of the situation, and his actions in the

situation...the historian must separate what the interpretation of the situation was and what the

behavior was from the situation as such.” The second task is to analyze “the observer’s view of

the actor, his action, and his situation. The linkage between the observer and the actor is

achieved through a comparison of the consequences of the actor’s behavior as seen by the actor

or actors and by the analyst.” 71 It is also important to trace the consequences of the actor’s

actions, and to discover what the actor and his contemporaries thought about them, and whether

68 Dobson, “Letters,” 69. 69 Robert F. Berkhofer, A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis (New York: The Free Press, 1969), 8. 70 Berkhofer, A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis , 13. 71 Berkhofer, A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis , 67. 30 or not the consequences were as they had anticipated or not. 72 This is particularly evident from

the documents pertaining to the Oxford University Expedition and the discussion of its relevance

by the people who participated in it.

A study of Stallworthy’s fonds is also a study of how events being described can change

as they move into even the recently remembered past, as Stallworthy’s descriptions of events

changed with the passage of time. In her anthology introduction, “Working with Memory as

Source and Subject,” Joan Tumblety explains that historians look for evidence of what is

remembered, but also about “how and why the past is remembered in one way and not another,”

which requires the study of multiple types of sources in order to understand what is remembered

and why. 73 The narratives of historical actors recalling earlier life events demonstrate “the interplay between past experience and present recollection,” and memory “is filtered as much as constructed...it leaves things out, whether as a result of the kind of trauma that makes it harder for men and women to reconcile their past experience with a continuous sense of self, or because what is remembered is framed – perhaps in unconscious ways – by social and political needs in the present.” 74 Tumblety discovered that scholars from many disciplines agree that “individual memory does not function like an archive of lived experiences deposited somewhere in the brain, but is rather constructed anew at each moment of recall...we do not have memory as much as remembrances, or even performances of remembering, where what is remembered is shaped fundamentally both by the meaning of the initial experience to the individual in question, and by the psychological – and inextricably social – circumstances of recall.” 75 She advises scholars to

72 Berkhofer, A Behavioral Approach to Historical Analysis , 73. 73 Joan Tumblety, “Introduction: Working with Memory as Source and Subject,” in Memory and History: Understanding Memory as Source and Subject , Routledge Guides to Using Historical Sources (London: Routledge, 2013), 1–16, 2. 74 Tumblety, “Introduction: Working with Memory as Source and Subject,” 4. 75 Tumblety, “Introduction: Working with Memory as Source and Subject,” 7. 31 examine memory through the lens of agency, and that it is important to question what might have been left out of the memory, and how it was received by its audience. She also asks “What kind of memory work – and for whom – is enacted through this process of creating, sharing and maybe revising this source material?” 76 Records produced close to the event will be more

reliable than those written later in life, when memory is more faded, and comparing

Stallworthy’s recent memories with his later ones will illuminate why he made certain changes,

especially if he had access to his earlier records when he wrote his later texts. The role that his

wife, Hilda, played in shaping his memories will also be considered.

In Memory in Culture , Astrid Erll argues that “memories are not objective images of past

perceptions, even less of a past reality. They are subjective, highly selective reconstructions,

dependant on the situation in which they are recalled. Re-membering is an act of assembling

available data that takes place in the present. Versions of the past change with every recall.” 77

Historians need to be aware that “they transform the chronicle of events into a meaningful story by means of narrative structuring and rhetorical devices; and in doing so inevitably interpret it. In short, just like remembering, all history writing is a constructive narrative process, deeply imbued with – often unacknowledged – patterns of culture and ideology.” 78 When examining

historical writing, it is important to remember that any media being examined offers only a

construction of the historical event; texts are not “neutral carriers of information about the past.

What they appear to encode – versions of past events and persons, cultural values and norms,

concepts of collective identity – they are in fact creating.” 79 Autobiography is “the most

narrative,” as writers “retrospectively select some experiences, and turn them – through the use

76 Tumblety, “Introduction: Working with Memory as Source and Subject,” 14. 77 Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture , Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 8. 78 Erll, Memory in Culture , 39. 79 Erll, Memory in Culture , 114. 32 of narrative structures – into coherent, meaningful life stories,”80 as will be demonstrated by

Stallworthy’s later writing.

This thesis applies these considerations of textual analysis to the documents left by Harry

Stallworthy. By being part of the Canadian government’s attempts to police the Arctic and thereby establish effective occupation of it, Stallworthy was part of a larger picture of sovereignty and colonialism, even if he did not see his own work in that light. Most of his texts focus on the details of police work, and he did not seem to be overly concerned by the implications of Arctic administration and law enforcement that confirmed Canadian authority and enforced the myth of the Mountie that was prevalent in southern Canada. During

Stallworthy’s first assignment to the Eastern Arctic, at Chesterfield Inlet, he was witness to a traumatizing event: the death of Maggie Clay, a Mountie’s wife, after she was attacked by sled dogs. Analyzing the texts he produced about it, and the resulting ways the event was re- interpreted by other writers, which ascribed meaning to her life and death, will demonstrate how discourse about the incident ultimately helped support the RCMP’s mandate to uphold Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic.

80 Erll, Memory in Culture , 147. 33

Chapter 1: RCMP Wives at Chesterfield Inlet, 1923 to 1924

In the Stallworthy fonds are three pages from a letter written by Stallworthy to an unknown recipient. The letter is undated, but, from the context, it was clearly in 1923, and is handwritten on letterhead from the Chocolate Shop in Calgary, which Stallworthy co-owned in the early- and mid-1920s. He wrote, “it is an Eskimo camp, but there are three police there now and they want one more, and they say the police there are old timers and very good fellows, the sergeant’s wife lives there too...they say that Chesterfield Inlet is very much like Dawson only there are more Eskimos and no mining...and if nothing better turns up I guess I’ll go to

Chesterfield Inlet about July 5 th .” 1 Stallworthy had originally joined the RCMP in 1914 and

served until 1921, when his contracted term ended. In 1923, he rejoined the force in hopes of

being sent to police what was an expected gold rush in Labrador, citing his experience in the

Yukon; however, the gold rush did not happen. With no other northern posting available,

Stallworthy applied to go to Chesterfield Inlet, on Hudson Bay, and arrived there onboard the

famous Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) ship Nascopie on August 1 or 2, 1923. Mrs. Luta

Munday (married to commanding officer Walter Munday) and Mrs. Maggie Clay (married to

commanding officer Sidney Clay) also lived at Chesterfield during Stallworthy’s time there.

In 1924, Stallworthy witnessed the tragic death of Maggie Clay, an event that his

biographer says “to some degree affected the rest of his life”. 2 C.R. Harington wrote in his profile on Stallworthy that the tragedy “left a permanent mark on his nature,” but that he “proved his coolness in adversity and showed great inner strength.” 3 Primary source accounts of this incident include Stallworthy’s letter to his brother a few months after the incident, a revised

1 Harry Stallworthy to unknown recipient, N.D., Box 1, Folder 2, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 2 Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants , 68. 3 Harington, “H.W. Stallworthy (1895-1976).” 34 manuscript version fifty years later, and the official detachment diary, kept by Corporal Oliver

Petty. 4 While Mrs. Clay does not seem to have left any personal records of her time in the Arctic, the wife of Sergeant Clay’s predecessor, Luta Munday, published a memoir that provides points of comparison with Stallworthy’s records, and between the two of them, they paint an illuminating picture of the life of a Mountie’s wife at an Arctic post. 5 These eyewitness accounts can be contrasted with later third-party accounts for a discussion of how the death of Maggie

Clay became northern RCMP folklore, and how her gender played a role in that narrative. The language used by most of those who remembered her tragic fate, Stallworthy included, suggests that the event was profoundly unsettling because of her femininity; however, accounts of her death, verbal and written, were also used to reinforce the RCMP’s right to exercise sovereignty over the Arctic and the people who were indigenous to the area.

RCMP wives played a significant yet often overlooked role in the force and in northern sovereignty. Despite having no official role, they eventually drew attention to and general acclaim for their support of their husbands’ policing. In detachments staffed by a lone officer, his wife would, depending on the era and location, do everything from cooking and cleaning to restraining prisoners to answering the detachment’s phone. Their service was unofficial, yet expected of them, and Mrs. Munday called herself “one attached to the Force, but not of it.” She wrote that “there have been many histories, many romances, and many tales written and woven about the members of that famous body of men...but no mention has been made of the helpmates

4 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 27 January 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. Library and Archives Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police fonds, R196-0-7-E, “G Division” series, volume 3017, subseries “Daily diaries from northern detachments”, file “Daily Diary G Division 1924”. The ledger is not signed, however, the tidy writing is clearly not Stallworthy’s messy scrawl, and as Petty was the only other Mountie there at the time, he must have been the keeper of the record book. 5 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife . 35 of these men, and this is my excuse for telling of my life for over twenty years as the wife of one of these members.” 6 As a policeman’s wife, Mrs. Clay’s death deeply affected the policing community, and an examination of the memoirs published by other wives who lived at northern detachments clearly illustrates their ties to their husbands’ vocation, demonstrating the close connections of the northern policing culture, even across decades. 7

Contact between Inuit of the Chesterfield area and Europeans first occurred in 1668, but

became regular in 1860, with the arrival of the whaling industry. The inlet was explored in the

1760s as a potential northwest passage, and the whaling era that followed employed local Inuit,

mostly as hunters. The whalers would winter in the Arctic, and hire local people as guides and

hunters, causing a significant shift in what tools were available as Inuit obtained metal items,

weapons, and other goods in trade. The whaling industry died out around the turn of the

twentieth century and was replaced by a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in Chesterfield

Inlet in 1911. In 1903, the RCMP established a detachment at Cape Fullerton, but it was

eventually moved to Chesterfield. The Fullerton RCMP post patrolled the Chesterfield area, and

after the HBC established a post at Chesterfield in 1911, the RCMP post was moved to

Chesterfield shortly after. 8 In September 1912, Father Arsène Turquetil founded the Roman

Catholic Mission in Chesterfield Inlet. 9

6 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, vii. 7For other RCMP wives’ memoirs see: Joy Duncan, Red Serge Wives (Edmonton: Lone Pine Publishing, 1985).Nora Hickson Kelly, My Mountie and Me: A True Story (Regina: Centax, 1999).Ruth Lee-Knight, When the Second Man Was a Woman: Tales of Twenty-One RCMP Detachment Wives from the 1940’s to the 1970’s and Including Historical Background of Many Detachment Locations , ed. Heather Anne Punshon (Saskatoon, SK: Imagine Publishing, 2004).Betty Reid, Bitten by the “Arctic Bug”: Reflections of an RCMP Officer’s Northern Life (New Liskeard, ON: White Mountain Publications, 2003). Munday, publishing in 1930, was well ahead of the others. 8 Robert James McSkimming, J. K. Stager, and Polar Gas Project (Canada), Chesterfield Inlet, N.W.T.: A Background Report on Its Social and Economic Development , (Polar Gas Socio-Economic Program) (Toronto: Polar Gas Project, 1978). Robert G. Williamson, “The Keewatin Settlements,” The Musk-Ox , no. 8 (1971): 14–19. 9 Charles Choque, Ataatatsiaraluk: Arsène Turquetil, O.M.I. 1876-1955: Realizing an Arctic Dream (Churchill, MB: Diocese of Churchill Hudson Bay, 2006), 28. 36

Stallworthy’s first impression of Chesterfield Inlet was not positive; he would have preferred to return to the Yukon, where he had been stationed before and after his WW1 service, but Chesterfield, in the unfamiliar and very different Eastern Arctic, was the only northern post available. 10 Early in 1923, he had written, “if nothing better turns up I guess I’ll go to

Chesterfield Inlet about July 5 th .” 11 Apparently there were no better offers forthcoming, because

on July 24, he wrote a letter to his mother from onboard the Nascopie .12 He and Oliver Petty

joined Sergeant Walter Munday, Mrs. Luta Munday, and Constable Wiebe at the detachment,

and Stallworthy wrote that it was “thought to be far more important to ‘our people’ ‘outside’ than

I can see it,” and that there was not much police work for him to do. He did not elaborate on

what “our people outside” (presumably government and/or RCMP officials) thought was

important about Chesterfield, however, throughout both their books on Arctic history, by the

number of times Chesterfield Inlet is mentioned as an important hub for trading, Morrison and

Fossett both make it clear that it was a key location for establishing northern sovereignty. 13

Northern assignments were usually for two years, and Stallworthy was “perfectly contented to

stay here two years though I know I’ll never like the country and have such memories of it as I

have of the Yukon...I think this post is the biggest ‘white elephant’ in the north.” 14 It is not clear if his attitude that Chesterfield was a useless detachment changed; however, the lack of active policing did not dampen his enthusiasm for certain unique aspects of life there, particularly the opportunities to get away from the post and go on patrol and hunt.

10 Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants, 11-21, 23-32. 11 Harry Stallworthy to unknown recipient, N.D., Box 1, Folder 2, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 12 Harry Stallworthy to Mother, 24 July 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 13 Renée Fossett, In Order to Live Untroubled: Inuit of the Central Arctic, 1550-1940 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2001). Morrison, Showing the Flag . 14 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 37

As for his impression of the Mundays, Stallworthy wrote that Walter Munday was “a very fine chap,” and that Stallworthy and Petty could have eaten their meals at the Mundays’ cabin, however, as Mrs. Munday was

rather too much of a High Brow, and started giving me – and Petty – orders as soon as we got here last fall...So we asked Mundy [sic] if we could be detached and cook for ourselves. The two fellows who came in with the Mundays were recruits...Though the O.C. [officer commanding] (Mundy) did not like it, she was the commander in chief. These two fellows never hit the trail nor accomplished anything in the year, except wait on Mrs. Mundy and think what a joke Mundy was. As a matter of fact, Mundy is a very smart chap and a good man for the north, but Mrs. M. is always telling him to stand on his dignity as O.C. and so on. Mrs. Mundy is behaving quite decently by now. We like her fine now that she realizes she does not own us. Things are now running smoothly and it’s too bad for a white woman. It’s far too far north for her – too isolated. I admire her for pretending to enjoy life here, but she is terribly fed-up. 15

These observations made by Stallworthy in the privacy of a letter to his brother contrast with how Mrs. Munday presents the situation in her published memoir. There she refers to all of the

Mounties as “the boys,” without ever identifying any of them by name, except for Wiebe, 16 who

rates a mention for having brought her the news of her husband’s promotion, which was “his fair

and just reward for a lifetime of faithful service.” 17 This appears to confirm Stallworthy’s observation that Mrs. Munday was very aware of “dignity” and status, references to which can be found throughout her memoir. Here, in particular, she overlooks the lower-ranking Mounties.

She makes no mention of Stallworthy at all, or of the dinner insurrection led by him and Petty, which, given her “dignity,” is not surprising. The Mundays had previously been stationed in remote detachments in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and Mrs. Munday wrote glowingly

15 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 4 November 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 16 Neither Munday or Stallworthy seem to mention Wiebe’s first name, and Barr’s biography does not, either. The RCMP Obituary Index only lists one Wiebe: Arthur, whose obituary was published in January 1966. 17 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife , 160. 38 about their adventures there, and how they volunteered for Arctic service after finding life back in the city not to their liking, similar to Stallworthy’s own restlessness with southern postings.

While the Mundays were used to a certain amount of isolation, Chesterfield Inlet was quite significantly more isolated and had more severe weather. Stallworthy and Mrs. Munday shared similar views on how the Arctic separated them from friends and family, with a similar desire to gather together the “entire white population” of Chesterfield. After her first ten months there, when the spring mail delivery arrived, Mrs. Munday wrote: “what a feeling of utter aloofness I had, of being absolutely cut off from everyone and everything, with the realization that the letters were months old...Those feelings I never could describe, it seemed almost that I had died and all the world was left behind.” 18 Stallworthy wrote to Bill that he was “absolutely

contented” at Chesterfield and that he would “regret leaving”, however, “the one and only thing”

he did not like was “being so disconnected with my people.” 19 It is ironic that the people

establishing effective occupation in the pursuit of sovereignty did not particularly want to be

there all year around. However, Christmas was an occasion for connecting with the rest of the

local white community members, who were likely feeling a similar sense of isolation and

homesickness. Stallworthy recounts the Christmas of 1923 in colourful detail, but in Mrs.

Munday’s memoir it receives only a brief mention of the blizzard and some concern over the

trouble of trying to vary the menu from the previous year’s Christmas dinner. Their first

Christmas at Chesterfield was an event that covered a full page of her memoir, during which they

“waxed quite merry,” 20 unlike her description of the second Christmas, which substantiates

18 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife , 156. 19 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 6 February 1924, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 20 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 152. 39

Stallworthy’s observation that she was “fed up” with life in the Arctic, particularly the monotonous diet.

In Stallworthy’s letter to Bill, his record of Christmas focused more on what everyone wore (and drank) rather than what they ate, using ironic humor to describe their festivities:

We had quite the Christmas party. The entire white population sat down to dinner...The HBC fellows here are real good fellows and brought a few bottles of ‘Christmas spirit’ – so we were able to drink to the king and other absent friends. My beard was the source of entertainment for some reason...Sept. 21 st was my last shave...We had an awful blizzard from Dec. 22 nd – 26 th , but we got our guests to here by sending two Eskimos to guide them. It is impossible to try to describe how fierce the weather was. It averaged 40-45 below all the time. Our ceremonious dinner was the funniest gathering of costumes I ever saw. Perhaps I actually put on my blue suit and a white collar with deerskin foot wear but my beard and long hair added a very aristocratic and perhaps sanctimonious touch to my appearance. Petty wore his red tunic and green civvy pants – with his black beard. Wiebe borrowed my dress cloths – white shirt front – black tie. With his sandy goatee he looked real cute. The O.C. was half uniform and half Eskimo. All of our visitors were, of course in native clothing in order to get here in the fierce blizzard, except Father [Arsène] Turquetail and he wore a short cassock with his fur pants. Really, Mrs. Mundy was the only one who looked civilized. All the others should have been under observation. 21

Mrs. Munday’s adherence to “civilized” dress in the face of the others’ unorthodox dress and

apparent instability was another indication of her southern attitude toward their isolated life in

the north. Barbara Kelcey, in her text on European women in the Arctic, writes that “the

remoteness and extremes of climate meant that both daily and special activities were dominated

by the environment, shaped by the continual effort to adapt.” 22 For Mrs. Munday, cooking was an important part of her role as a Mountie’s wife, especially in an isolated northern detachment, and the topic of food is a recurring theme throughout her memoir; however, during their second

Chesterfield Christmas, the lack of traditional festive foods, and perhaps even her dining companions’ unorthodox forms of dress, seems to have made her feel that she fell short of the

21 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 6 February 1924, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 22 Barbara E. Kelcey, Alone in Silence: European Women in the Canadian North before 1940 (Montréal, CA: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001), 34. 40 standard required of her, therefore she did not want a record of such a disappointing holiday celebration. Kelcey concludes “women bore the responsibility of introducing ‘civilization’ into the north...because of the domestic nature of women’s work, ideas about food and home economics are gender-specific themes. Consequently, when white women write about the food they cook and the food they consume of necessity, they write about their self.” 23 Kelcey’s research could explain Stallworthy’s and Mrs. Munday’s differing views on the Christmas dinner; if festive holiday foods were meant to be the pinnacle of the domestic year, then by that standard, their uninteresting Arctic Christmas dinner likely was a great disappointment to a woman who had saved her husband’s career by being willing to be the detachment cook. The

Mundays married without official permission, and Munday could have been discharged from the

Force for this; however, there was a post in need of a cook, and since Mrs. Munday was willing to go, Munday’s superiors overlooked his rule-breaking and sent them to an isolated posting. 24

There was another woman at the settlement who played an important role: Maria, the

Inuit interpreter. Stallworthy called her “a great help to us,” and thought “it was a great blessing

that she could speak English and that she was such an intelligent and able person,” highly

valuing her presence and assistance. 25 Maria had come to Chesterfield at the request of Mrs.

Munday, who had clearly been feeling a lack of female companionship, despite repeated protests to the contrary throughout her memoir. Mrs. Munday

heard of Maria, the little girl whom Walter had met years before at Churchill, where she was living then with her parents, who were working for the police. She was twelve then and was taught to read, write, and talk English by the doctor and the wife of the then O.C. of the post. I wrote to her and asked her if she would come to work for me. By the first open water she came, a sweet, pretty girl, married to an Esquimo and with two children. I did not have her actually do any work, only sewing, and she spoke splendid English and

23 Kelcey, Alone in Silence , 35. 24 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 27. 25 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 41

was a good interpreter. For over a year she was with me, a faithful friend, and she is still acting as interpreter for the police. 26

Without Maria’s perspective, it is impossible to state whether or not she regarded Mrs. Munday as a friend, and whether or not she considered sewing and interpreting to be “work.” She probably was compensated; her husband worked as a guide for the RCMP, so he certainly would have been. Given the Inuit concept of ilira , Maria may have been demonstrating “deference or subservience to frightening or intimidating individuals,” which, it is speculated, affected many aspects of the relationships between Inuit and newcomers to the region, and she probably saw

Mrs. Munday more as an authority figure and employer than friend. A desire to avoid conflict with the police may have been why Maria came to the post, and why she appeared so “sweet” to

Mrs. Munday, a police officer’s wife. 27 Despite Maria’s importance to the RCMP in

Chesterfield, there is little information available about her. Harwood Steele provides her with a

second name: Maria Theresa. 28 Deborah Kigjugalik Webster records her full name as “Maria

Theresa Kumaa’naaq Parker.” 29 In the 1950s, Inuit hired to assist the RCMP received the title of

Special Constable and their work was more widely recognized as being essential to the RCMP, however, the histories and full names of Inuit who assisted the police before then are often unknown, and there is certainly room for scholarly work in this area. 30

The Mundays left Chesterfield in the summer of 1924, when Staff Sergeant Sid Clay and

Maggie, his wife, experienced with isolated northern detachments, arrived to replace them. Mrs.

26 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 149-150. 27 Shelagh D. Grant, Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 16-17. 28 Harwood Steele, Policing the Arctic: The Story of the Conquest of the Arctic by the Royal Canadian (Formerly North-West) Mounted Police (London: Jarrolds, 1936), 252. 29 Deborah Kigjugalik Webster, “Unrecognized: The Wives and Children of Inuit Special Constables,” Inuktitut , no. 125 (Summer 2019): 12–17. 30 The QTC report on policing includes information on the relationship between the RCMP and the special constables, but there is much more work to be done on the topic. Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Paliisikkut: Policing in Qikiqtaaluk (Iqaluit, NU: Inhabit Media, 2013). 42

Clay’s presence is significant in Arctic history in general, and in Stallworthy’s life in particular.

Mrs. Clay’s sudden and tragic death that fall was recorded and expounded on in sources ranging from Mrs. Munday’s memoir to newspapers to the memoirs of Mounties stationed in the Arctic in the following years to the reports of the Qikiqtani Truth Commission (QTC). While Staff

Sergeant Clay was away on patrol, Mrs. Clay was walking near the settlement when she was attacked by sled dogs, and despite the best efforts of the Mounties, the HBC employees, the

Roman Catholic missionaries, and Maria, Mrs. Clay died of blood loss a few days later. At the time, Petty was the keeper of the detachment’s daily diary, and he left a detailed record of the events: 31

Friday, September 19: Mrs Clay seriously bitten by dogs this pm 5:30. Lower right leg very badly injured. Bad but not dangerous bites left upper arm just below shoulder. Small bites on left leg. Bruises on left leg. Anesthetic (chloroform) given. Loose flesh cut from right leg arteries tied, this and all other wounds disinfected thoroughly and bandaged. Mrs Clay came out of anesthetic well but during night in great pain. Given small quantity of morphine, which dulled pain. Attended by Father Duphain O.M.P. Cpl Petty and Cst. Stallworthy.

Saturday, September 20: Cst. Stallworthy, Messrs Snow and McPherson endeavoured with native woman and native Jimmy to sail whaleboat up inlet in order to communicate with Revillon’s schooner. Impossible to get past point... Mrs Clay in great pain part of am, but cheerfully brave. Given small morphine injection which dulled pain. Operation to amputate leg decided on early am. Performed 2 to 3pm. Mr. N. Snow – H.B.Co and Father Duphain O.M.P. actually operated. Cst. Stallworthy administered anesthetic either. Cpl Petty generally assisting. Operation appeared perfectly successful. Patient seemed to require unusual amount of anesthetic, but rallied perfectly. Passed night without any pain very cheerful, and slept quite a little in short spells. Constantly asking for water. Small quantities of ice given. 3 dogs shot am by Chl. Petty

Sunday, September 21: Cst. Stallworthy, Mr Snow and Mr McPherson, native Jimmy only native man here and a native woman set out in police whale boat could not make past point in spite of every effort (mast bent almost 45 °). Mrs Clay out of pain and cheerful am. Bandage on leg slipped and re-dressing cause her about 1 hours bad pain. Wound on right leg very healthy. All other wounds looked healthy also. Patient very

31 Most published accounts of Mrs. Clay’s death are clearly drawn from Stallworthy’s manuscript version rather than Petty’s. For instance: Jack Fossum, Cop in the Closet (North Vancouver, B.C.: Hancock House, 1981). The QTC report on sled dogs notes on page 79 that Stallworthy’s manuscript version of the event was only published in 2004, when portions of it were included in Barr’s biography of Stallworthy. 43

cheerful pm attended by Chl. Petty, Father Duphain and native woman Maria. Took 2 glasses milk without vomiting. Slightly delirious during afternoon. Pulse and heart appeared fairly normal. Started to sink at 6 pm and did not answer when spoken to. Died very peaceably 10:55 pm, in spite of all efforts to revive. Chief cause loss of blood. 6 Burwell dogs shot am by Mr Snow on [word obscured by water splotch] of Cpl Petty.

Monday, September 22: Cst. Stallworthy and Mr Snow making coffin at H.B. Chl. Petty generally cleaning up around house and making arrangements for burial. 1 dog shot to day by Cst Stallworthy. All dogs who could have had a part in the affair have now been shot. Whale boat carried away.

Tuesday, September 23: Cst Stallworthy and Chl. Petty assisted by fathers Duphain and Pigeon, making grave. Mr Snow at H.B.Co and Mr McPherson finishing coffin.

Wednesday, September 24: Remains of Mrs Clay buried this pm. C of E service read by Cst. Stallworthy, every person in settlement attended, except woman looking after tents. 32

This daily diary account and Stallworthy’s two versions, one written a few months later, and one written decades later, seem to be the only existing eyewitness accounts of the event. The HBC men, Norman Snow and Sandy McPherson, do not seem to have left records of the incident, and while a formal RCMP report did exist, it is not with the other Chesterfield detachment records at the national archives. The Roman Catholic priest, Father Duplain, wrote to his sister and

“described this sad story and expressed his great sorrow at the death of Mrs. Maggie Clay and the unbearable anguish of her husband,” however, his documents are held by a Roman Catholic archive and not easily accessible for this project.33 The number of primary source accounts, and

their accessibility, is important because of the many variations of the story that eventually arose,

some of which bear little factual resemblance to Stallworthy’s and Petty’s records, and there are

inconsistencies even between those three. In Stallworthy’s archival records at the University of

Calgary, there is a letter he sent his brother Bill, dated January 27, 1925. He does not seem to

32 Library and Archives Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police fonds, R196-0-7-E, “G Division” series, volume 3017, subseries “Daily diaries from northern detachments”, file “Daily Diary G Division 1924”. 33 Charles Choque, Ataatatsiaraluk: Arsène Turquetil, O.M.I. 1876-1955: Realizing an Arctic Dream (Churchill, MB: Diocese of Churchill Hudson Bay, 2006). There are several different spellings of Father Duplain’s name in these primary sources, but he was Father Emmanuel Duplain from Quebec. Choque did extensive archival research, but did not thoroughly footnote. At the time the book was published, Duplain’s letters were in either Quebec, Rome, Ottawa, or Washington. 44 have mentioned Mrs. Clay in letters until after her death, so perhaps the social convention of not speaking ill of the dead coloured his remarks, but his tone about Mrs. Clay is very different from how he wrote about Mrs. Munday. 34

Stallworthy’s letter to Bill is slightly different from Petty’s log, which was, of course, a formal record of the event. Stallworthy wrote that Mrs. Clay was hurt on October 19, and called it “a very serious accident” that “resulted in the death of our Staff Sgt’s wife, and a wonderful little woman she was, too.” He said that she had gone for a walk down the beach, and he had just gone to the house “to cook supper when I heard the dogs fighting.” He could hear screaming, and

“It was terrible, Bill. Her leg was practically torn off...I don’t think I have ever run so fast. The dogs departed at once.” As for Mrs. Clay, “No one could have been braver than she was. She did not even blame the dogs and kept cheerful...from Friday night 5 p.m. until Sunday midnight when she died.” Initially, Stallworthy and the priest gave Mrs. Clay chloroform and tied off the artery. The group had a consultation, and agreed “that the only thing to do was to amputate the leg. Mrs. Clay could see the extent of the damage and pleaded with us to have it done.” In the spring, before coming north, Mrs. Clay had an appendectomy and they worried that she was still not fully recovered. Supplies were scarce; they could only find “about a tumblerful” of ether, which turned out to be barely enough for the operation. Stallworthy, in charge of administering it, wrote that he was squeezing the last drops “when they started to saw at the thigh and she was coming to when I lifted her to the bed.” With the hindsight of a few months, Stallworthy believed that

the operation went wonderfully well...Snow and Duplesne, with no more experience than I in these matters, actually performed the operation. I had promised to get the nippers on

34 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 27 January 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. See the Oxford Dictionary of Superstitions for a history of the convention. It was certainly well-established in English-speaking society by the middle of the twentieth century. 45

the artery, when asked by Duplesne. Snow...had studied the instruments and really advised. Petty had bowed out of the procedure even before the surgery began...When it came to sawing the bone Duplesne and Snow had to turn away. I could see they were too overcome to go on. Maria, the native woman interpreter was badly affected too...I got Maria to take over my job, and trusted her with the ether, but I could see she could not keep steady. I finished sawing the bone and Snow then recovered and did an excellent job of sewing the flesh over the stump – very neat indeed. He made 14 stitches with 14 needles, which I threaded and kept in a solution of carbolic acid.

After the surgery was over and Stallworthy had moved her to bed, “In less than 10 minutes she woke up, smiled, and said, ‘I feel much better now. Is my knee off too? What a lot of trouble I am to you boys.’ Then she became a bit despondent and said, ‘I won’t be able to dance any more

– will I.’ I found it hard to keep from tears myself.” 35

Further details can be found in Stallworthy’s manuscript from fifty years later, likely

written with the intent to publish it. 36 Given the elapsed time, it is hard to say if they were details

he deliberately did not write to Bill, or flourishes added for the sake of a more publishable

popular narrative. He wrote that northern life “suited her very well and she was good company

for us. We usually had tea together prepared by the ‘cook of the week.’” The day of the attack,

Mrs. Clay told Stallworthy she was going for a walk and that she would be back for tea. He

noted that he was “cook of the week and was busy making a fresh batch of cookies for our

teatime snack.” Sometime later, “Nouvia’s wife came running...screaming incoherently...I could

see a tangle of dogs...I still didn’t realize what her frantic screaming meant but took off like a

march hare with the intention of stopping the fight...I was horrified to see that Maggie was in the

centre of the snarling, snapping dogs and that they were biting at her leg...When I picked her up

to carry her to the house, I placed my arm under her knee in such a position that I was able to

check the spurting blood.” After immediate first aid had been administered, Mrs. Clay had “such

35 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 27 January 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 36 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 46 bravery and calm acceptance of her condition. She made it possible for us to do whatever had to be done, without any hysterical outcry or tears. She...was the first to put into words what we were all thinking. ‘You will have to amputate my leg and it will have to be done as soon as possible.’” Since Clay “was not there to take responsibility or give authority...we four, Petty,

Norman Snow, Father Duplesne and myself drew up a written agreement, stating our intentions...We all signed the agreement, including Maggie.” They determined that the priest and

Snow would carry out the actual amputation, and they spent the night studying Pye’s Surgery , while Stallworthy looked after Mrs. Clay. Stallworthy wrote that while Petty was “brave as a lion”, the “sight of torn and mangled flesh” overwhelmed him so badly he “had to withdraw.” At this point, none of them had thought that she might die. 37

The manuscript itself has some interesting edits when it describes the end of the procedure. The priest was flagging, and Stallworthy wrote, “I told Maria to get him a stiff drink of brandy, and took over the end of his duties.” Then he edited the line to read “I gave him a stiff drink of brandy, and took over the completion of his work.” Did he initially misremember the incident, or did he wish to leave Maria out of it, perhaps for serving alcohol to a priest, or was it to make himself a more active participant? When Mrs. Clay woke after the surgery, she remarked, in what Stallworthy now interpreted as a joke, that she would “never be able to dance again, will I. Not with one leg.” By the second day they could “see that Maggie was suffering from shock and loss of blood...although she was quite comfortable and in no pain. Now we realized more than ever what a truly remarkable courageous person she was. Mentally she was alert and had been certain that she would recover.”38 However, that was not the case. Stallworthy

37 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 38 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 47 conducted the Church of England burial service, as per Mrs. Clay’s wishes, and everyone in the settlement attended; the HBC men, the priests, the Mounties, and three Inuit women, wives of the hunters who were away. Inexplicably, he makes no mention of Jimmy, who was mentioned in the daily diary, in either of his accounts; however, all of the other Inuit men were hunting or on patrol. Both of Stallworthy’s depictions of the day of the funeral are unrelievedly grim. The weather was horrible, the whole community was in a state of shock and grief, and the Mounties dreaded telling their commanding officer that his beloved wife was dead. Stallworthy consistently had nothing but praise for the closeness of the Clays’ marriage, and when Clay returned to the news, he was so devastated that he physically collapsed.

As for the dogs, while Mrs. Clay had been recovering from the surgery, “she talked a lot

about...which of the dogs had tasted blood. She hadn’t been in the least afraid of them as they ran

and jumped playfully around her. But it was the black dog Clay had brought from Labrador,

which had snatched at her coat, then took a nip at her leg. Then she knew she was in trouble.

Talking it over with us, she became insistent...that the dogs which had been involved in the

attack must be destroyed...at once to protect the women and especially the children who were

accustomed to playing with the dogs on the beach.” In this later manuscript version, Stallworthy

writes that they shot nineteen police dogs “while they were feeding” on the beach, and that Snow

shot several of the HBC’s. 39 In the letter to his brother written soon after Mrs. Clay’s death,

Stallworthy wrote that after Mrs. Clay died, Petty “shot 14 and next morning I shot four more – those that I knew deserved it. We seriously discussed shooting every dog in the settlement, but decided against it, as one dog was responsible for starting the excitement.” 40 Mrs. Clay and the

39 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 40 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 27 January 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 48

Inuit children in the settlement were used to playing with the dogs, however, the twelve new dogs that had been imported from Labrador were the ones Stallworthy called responsible for the attack. It is clear though, from both of Stallworthy’s accounts, that Mrs. Clay was not in favour of simply killing all the dogs, only the ones that had participated.

Clay returned from patrol several weeks after the funeral, and Stallworthy wrote that “I have never felt so sorry for anyone as I do for poor old Clay. He is one of the best fellows I have met and was certainly happily married. He seems to think his life is over...At first we kept a very close watch over him, but he is now beginning to take an interest in things again...He arrived home after a very hard trip inland to Baker Lake, to find his wife dead and buried. It was a dreadful thing for us to witness this big strong man struck down like a child. We had not recovered from it ourselves.” Clay and Stallworthy planned to leave Chesterfield together in the summer, to go see Mrs. Clay’s family in Ontario, and Stallworthy predicted that they would

“naturally think the North is a terrible place. I have offered to see her people when I go out this summer more to be with him for a while and see him through a very difficult time. Of course, I was the one who was most closely associated with the whole tragedy. My two years here will have ended at that time.” 41 Several of the accounts focus on the fact that the nearest medical help was approximately a thousand kilometres away, a boundary of psychological significance to those used to having medical attention in close proximity.

On August 28, 1925, Stallworthy wrote to his brother after arriving in Winnipeg with

Clay, having come mostly overland from Chesterfield, as it was quicker than taking the circuitous sea route. He had persuaded Clay to leave before his two years were up, because

Stallworthy was sure that “another year would have been too much for him.” Stallworthy was

41 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 27 January 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 49

“pretty sore” that two Winnipeg newspapers, the Tribune and the Free Press , had gotten wind of

the tragedy and published inaccurate accounts of “the heroic work of Petty and myself clubbing

bloodstained dogs to death. How these people can write...such rot without the least sign of

sympathy for Clay or her people. We did everything through headquarters...privately, but the

news leaked out...Gee but I’m sore about that.” 42 Clearly, the events of the previous September

still affected him, and even if he had been able to come to terms with his grief while in the

Arctic, the return to ‘civilization’ and the attendant pressures of retelling the event brought out

strong emotions.

One of the articles that he was reacting to was from the Winnipeg Evening Tribune on

August 27 ,43 which proclaimed: “Woman Killed By Pack of Huskies: Rescuers Too Late To Halt

North Tragedy: BLOOD-MADDENED DOGS GO BAD AT CHESTERFIELD”. The quote that so affected Stallworthy reads: “Her limbs had been horribly bitten by the dogs before Corporal

Petty and Constable Stalworthy [sic], of the Royal Mounted Police, rushed to her assistance and beat the pack into insensibility with clubs.” 44 Stallworthy’s letter to Bill implies that the dogs ran

away when they saw him coming, and the manuscript version says that he and Petty “quickly

dispersed the dogs.” 45 However they “dispersed” them, they clearly did not take the time to

“beat...into insensibility” a whole pack of dogs, as their focus was on getting Mrs. Clay to safety and stopping the bleeding. The Tribune ’s use of names, locations, and titles was correct, but they blamed her death on post-operative infection, which is not a reference found in the daily diary or

Stallworthy’s records, and given Stallworthy’s recording of details such as the use of carbolic

42 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 August 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 43 The Manitoba Free Press on days before and after the date Stallworthy wrote this letter does not seem to contain any mention of the tragedy, so perhaps Stallworthy misattributed the comments. 44 “Woman Killed By Pack Of Huskies,” The Winnipeg Evening Tribune , August 27, 1925. 45 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 50 acid, while infection could be conceivable, the amputation of a limb without a blood transfusion makes loss of blood a more likely cause of death. Without an autopsy, however, it is impossible to say whether it was loss of blood or an infection, or both, but it seems clear that those carrying out the emergency medical treatment did their best with what they had. The Tribune also claimed that the men rushed to her rescue after hearing “the piercing screams of Mrs. Clay and an Indian woman who was the only witness of the original attack.” Obviously any non-RCMP or HBC witnesses would have been Inuit, or in the language of the time, Eskimo, not “Indian.” The

Tribune also notes that “All the dogs were shot,” 46 which was vague; according to Stallworthy, all of the dogs involved were shot, not all of the dogs at Chesterfield. Also, this brief phrase conveys none of the seriousness of such an action, as the loss of at least fourteen dogs hampered their ability to travel, and two of the dogs, Kyuktallik and King Maloo, were Stallworthy’s. He called it “a crippling loss.” 47 For him to then write “Gee but I’m sore” in response to a headline

labelling him as a clubber of dogs is perhaps an understatement that demonstrates what

Harington called “his coolness in adversity.” 48 In 1929, Clay returned to the Arctic, and the

Tribune article about his departure returned to Mrs. Clay’s story, reporting that she had been

killed by “starving” sled dogs, further demonstrating its commitment to a dramatic narrative of

the North. 49

Stallworthy concluded his manuscript account of the event by saying “This is the first time this story has been written in detail, although many allusions have been made to it in various articles written about the early days in the North. I have gone back 50 years in time to

46 “Woman Killed By Pack Of Huskies.” 47 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 48 Harington, “H.W. Stallworthy (1895-1976).” 49 “Lure of North Draws ‘Mountie’ Back to Post: Former Staff-Sergeant Clay Returns in Civilian Capacity,” The Winnipeg Evening Tribune , February 20, 1929. 51 remember the details. Like all other accounts of the early days in the Arctic, this event has to be viewed in its proper context of time and place. Today, as I write, in 1974, the Arctic for the most part is no longer remote...Also, the death of one woman...since we have grown accustomed to the almost daily massive loss of life in the news...all the modern methods of killing great numbers of people...But 50 years ago, small tragedies became magnified through circumstances and rare conditions.” 50 The language Stallworthy uses to describe the impact of her death, calling her “a

pioneer of the North” and the description of and inscription on “the fine granite monument” that

the RCMP later placed at Chesterfield Inlet, suggest that Mrs. Clay was not seen as a victim but

as a martyr to the cause of bringing justice, and through justice, sovereignty, to the Arctic,

making it something unique, at least to those who witnessed it.

In a reaction more indicative of her own personality than of Mrs. Clay’s, sometime after

the incident, Mrs. Munday wrote about her brief time with Mrs. Clay as she prepared to leave

Chesterfield after the Clays’ arrival. She claimed that “Mrs. Clay had told me how much she had

disliked the idea of coming, and now that she had arrived how much more she disliked the place

and that she was afraid of the Esquimos [sic], the pleasure of my going was spoiled. I could

hardly bear to leave her behind, feeling as she did, and the whole of the following winter she

seemed to haunt me. I think we both must have had a premonition of the awful tragedy.” 51 This

reframes Mrs. Clay’s death to focus on Mrs. Munday’s feelings about it, and her depiction of

Mrs. Clay is very contrary to Stallworthy’s. Given the fact that the Clays already had some

northern service and had volunteered for Arctic duty, it seems strange that she would be “afraid,”

even if Stallworthy were reluctant to speak ill of the dead. The Qikiqtani Truth Commission

report says about Mrs. Munday’s comments regarding Mrs. Clay that “the unwanted inference

50 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 51 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 192-193. 52 might be that Maggie Clay somehow brought the accident about by her own carelessness, but this is only very slyly suggested in the memoir by Luta Munday...She mentioned her brief meeting with Maggie Clay in a chapter entitled ‘The Dogs: My Greatest Friends.’” The implication was that Mrs. Munday got along very well with these sled dogs, as most sensible people would. 52

However, Mrs. Munday ended her reminiscences of Mrs. Clay by stating that “her death is the most awful tragedy which has ever occurred in the force...[and she has] given her life for the force just as truly as our men in France gave their lives for their country,” a sentiment that that does not seem to lay any blame on Mrs. Clay at all. In her book on European women in the north, Barbara Kelcey wrote that the RCMP statement provided to the public “noted that Mrs

Clay was familiar with northern conditions, implying that she had accepted the risks and therefore presumably absolved the RCMP of any blame.” 53 While that statement might have been meant to protect the organization from any blame, it aligned with Stallworthy’s perception of Mrs. Clay rather than Mrs. Munday’s. The source for Munday’s account is unlike any of the others, and focuses heavily on her own fears about life above the treeline, miles from any medical help and from other white women. She concluded that Mrs. Clay had died

in a strange and barren land, among men whom she had met for the first time a few short weeks before, with no white woman to ease her going and to do the many little things necessary at such a time. My poor Maria was the only woman present, and how almost sublime her efforts must have been, every action of which went against all her native teachings, but what a comfort it must have been to poor Mrs. Clay to have her...I was the last white woman to see her alive, our talk had been intimate, she had told me of her misgivings, I had tried to encourage her, and, as I have already stated, she had haunted me all winter. No one else could visualize as I could what she had gone through in that lonely place. One of my last acts at Chesterfield had been to label the chloroform bottle

52 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Analysis of the RCMP Sled Dog Report,” The Qikiqtani Truth Commission: Thematic Reports and Special Studies (Iqaluit, NU, 2013), 78-79. 53 Kelcey, Alone in Silence , 27. 53

and show her where it was kept...Maria wrote to tell me of the event, and deserves every credit for her efforts on Mrs. Clay’s behalf, and Mrs. Clay is a martyr. 54

Mrs. Munday had a fascination with Inuit taboos and rituals, some of which she attempted to analyze elsewhere in her memoir. She does not explain which taboos she thought Maria might have broken by assisting with Mrs. Clay’s surgery, but her description shows the cultural distance between them. It is impossible to know how Mrs. Clay felt about Maria, and

Stallworthy’s awareness of her actions seems to have been limited to those that directly affected the surgical procedure. And while Stallworthy’s manuscript simply suggests a sense of martyrdom, Mrs. Munday did not shy away from labelling Mrs. Clay as such, and given Mrs.

Munday’s focus on her own feelings about the incident, it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that had she been the one to meet an untimely death in the Arctic, she would have expected to be called a martyr to the cause of the RCMP.

To Mrs. Clay’s closest contemporary, her death was clearly a sacrifice in service to her country, and the RCMP. The RCMP community, Stallworthy wrote, “subscribed toward a fine granite monument...it still stands on that windswept, inhospitable shore of Chesterfield Inlet to mark the grave of a beloved and courageous woman, a pioneer of the North.” She was also remembered with a plaque in the RCMP chapel in Regina. 55 The monument at Chesterfield

speaks simply of remembering her, as does the memo issued by RCMP headquarters on the

expenses involved in the monument and the plaque at the chapel in Regina, and neither use any

of the language of tragedy and martyrdom employed by Mrs. Munday, suggesting that Mrs.

Munday’s views were different from those of Stallworthy and other RCMP officers. 56

54 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 210. 55 Harry Stallworthy “Maggie Clay”, N.D., Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 56 W.J. Wade, re Memorial to late Mrs. S.G. Clay, 28 June 1926, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895- 2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 54

Mrs. Munday’s memoir is a valuable source for insight into Arctic detachment life.

Another such memoir is one by Vernon Kemp, who was sent to Herschel Island in May 1927, to be in charge of the western Arctic. He spoke highly of the value of a Mountie being supported by a wife, and also wrote about his fear for his toddler daughter around the sled dogs, recounting an incident in which she escaped from supervision and was found near the dog pens. Consequently,

it was inevitable that I should recall a tragedy which had occurred in 1924 at Chesterfield Inlet...The wife of Staff Sergeant S. G. “Sid” Clay, while walking in that settlement, was attacked by husky dogs, loose and on the prowl...the unfortunate woman was dragged to the ground, the flesh of the right leg being completely stripped from the bone. Clay himself was away on patrol at the time and there was no doctor at the post. Mrs. Clay faced certain death unless drastic steps were taken. In the opinion of...the entire white population of the community—amputation alone could save her life...An anesthetic was administered and the surgery performed by the priest, an official of the Hudson’s Bay Company and a half-breed woman. Clay returned from his patrol a few days later to find his wife dead, not from the operation...but from the severe mauling and loss of blood resulting from the savage attack of the dogs...we knew of the hazard implied by the presence of husky dogs. We accordingly chained the animals up.” 57

Aside from leaving out Stallworthy’s contributions entirely, the account is reasonably faithful to the events as described in other accounts. However, the impact of the incident on the young family at Herschel Island was to paint the sled dogs as a type of boogey man. Even though this incident was the only time a person connected to the RCMP was killed by sled dogs, 58 it became

a cautionary tale that affected the other sojourners in the Arctic for years to follow. In the

summer of 1931, an American journalist, Douglas Sinclair Robertson, was on a press junket

around the Arctic, and he was quite affected by his visit to Mrs. Clay’s grave at Chesterfield

Inlet, constructing a dramatic narrative for his readers.

57 Vernon A. M. Kemp, Without Fear, Favour or Affection: Thirty-Five Years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Toronto: Longman, 1958), 88, 108-109. 58 Doctor’s wife Mena Orford, who lived on Baffin Island at the beginning of WWII, witnessed a sled dog mauling an Inuit child, but the Dr. Orford was able to save his life. Mena Orford, Journey North (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1957). There was also an account in the RCMP Sled Dogs Report about a missionary child who was mauled by a sled dog the family was trying to “make a pet of” when it broke out of its pen. No Inuit/sled dogs were involved, and the child survived, but the superintendent of G Division issued a warning about loose sled dogs in response. Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Analysis of the RCMP Sled Dog Report,” 47. 55

There, out on the bleak Barren Lands, stands a white picket fence enclosing the solitary grave of a poor woman who had met death in horrible form. She was the wife of a sergeant in the Mounties, and one September day in 1924 had left the door of her cottage to fetch a pail of water. As she went, a number of Police sledge dogs whom she had fondled and fed in puppyhood came nosing around, thinking no doubt, that their mistress has some tit-bits [sic] for them in the pail. Then, as the animals scuffled about her, the woman tripped and fell. Instantly the dogs attacked her. Hearing her cries and seeing the commotion, a Mountie dashed to the rescue, but by the time he had arrived and beaten off the huskies their victim was so badly mangled that she died almost immediately. A fine grey granite headstone bearing the arms of the R.C.M.P., and erected by all ranks of the force, marks her last resting-place. When I visited this solitary grave out on that grim landscape, Arctic grasses covered it, and bright bits of red and green moss and other far northern vegetation coloured the rocks nearby. A glass-covered wreath of everlastings has lately been placed above the little mound in loving remembrance. It may have been after this tragedy that the Police and Hudson’s Bay people at Chesterfield erect high enclosures of woven wire for their sledge dogs.” 59

Robertson was either genuinely affected by the tragedy or simply intended that his reader be, and

he took liberties with the facts. He left out Maggie Clay’s name entirely (which he could easily

have read on the monument), effectively idealizing her as a symbol rather than a person. It is

impossible to say which elements he embellished himself and which had been embellished by

people who recounted the events to him, but he certainly did not do any research on the topic.

“Cottage” suggests pastoral charm, when “cabin” is the more accurate word more used by the

people who lived in them. Neither Stallworthy or Petty mention anything about a pail of water,

and, not only that, in the summer, water was drawn from an inland lake, 60 so she would not have been walking along the beach where Stallworthy said she was; she would have gone inland, not toward the bay. Of particular note is the fact that the Clays had only been at Chesterfield for about two months, so Mrs. Clay would not have known the dogs from “puppyhood,” and blaming her for tripping presents her as clumsy, which, according to the eyewitnesses, was not the case. And of course “it may have been after this” is simply another way of saying “this is complete speculation but might be a logical conclusion”, which has its place when theorizing is

59 Douglas Sinclair Robertson, To the Arctic with the Mounties (Toronto: Macmillan, 1934), 251-252. 60 Munday, A Mounty’s Wife, 143. 56 the only available tool; however, the Qikiqtani Truth Commission found that the sled dogs and the Inuit community all suffered because of generalizations made about the dogs and their treatment, which led to excessive killing of sled dogs by the RCMP.61 This excerpt, written less

than a decade after Mrs. Clay’s death, demonstrates how quickly and easily narratives can be

created, motives can be assigned, and an event can become a myth.

In 1978, the Globe and Mail published a letter to the editor written by G.S. Howard, a

former Mountie and previous editor of the RCMP Quarterly . A news item about a First Nations

woman who was mauled by a dog team had reminded him of Maggie Clay, and he wanted to

share the story. His account relatively factual, in keeping with the records of Stallworthy and

Petty, but he too frames the account as an event of mythic proportions. He called her

“courageous woman, pawn of a destiny that from time to time has breathed cruel destruction on

the RCMP...Hers is truly one of the great human tragedies of the RCMP in its long, colorful

story.” Howard wrote that Mrs. Clay showed “the prestige and traditions of the Mounted Police.

Now, after more than half a century, that chapter has yet to be written. But it still ought to be,

and in sad reflection and hopeful expectation many must trust it will be.” He spoke highly of

“devoted” RCMP wives and wanted to see more written about them, and that is certainly an area

that could use further scholarly study.62

Despite the mythic proportions that the event took on at the hands of other writers, obviously the event was no myth to Stallworthy. In communication with Stallworthy’s biographer, William Barr, Stallworthy’s niece Elaine Mellor shared that he never had a pet dog, perhaps “in part because of the difference in the relationship between working dogs such as sledge dogs and their owner and that between a pet dog and its owner. However, she also thought

61 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Analysis of the RCMP Sled Dog Report . 62 G. S. Howard, “Arctic Ordeal: One Woman’s Heroism,” The Globe and Mail (1936-2016); Toronto, Ont. , April 8, 1978. 57 that the trauma of seeing what the dogs had done to Maggie Clay may have influenced Harry’s decision never to keep a pet dog.”63 Given the close relationship between Stallworthy and his

niece (Stallworthy and his wife were unable to have children), Mellor was one of the people who

knew him best, and would be the most qualified to speculate on the long-term effects of this

incident. As for RCMP regulations post-Maggie Clay, Kelcey observed that the incident

“provoked...the RCMP administrators in Ottawa...A new dog ordinance was drafted to provide

the RCMP with the authority to compel owners to keep their dogs tethered.” It would not have

been easy to enforce such an ordinance, however. Kelcey’s research discovered that “dogs

represented one of the hazards that white women regularly mentioned.” 64 Unfortunately, it is

clear from Stallworthy’s accounts that the dogs that had attacked Mrs. Clay were police dogs, not

ones belonging to the Inuit in the area, so the popular belief that the new ordinance about Inuit-

owned dogs would prevent a similar occurrence was misplaced. 65

In 2014, historian Kenn Harper wrote a pair of columns for the Nunatsiaq News , retelling the story of Maggie Clay’s death. He dates the incident to October 19, rather than September 19 as recorded in the detachment’s Daily Diary, and cites Barr’s book as his main source. 66 Harper proposed that the “long-term legacy” of Mrs. Clay’s death was a prevailing fear of dog attacks, which was used as a reason for the RCMP to extensively cull sled dogs, an event that took place over a number of years, and which is often referred to as the sled dog slaughter. The common narrative is that there was “a government policy to systematically kill the Inuit dogs, and thereby force Inuit to abandon their camps and congregate in settlements where government could

63 Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants, 65. 64 Kelcey, Alone in Silence, 28. 65 For an overview of the various dog-related ordinances, see: Frank James Tester, “Mad Dogs and (Mostly) Englishmen: Colonial Relations, Commodities, and the Fate of Inuit Sled Dogs,” Études/Inuit/Studies 34, no. 2 (2010), 129-147. 66 Kenn Harper, “Taissumani, June 20: The Tragic Fate of Maggie Clay,” Nunatsiaq News , June 20, 2014. Barr appears to have relied on the date Stallworthy used in his letter to Bill; however, Stallworthy had the date wrong. 58 provide health care and education, and – not incidentally – welfare payments.” However, proof of such a policy has never been found, most likely because it never existed. Harper points out that “such a policy would have been in contradiction to the overarching social and economic themes of the times – self-reliance, a belief that Inuit should be supporting themselves through hunting.” He claims that the deaths of sled dogs were partly a result of the “many recorded deaths of children ripped apart by ravenous sled dogs,” and partly because of “the Mrs. Clay effect,” and also blames the sometimes “unnecessary” killing partly on “a few ‘bad apples’” in the RCMP. Since this is a newspaper article, he does not cite any specific sources or incidents.

When Harper went to live in the north in the 1960s,

Maggie Clay had died four decades earlier, but her death was still fresh in the minds of police officers of all ages, who had heard from their superiors over the years of the horrible tragedy that befell the wife of one of their own...police lore, passed down in conversation from veteran officers to young recruits. I have heard many officers over the years talk about the death of Maggie Clay as if it had only happened yesterday...The irony, of course, is that Maggie Clay wasn’t killed by Inuit dogs; she was killed by the police detachment’s own dogs. I haven’t heard anyone talk about Maggie Clay for a long time now. I don’t know if her story was ever mentioned in the hearings undertaken by the Qikiqtani Inuit Association into the alleged ‘dog slaughter’...But Maggie Clay’s story is instructive for this issue; it needs to be remembered. 67

Harper recognized the RCMP’s tendency to oral history, or “lore,” that kept the tragic death of

Maggie Clay fresh in everyone’s minds, and believed that dwelling on it influenced police offices to be quicker to shoot a dog than they might otherwise have been.

The QTC’s written report did in fact include the Clay incident, and it calls her “The Most

Famous White Woman in Eastern Arctic History.” The QTC report even cited Harper’s evidence given to the RCMP for their report on sled dogs. They also included oral history, such as an incident in the late 60s when Rosie Katsak’s father was told by a Mountie that the police were so shocked over the recent death of someone’s wife that the police were to “shoot all the dog

67 Kenn Harper, “Taissumani, June 27: The Legacy of Maggie Clay,” Nunatsiaq News , June 27, 2014. 59 teams”. The QTC points out that Mrs. Clay “died of her wounds more than thirty years before and more than 1200 kilometres away,” and that her story “spread across the Arctic, a vital part of both the oral and written culture of the Qallunaat in the North. The incident appeared repeatedly in the RCMP Sled Dogs Report, almost always recounted by Qallunaat and always employed as sensationalist evidence that sled dogs can be lethal. Maggie Clay was possibly the only adult killed in Nunavut by sled dogs in the past century, but her story lives on.” 68 The QTC report

quotes Stallworthy’s colleague Oliver Petty who wrote an official report in 1924 stating that “a

catastrophe of this nature was anticipated by no one, as there is no record of a grown person ever

being attacked before in this District.” The QTC report continues with: “Nor was the incident

repeated: In 1961 a senior officer wrote that there had been no subsequent attack on a member’s

wife or child in the North. It is therefore important to understand how this horrific but isolated

incident became a landmark of collective memory for eighty years.”69 The memories of the

RCMP are clearly different from those of the Katsak family; however, it is vital that however the incident was remembered, it was remembered.

Maggie Clay and Harry Stallworthy, each in their own way, were part of the Canadian government’s attempts to confirm sovereignty over the Arctic. While simply attempting to support her husband in his vocation as a police officer, Mrs. Clay lost her life in a way that elicited a great deal of sympathy, in many written accounts, for this lone white woman, miles from medical attention, surrounded by men who were relative strangers, who ‘only’ had an Inuit woman for female companionship. For the northern Mounties in the years and decades following, her death became part of an anti-sled dog narrative cultivated in sensational newspaper accounts and hearsay reports that caused deep grief to the Inuit community. Given

68 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Analysis of the RCMP Sled Dog Report.” 74-75. 69 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Analysis of the RCMP Sled Dog Report,” 77. 60 that Mrs. Clay had a say in which Chesterfield sled dogs were at fault and which ones should be killed – and not all of them – it is a reasonable assertion that she would not be pleased at all with the myth that sprang up in the wake of her passing. Taken together, Stallworthy’s two versions of her death paint a picture of a woman determined to be brave in the face of horrible pain, and demonstrate as much about his character, in his focus on the Clays’ feelings over his own, as

Mrs. Munday’s framing of the tragedy demonstrates about her own character. Maggie Clay’s death became an important landmark in Eastern Arctic colonial narratives. Patrols, such as the one Sid Clay was on while Mrs. Clay was dying, were the main duty that RCMP officers performed and were an important element in the government’s effective occupation in the Arctic.

A source of much Mountie lore, the patrol was also a duty that Stallworthy enjoyed and wrote extensively about, as will be discussed in the next chapter. 61

Chapter 2: The Narratives of Arctic Patrols

In 1950, The Blue Book magazine published an article written by Stallworthy called “The

Loneliest Journey,” about the time he fell into an ice crevasse while on patrol on Ellesmere

Island in 1931. The Inughuit guide, Nukappiannguaq, spotted a polar bear and the sled dogs chased it. The bear meat was essential for the party’s survival, so the chase was urgent.

Stallworthy came behind on foot, following in the bear’s tracks, when he “took a step—and remember no more until I discovered myself staring up between green walls of ice to a crack of blue, where one white cloud, shaped like a beaver’s tail, floated for an instant and was gone.

Below me I heard my parka, which I had carried loosely over my shoulder, falling...Then for some seconds I apparently passed out.” He was wedged into the crevasse, held up only by the widest part of his chest, hidden below a drift, far behind the rest of the party. Clearly appealing to a paying readership, he wrote far more dramatically than he had before in letters to family or official reports, as he described his icy prison as “old, immemorially old, older than man, a frozen eternity that smelled of the ages as it clasped me in its hug of death.” About an hour later, the other members of the party found him, tossed down two harpoon lines tied together, and hauled him up approximately thirty feet. After this near tragedy, Stallworthy called

Nukappiannguaq and Inutuk his brothers, as “up here beneath the Pole, where men were few, all were brothers...Man with his fellows had won another victory in the unending struggle against the powers of darkness.” 1 In a book about the RCMP, Jack Fossum, a former Mountie, recounts

that “two years later, Stallworthy was amused to read an article in the Toronto Star relating the

1 Harry Stallworthy. “The Loneliest Journey.” The Blue Book 92, no. 2. 1950. Box 3, Folder 9, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 62 incident. A full-page color illustration showed him in full dress uniform – scarlet serge, breeches, boots, spurs and all-upside down in the crevasse, Stetson hat firmly in place.” 2

This dramatic article from The Blue Book related an incident from one of the most iconic

activities of the RCMP: the patrol. It was one of the many duties of an RCMP officer, but

became a defining feature in popular publishing and ideas about life in northern Canada. The

patrol is an iconic part of the RCMP narrative, with many Mounties later publishing memoirs

about their experiences. Accounts were published in sources that included autobiographies,

memoirs, newspapers, the RCMP Quarterly magazine, and the Hudson’s Bay Company magazine The Beaver . The stories were usually less about individual Mounties themselves than about the archetype of an RCMP officer. Stallworthy’s narratives about life on the patrol fall into three categories, with distinct voices. Official patrol reports were dry and understated, written shortly after the event, and letters to friends or family were casual and simple. Stallworthy’s public narratives published in the 1930s continued to be simple and straightforward, as was his official report regarding falling in the crevasse (see appendix 3). However, by the time this Blue

Book article was published, his style was much more flowery and dramatic, similar to published

Mountie narratives from the 1920s and 30s, like Arctic Patrols ,3 I Lived With the Eskimos ,4 and

Policing the Top of The World .5 The length, complexity, and geography of the patrol varied across Canada, however, the stories about heroism and endurance contributed to the archetype of the Mountie. By studying Stallworthy’s various patrol narratives and interrogating their audience, it is possible to examine the stereotypes created through the flowery RCMP narratives

2 Fossum, “The Northern Men.” Unfortunately, Fossum does not use citations, making it difficult to follow up on the details. However, given that he wrote Stallworthy’s RMCP Quarterly obituary, he likely had reliable knowledge. 3 William Campbell, Arctic Patrols: Stories of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1936). 4 Sydney Robert Montague, I Lived with the Eskimos (London: Jarrolds, 1939). 5 Herbert Patrick Lee, Policing the Top of the World (London: John Lane, 1928). 63 published for the public and compare them to internal reports. Examining the paper trail left by the people who carried out the physical actions of effective occupation provides a better understanding of the history of sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic.

Mrs. Clay’s death was the most dramatic occurrence while Stallworthy was at

Chesterfield. His usual patrol duties there were more mundane, and from his time patrolling

Ellesmere, there is no record of anything else quite as exciting as falling into the ice crevasse. 6

RCMP officers were in the north to police it and demonstrate Canada’s authority over the land,

the people, and the game resources, and the patrol was how those duties were carried out.

Stallworthy went to Chesterfield in 1923, a few years after the first Eastern Arctic Patrol in 1919,

and in 1925, the commissioner of the RCMP issued a memo, “Duties of members of R.C.M.

Police stationed in the Eastern Arctic,” setting out all their responsibilities in the Arctic and what

they were expected to report on. The officer in charge of each detachment was also the

postmaster and customs officer, as well as census taker. They were responsible for taking

meteorological readings and surveys of the topography. They also took a role in

the welfare of the Eskimo for the Department of Indian Affairs, educating them as far as possible in the White Man’s Law, and issuing destitute relief where necessary; enforcement of all the Ordinances and Regulations of the Northwest Territories, including Game Laws and the protection of Musk Oxen, and the issue of Game Animals and Bird Licenses...the supervision of Liquor permits; the enforcement of the Migratory Birds Convention Act for the Department of Interior; the enforcement of the Criminal Code and assistance...to the Department of Mines and Agriculture in the collection of Eskimo material and ethnological and biological specimens.

6 Of note was Stallworthy’s time spent searching Ellesmere for the lost Krüger Expedition, during which he set new records for long-distance patrols; however, the Krüger Expedition has already been the focus of considerable research. Barr includes a chapter on in his biography of Stallworthy, and it can also be found in Dick’s Muskox Land . 64

Mounties stationed in the Arctic were expected to conduct the necessary patrols to follow these orders and obtain this information, and to write detailed, formal reports to RCMP headquarters about it.7

While the patrols at Chesterfield Inlet were focused mainly on this governmental law and order work, the patrols on Ellesmere were much more overtly for the purpose of territorial occupation, as there were no resident “Eskimos” to educate “in the White Man’s Law.” Whether at Chesterfield or on Ellesmere, a routine patrol was strenuous work in extreme conditions, and as Shelagh Grant points out, not all Mounties were interested in Arctic service, as “the officers who thrived in the Arctic were a special breed unto themselves, possessing inordinate stamina, determination, and above all, a sense of humour. Those who had difficulty did not volunteer for a second tour of duty.” 8 Critically, they could not have managed without Inuit employees, who

helped officers survive these unfamiliar circumstances, and, “with a very few exceptions, most

police in the 1920s recognized how dependent they were on their Inuit guides when on patrol.” 9

The Commissioner’s memo suggests that law enforcement responsibility in the Arctic

included a duty to protect Inuit from possible harm caused by European traders and hunters,

which also demonstrated Canada’s sovereignty over trading on its territory, even territory so far

from Ottawa. There was much discussion about the possibility of harm to Inuit culture through

extended European contact and what could or should be done to mitigate it. Some saw the

RCMP as harmless agents of good, others, including members of the RCMP, recognized their

7 Library and Archives Canada, Department of External Affairs fonds, RG25-A-3-b, volume 2669, “Maintenance orders (facilities for enforcement), file “RCMP & Hudson’s Bay Co. Posts in the Arctic, 10 June 1925 to 3 Sept 1946”. 8 Shelagh D. Grant, Arctic Justice: On Trial for Murder, Pond Inlet, 1923 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 142. 9 Grant, Arctic Justice, 147. 65 capacity to cause harm, both physically and culturally. Joseph Elzéar Bernier, the captain of the

Arctic , the first ship used for an Arctic patrol by the Mounted Police, wrote:

In addition to the natural state of the Eskimo, seeds of immorality and crime have been sown, and the natives are in a worse state than before the introduction of our civilization. Since the white man visited the habitations of these people, death among the children is a common occurrence; the best suited race for the cold inhospitable climes will disappear if some strenuous efforts are not made to preserve them. The missionary with high motives and some medical knowledge is the best instructor to send amongst them. The natives can be made useful assistants in developing the resources of the country and, furthermore, the white races owe it to themselves, as well as to the natives, to undo the evil which they have done. I cannot too strongly emphasize the duty of white men, to save a race which they have done so much to destroy. 10

Officer Vernon Kemp, who was in charge of the Herschel Island detachment in the late 1920s, wrote that the Inuit “were the most honest and law-abiding people that I have ever met.” 11

However, when writing about an epidemic in the spring of 1928, which had been brought by a ship that called at Herschel, Kemp concluded that that the efforts of the “white residents—

Mounted Policemen, traders and missionaries,” had “unquestionably saved the lives of hundreds of the nomadic and pagan Eskimos, living their unhygienic life in the vast territories far removed from our island home,” 12 not assigning any blame to the people who had brought the illness in the first place, despite the long history of contact with white Europeans bringing epidemics to

Indigenous people.

During these early years of government authority being exercised in the Arctic, “a number of issues and sensibilities thus coalesced to make intervention in the medical health of

Inuit a national concern.” 13 It was “a demonstration of sovereignty, as a response to economic considerations, as a cultural and ideological (principally church-driven) response to Inuit as a

10 Grant, Arctic Justice, 34-35. 11 Vernon A. M. Kemp, Without Fear, Favour or Affection: Thirty-Five Years with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Toronto: Longman, 1958), 96. 12 Kemp, Without Fear, Favour or Affection , 126. 13 Frank James Tester and Paule McNicoll, “A Voice of Presence: Inuit Contributions toward the Public Provision of Health Care in Canada, 1900–1930,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 41, no. 82 (2008): 535–61. 66

‘primitive fragment of empire’ and as objects of charity, and as a pragmatic response to threats posed to the health of southern Canadians.”14 While recognizing that the disease had been

brought by the ship, Kemp saw the RCMP as being a defense against further transmission of the

disease, and, with no doctor in the area, the Mountie was responsible for first aid for limiting the

spread of contagion. After ten days, as the sick Inuit were recovering, they received the news that

every post along the Mackenzie waterway had been struck by the same epidemic. Hundreds had

died. Shortly after, the recovering Inuit at Herschel relapsed and many died, and, perhaps

unfairly, Kemp blamed the shock of the bad news for this. He was concerned because Herschel

was about to become the centre of the spring trading operations, with ships arriving from the

south and Inuit coming from all over, in what Kemp called “the mercantile mecca of the Western

Arctic.” So he implemented “improvised quarantine regulations of an exceptional nature.” By the

fall, three hundred people had died, but Kemp believed that the quarantine measures had stopped

it from spreading. 15

Despite Kemp’s casual ethnocentrism, found in remarks such as “nomadic and pagan

Eskimos,” his book is an example of what historian Ryan Shackleton calls “Mountie memoirs and recollections” that “demonstrate a clear admiration and affection for Inuit - something uncommon in RCMP-Aboriginal relations generally. Through their exposure to Inuit at the post, on the trail, and in the camps, the RCMP developed a great respect for Inuit resourcefulness, hospitality, and good nature.” What largely facilitated this relationship was the work done by

Inuit guides, called special constables after 1936. These men had a range of critical skills and experience, and were employed as hunters, guides, and translators, responsible for keeping the

Mounties – and the dogs – fed and sheltered while on patrol. Beyond just translating, “a crucial

14 Tester and McNicoll, "A Voice of Presence," 536. 15 Kemp, Without Fear, Favour or Affection , 120-126. 67 function of the special constables was mediating between the cultures. Often the children of special constables grew up around the police post and, when they were old enough, would inherit the job. This meant that the younger generations had lived a life exposed to the peculiarities of the Qallunaat (non-Inuit) mindset.” 16 The wives of many of the special constables were also

often employed as seamstresses to provide the Mounties with Arctic clothing. Stallworthy wrote

to his brother, Bill, about his opinion on Inuit-RCMP relationships; “There is no doubt about it –

the whites could not survive without the Eskimos...Personally, I am stuck on these people. In my

opinion they are a wonderful race. They are very faithful to the white people (thank heavens) as a

matter of fact, all the glory and honour the Mountie have in the North is due, absolutely, to the

Eskimo guides. I have not heard yet of the policeman who could build an igloo or be sure of

getting his arctic clothes or meat.” 17 Generally, Mounties’ memoirs frame the relationship between the RCMP and the special constables and their families as useful and mutually beneficial. Overall, the Mounties usually were grateful for and recognized the importance of

Inuit to their police work.

Some perspectives of the special constables and their families, and other Inuit from their communities, can be found in the QTC report on policing, which found that while relations between the police and Inuit “were promising at the start,” over time, and given the transient nature of government employees sent to the north for one or two terms of service, some relationships were more positive than others. However, many of them were tense due to “an imbalance of power, the lack of a coherent justice system, racism, and poor intercultural

16 Ryan Shackleton, “‘Not Just Givers of Welfare’: The Changing Role of the RCMP in the Baffin Region, 1920- 1970,” Northern Review , no. 36 (Fall 2012): 5, 11. 17 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 68 communications,” and the unpredictability of the behaviour of new arrivals. 18 The study reports that “individual officers may not have been aware that Inuit were unhappy, angry, or confused.

That is because of ilira, the Inukitut term to describe a sense of fear, intimidation, and embarrassment, but in relationships between RCMP and Inuit the feeling of ilira stopped Inuit from speaking out against injustices.” 19 Inuit communities had a system of elders and governance that exercised justice, and Inuit “placed a strong emphasis on self-control, since rash decisions or actions could endanger the entire community. Mechanisms to control and punish all but the most serious of transgressions were psychological in nature, and included gossip, mockery, avoidance, and ostracism...Humility was seen as a positive means of minimizing direct conflict.” 20 This worldview is in direct contrast with that of the Mounties sent to enforce Eurocentric law and order as a means of establishing authority over the land and the people who inhabited it.

The published recollections of other Mounties who patrolled the Arctic provide an

opportunity to compare Stallworthy’s writing style and his choices about how to frame his

experiences to others who also enforced the law and established authority in similar situations. I

Lived With the Eskimos by Sydney R. Montague, published in 1940, has a folksy, chatty voice.

Montague wrote that

no matter what were the narrow escapes, the near-starvation, hardship and loneliness, I would not now give up that six years’ experience I’ve had in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for a million dollars in gold. That sort of thing teaches a fellow what it’s all about, living up North there beyond latitude 60 as I did for three years of my more than six years of Mounted service, with Eskimo natives as my friends; heathen as they are counted, it was they who taught me there is a God, powerful and marvellous. It was up there I learned that just living can be fun. 21

18 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Paliisikkut: Policing in Qikiqtaaluk,” The Qikiqtani Truth Commission: Thematic Reports and Special Studies 1950-1975 (Iqaluit, Nunavut, 2013), 10. 19 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, "Paliisikkut," 11. 20 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, "Paliisikkut," 12. 21 Sydney Robert Montague, I Lived with the Eskimos (London: Jarrolds, 1940), 16. For more information on this topic see Ann Fienup-Riordan, “What’s in a Name? Becoming a Real Person in a Yup’ik Community,” in Strangers to Relatives: The Adoption and Naming of Anthropologists in Native North America , ed. Sergei Kan (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001). 69

In his recounting of being “adopted...as a foster-son” by “Nashula one of the chiefs of the Inuit tribe that had a settlement near the police headquarters on the island known as Port Burwell...the men called me Kad-Lou-Nok, Ee-nook Ka-sak. That means “White man who is almost an

Eskimo,” and I’m very proud of the title.” 22 More work could be done on Mounties who were

given nicknames by Inuit, however, whatever their perspective on Montague, his casual

Eurocentrism frames his experience as a great adventure and places his book among other

flowery, exaggerated memoirs that contributed to the mystique of the Mountie.

Generally, Mountie memoirs seem to either be matter-of-fact and practical, or

deliberately dramatic. William Campbell published his memoir, Arctic Patrols , in 1936, which is an excellent example of a dramatic RCMP narrative, as he focuses on his emotional reactions.

He wrote that when he received his order to Herschel Island, his “heart leaped! I turned hot and then cold – I wanted to yell or whistle or anything...I was promoted – I was no longer a recruit, but a full-fledged Constable of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police!” He continued, “The

Adjutant held out his hand to me and gave mine a firm grip. Then with a salute...and a click of my heels, I strode from the office with firm steps; my spurs tinkling out a merry tune and within my happy heart was a song keeping time to the music of the spurs: Maintien le Droit, Always get your man.” 23 Campbell’s view of the Mounties, and therefore himself, was that they

all were devoted to their duties and carried out their orders to get their man, regardless of the circumstances. I learned that when an order was given to get a certain man that man sooner or later was brought in. Time, distance, dangers, meant nothing. The trail might lead from one end of Canada to the other or even to the ends of the earth, but the chase never ended until the criminal was captured or the mystery solved. Hunger, cold, Arctic gales, or one man pitted against several, could not stop the Scarlet Riders – nothing but death – and death is not feared by those who keep their minds and souls clean and healthy, as well as their bodies. If nothing else can be said about the Royal Canadian

22 Montague, I Lived with the Eskimos , 18. 23 William Campbell, Arctic Patrols: Stories of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1936), 7. 70

Mounted Police, that one thing can and must be recorded, they are clean, physically, mentally, and morally. They are brave, because the clean know no fear. 24

At least for this audience, Campbell presented the patrol as a figurative experience, as it seems unlikely that he was involved in a chase that went literally “to the ends of the earth,” and certainly not all Mounties were fearless paragons of virtue; however, Campbell, at least, wanted his audience to believe they were.

Stallworthy’s fonds, however, differ from published memoirs in that they allow for an analysis of the ways he represented the patrol in different written forms for different audiences.

He eventually wrote dramatically about the patrol, and the various earlier iterations of the patrol in his reports and letters suggest that Stallworthy’s records of the patrol, linked to the perceived civilizing role of the RCMP in the Arctic, constitute different expressions of a larger piece of colonial discourse. A key responsibility of Mounties who went out on patrol was to report on it in a formal, standardized format, sticking to the facts without any elaboration or personal narrative. Patrol reports from 1927 and 28, written by Corporal E. Anstead, from Donegal,

Ireland, while stationed on Ellesmere Island 25 , where Stallworthy would be in the 1930s, have a very similar style and tone to Stallworthy’s patrol reports. A similar reporting style is also found in the patrol report written by Constable R.W. Hamilton, who was with Stallworthy on Ellesmere

Island in the early 1930s. 26 There is a formula for RCMP reports: they are all addressed to “Sir”

who is the “Officer Commanding” at headquarters in Ottawa, and they all begin with “I have the

honour to...” report on whatever the situation. They move chronologically through the events of

the patrol from departing the detachment to return, including weather, terrain, mileage travelled,

24 Campbell, Arctic Patrols, 10. 25 Library and Archives Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police fonds, R196-0-7-E, “G Division” series, volume 3016, subseries “Daily diaries from northern detachments”, file “Reports – Patrols Bache Penn Det.” 26 R.W. Hamilton, “Patrol in Search of German Arctic Expedition from Bache Peninsula to Cornwall Island, Mackinson Inlet and return”, 12 July 1932, Box 2, Folder 5, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 71 hunting conditions, issues with the dogs or their feed, any illnesses or injuries among the human members of the party, and any other humans they may have encountered. The reports are all signed “I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant...”

The first of Stallworthy’s patrol reports in the University of Calgary archives is dated

February 20, 1924, and titled “Patrol to Daly Bay and Cape Fullerton District.” The reports have

a very similar style and tone to Stallworthy’s personal letters, although they are slightly more

formal. However, the similarity suggests that Stallworthy’s writing style is a reliable

representation of his persona as he wished to present it. If there were significant style changes

between the personal letters and the formal reports, it could be suggested that he created a public

persona for himself; however, based on the available archival records, that is not the case, at least

not until later in life, when his published writing did take a turn for the dramatic. This first report

is quite short, and mostly discusses the terrain and the hunting. Stallworthy recorded that they

came upon an encampment of three Inuit families who “were very short of food,” so he “gave

them what little food I could spare, for which I had footwear and mitts made.”27 The next report in the file, dated September 1, 1924, “Patrol to Southampton Island”, reports that it was the first patrol to Southampton ever made by the RCMP, and that

These natives [camping on Southampton Island] are all of the Ivilik Tribe and they are in very good circumstances compared with the natives I have seen on the mainland, I met most of these people at Depot Island in June when they were en route to Chesterfield with furs, they have plenty of resources on Southampton Island, owing to some epidemic, it is said that only two survived, they were taken by Capt. John Murry to Repulse Bay...Since this time there has been a taboo against Southampton Island, but during the last ten years natives have been living there and recently others have gone there on account of the scarcity of game in other parts. 28

27 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrol to Daly Bay and Cape Fullerton District”, 20 February 1924, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 28 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrol to Southampton Island”, 1 September 1924, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. For more on the epidemic, see chapter 7 of Dorothy Eber, When the Whalers Were up North: Inuit Memories from the Eastern Arctic (Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989). 72

Stallworthy does not say much about Inuit taboos in his writing, however, this taboo that made people avoid Southampton Island seems to be a version of quarantine. Historian Lyle Dick writes

“whatever the ideological function of such practices, they seem to have been well designed to curtail the transmission of infectious pathogens in an era of devastating, recurrent epidemics.” 29

On May 1, 1925, Stallworthy wrote a report on a patrol to the Baker Lake District, which

took two months and covered 885 kilometres. Accompanying him were Maria, the interpreter,

and her husband, Parker (a RCMP employee, also called Paaka or Paakajuaq. Stallworthy also

called him Parkay).30 Game was scarce to the point that the dogs had gone hungry for four days

before they were able to kill “some deer” for food, and when they arrived at the HBC post in

Baker Lake, there was no food there either, so they were forced to travel further to get supplies

from a police cache. About the trip itself, Stallworthy wrote “As this country has been patrolled a

number of times in the past I think it hardly necessary to give any detail as to travelling

conditions.” Inuit who he met from further south reported good hunting conditions there, so the

lack of game was not a widespread problem that spring, and there no reports of any epidemics.

He also reported that he

heard a rumour of a tribal murder which is supposed to have taken place somewhere on the Backs River this winter, the only people who knew anything about it were the interpreter’s mother and another native woman named Ko Ko. I asked these women many questions through the interpreter, the information I received was of a very indefinite nature, the Backs River natives had evidently spoken to them of a man being killed which apparently is not uncommon with these primitive people, the natives who came from Backs River were repeating news they heard from other natives in that part of the country...No other natives or white men could give any further information, I thought it advisable to make no further investigation at the time... 31

29 Lyle Dick, Muskox Land: Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001), 92. 30 Webster, “Unrecognized,” 14. 31 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrol from Chesterfield to Baker Lake District”, 1 May 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 73

It was Stallworthy’s responsibility to listen to rumours and decide if they were substantial enough to launch a police investigation into a possible crime. He decided to not pursue it, probably given the distance and resources that would be required to investigate such an unsubstantiated lead, especially given the difficulty they were having in obtaining game on that trip. His formal reports provided information to the government to support their sovereignty work in the Arctic and certified that Stallworthy was faithfully carrying out his responsibilities.

Most of reports’ content detailed the ways RCMP officers had carried out their duties: upholding the law, enforcing game ordinances, issuing permits, reporting on topography, taking census, and helping Inuit in need, as per instructions from the RCMP Commissioner.

In 1934 the RCMP Quarterly published an article by Stallworthy called “Winter Patrols

in the Arctic,” 32 and in 1936, he gave a lecture to a class of senior RCMP recruits in Regina called “Patrols in the Far North.” 33 The lecture is obviously an edited version of the article from

1934, but with a slightly different perspective. The Quarterly was generally aimed at serving and

retired RCMP officers and their families; however, it was not restricted to that audience, whereas

the lecture in 1936 was intended to equip Mounties who might find themselves in the Arctic at

some point in their careers. When he wrote the Quarterly article, Stallworthy would have just

finished his first stint on Ellesmere Island (from 1930 to 1933). In 1934, he went back to

Ellesmere with the Oxford University Expedition, so the lecture in 1936 came from a place of

even more experience and seniority than the article, which is written with great authority, but

with a distant voice, as he only refers directly to himself twice in eight and a half pages. The

article does not romanticize the patrols, and is more reminiscent of an encyclopedia entry than

32 H. W. Stallworthy, “Winter Patrols in the Arctic,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly 2, no. 2 (October 1934): 17–25. 33 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrols in the Far North”, 1936, Box 3, Folder 12, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 74 the flowery prose of some of the other Mounties who wrote about northern service. The article begins by setting out the various duties Mounties were expected to fulfill, and discusses the various conditions (terrain, weather, and hunting) found in different parts of the Arctic.

Stallworthy concludes the article by writing:

The foregoing description of the farthest north patrols may convey the idea that it is all work and no play. While the dangers and difficulties have not been overestimated, I do not wish to leave this impression. There are often days in succession when the man and dogs enjoy long marches with excellent weather and good sleighing conditions through interesting districts where game can be obtained easily. This part of travel in the north compensates for the hard days and our seasoned men do not lose their ambition for the trail, no matter what experiences each succeeding patrol may have in store for them. Official diaries, from which reports are compiled for Headquarters, are always kept on long patrols. Our men in writing these reports are apt to omit the more colourful details of their experiences and reduce their reports to bare statements of fact, which do not always make interesting reading, but they contain the information required. 34

His remarks about the official diaries explain why this project did not analyze any of them.

Diaries kept while on patrol were messy, handwritten notes and limited to extremely brief

remarks about the weather and the distance travelled, often in point form, unlike the official

reports typed up after returning to the detachment, or the longer letters and articles. This means

that the typed reports are already written with some time and distance from the actual events,

whether it was days or months.

The lecture Stallworthy gave in Regina in March 1936 concludes exactly the same way as

the article, and contains many other similarities, but the lecture contains slightly more RCMP

history than the magazine article, and is twenty small pages long. 35 The beginning of the lecture is quite different from the magazine article: Stallworthy states that his goal was to “endeavor to explain in some detail” the work involved in patrolling, particularly in the Yukon and Northwest

Territories. He did not intend “to spend much time on explaining the necessity of these patrols...I

34 Stallworthy, “Winter Patrols in the Arctic,” 25. 35 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrols in the Far North”, 1936, Box 3, Folder 12, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 75 am sure [the purpose] will be quite apparent to this Class, after you have heard Sgt. Wight on the

Administration, Organization, and Duties of the Force in the NWT.” By this time, air travel in the Arctic was becoming more common, a means of transportation that had not been available to

Stallworthy himself, and he commented that he did “not underestimate the importance of travelling by air in the North...we still have to depend on dogs as our chief mode of transportation. It may be of interest to mention here that we have far more dogs in the Force at the present time, than horses, and without dog teams our patrols could not be carried out.” 36 By

contrast, the magazine article does begin with a very short paragraph on some of the reasons for

patrolling. Both manuscripts include the same discussions of bear hunting and the icy terrain and

its dangers, although neither of them make reference to Stallworthy’s own fall into a crevasse

while caught up in the excitement of a bear hunt.

Stallworthy’s letters to his family, understandably, have a different perspective on the patrol. The bulk of Stallworthy’s written record from Chesterfield Inlet is his letter to his brother,

Bill, beginning in the fall of 1923 and written in installments when he had the time and

inclination, since mail usually would only be picked up once per year. Stallworthy’s private

thoughts on Chesterfield were that it was not as important as the “people outside” thought it was,

and that there was little actual police work for him to do. Ostensibly, one of the impetuses for the

Mounties being in the Arctic, questions of sovereignty aside, was to get a handle on the

apparently high rate of murders committed by Inuit. After having been in the Eastern Arctic only

a few months, Stallworthy had developed strong opinions about the situation, and wrote to Bill:

some of these murders are demanded by the nature of the country and the hard conditions. When an Eskimo murders, it’s not a crime in his mind. They are all born to hardship and none of them afraid of death. When one commits a murder, his idea is not to hide the fact. Usually he tells the police about it, if it takes him a year to get there (with

36 Harry Stallworthy, “Patrols in the Far North”, 1936, Box 3, Folder 12, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 76

an idea in the back of his head and heart) “Well this is my way of living my life. It’s too bad if the whites can’t understand our ideas and conditions. Guess the police will kill me – but that’s all right.” They would rather give themselves up than be sought by the police. As for thinking the police could hunt them down that is absolutely impossible because if the “Huskie” had an idea to keep away from the police, he certainly would and could. 37

Not only that, but in an infamous case of Roman Catholic missionaries who were murdered by the Inuit who had been guiding them 38 , Stallworthy believed that

the priests were to blame. [They] had [the Inuit guides] under their influence and ill- treated them for days and tried to force them to make an impossible trip without enough {indecipherable}. They actually had the two Eskimo hauling the sleigh and forced them on at the point of a gun. What else could one expect to be the outcome of a trip of that kind. If the murder had not occurred they would all have perished just because the priests would not turn back....Some real facts...never came out in court, and as for having them tried by a white jury in elaborate courtrooms in Edmonton and Calgary and making them targets of public curiosity that was too much for their minds and limited experience and should never have happened.

Stallworthy also determined, in the privacy of the letter, that while the government was making a public show of force, they did not “seem be anxious to prosecute. The police can’t get the money to get an expedition out. Yet they are willing to keep the police here and an officer’s wife in luxury,” 39 suggesting that the RCMP and the government thought that a show of force plus occupation was enough to enforce their sovereign control over the Arctic.

A large portion of the letter to Bill is taken up with Stallworthy’s relationship with

Nowya (Stallworthy correctly recorded this name meant “seagull”), the Inuit guide with whom

Stallworthy spent the most time working. Stallworthy was a tall man (his WWI enlistment records show that he was 6’2), 40 and he was impressed with Nowya as “a wonderful physical

speciman [sic]” who was nearly as tall as Stallworthy himself. Stallworthy was told by Maria,

37 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 38 See Arctic Justice by Shelagh Grant, pages 40-42, for information on the deaths of Fathers Rouvière and Le Roux, and the high-profile trials of Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, who were found guilty of the murders. 39 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 40 Canadian Expeditionary Force, “STALLWORTHY, HENRY WEBB (2684351).” 77 the interpreter, that Nowya liked him because he was as big and strong as Nowya. Stallworthy certainly thought that the two men had a genuine partnership, and had nothing but praise for

Nowya’s skills and work ethic. As they set off on their first patrol together, Stallworthy wrote to

Bill that “Nowya speaks no English and I speak no Eskimo but, traveling with him, I know I will be able to pick up a working knowledge of this totally strange language.” Stallworthy planned

“to make lots of notes of their weird superstitions and taboos etc. and take extracts from the letters I write and try to compile in an interesting way some authentic articles on the Eskimo life and take it out and see if I can get anything from the press or some magazine.” 41 Clearly, from the beginning of his time in the Arctic, Stallworthy was making a deliberate attempt to record his experience and shape a narrative for a public audience. Even though his brother was a private audience, Stallworthy’s stated intent was to use “extracts from the letters I write,” so he was likely already shaping what he wrote for the public. Later, while stationed at Bache Peninsula, he bought a video camera and film and wrote to Bill that “I shall do very well” if he could get footage for the Educational Film Corp. of “muskox, polar bear and walrus and a bit of Eskimo life.” 42 Producing content for an audience and a side income is a clear interest of Stallworthy’s. It is also clear from earlier correspondence that he found Chesterfield Inlet uninteresting, so his interest in Inuit taboos and language could simply have stemmed from lack of other things to engage with. After the patrol, Stallworthy wrote that “I could not understand Parkay and Nowya, but Nowya could make me understand after a fashion, but I could not talk to him. We got along with a lot of motions and an odd word or two. That is all the talking I did for 5 weeks. That is the

41 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. Stallworthy’s phonetic spellings of Inuktitut words and his usage/explanations of how he understood them have not been edited. 42 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 25 January 1931, Box 2, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 78 only thing I really missed – someone to talk to.” 43 For Stallworthy, so fond of words and writing,

the language barrier seems to have been a bigger drawback to life in the north than any changes

in lifestyle.

After the patrol, Nowya shared with Stallworthy through Maria, the interpreter, that he

had a vision of a spirit one night while they were gone, and that perhaps they had been in some

danger, but Nowya was able to protect them. As well as the letter to Bill, there is one manuscript,

written years later by Stallworthy about Chesterfield Inlet, which discusses this first patrol with

Nowya and an interesting incident that occurred. 44 Despite Stallworthy’s initial desire to “to make lots of notes of their weird superstitions and taboos,” these seem to be his only surviving records on the topic of Inuit spirituality. Whether this was because Nowya’s vision was

Stallworthy’s only encounter with traditional Inuit spirituality, whether he thought none of his potential audiences would find these types of accounts interesting, or because he could not reconcile them with his own Church of England beliefs and lost interest, or because those documents were lost between Chesterfield Inlet and the archives, it is impossible to know for sure. However, analyzed side by side, the two different accounts from the letter and the

Chesterfield manuscript present an interesting case study in applying comparative analysis of archival documents.

The event occurred while on patrol, although Stallworthy did not learn about it until after, when Nowya told Stallworthy through Maria that he had encountered a malevolent spirit, which he referred to as Tornjak in the manuscript and the Devil’s Wife in the letter, one night while

Stallworthy was asleep. Nowya was afraid that the spirit, in the form of a woman, would harm

43 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 4 November 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 44 Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 79 one or both of them, and chanted to keep her away. Stallworthy’s two versions of the incident are quite different. The letter to Bill is casual and light, and does not make an attempt to provide a moral for the story (see appendix 4), while the manuscript leans more toward the flowery prose used by other RCMP writers (see appendix 5), and unlike Stallworthy’s earlier style, he deliberately framed the narrative as an overarching story with a moral, rather than being a stand- alone anecdote. This dramatic language suggests he may have written it much later in life, as he did for the account of falling into the crevasse.

Stallworthy’s manuscript version also changes a problematic implication that he had written to Bill about. In the letter, Stallworthy had speculated that the appearance of the spirit was actually Sergeant Walter Munday’s fault for refusing to allow Nowya to follow certain taboos after his young daughter, Pedloo, had died sometime earlier. The spirit has come for

Nowya because, according to Inuit custom, he was to have abandoned or destroyed the tent in which his daughter died. However, Munday refused to give Nowya credit to buy a new tent, so he was forced to continue using it. Stallworthy wrote quite clearly that Nowya believed that because he did not adhere to the taboo, the evil spirit was coming for him. As far as Nowya was concerned, the only danger to Stallworthy would have been if Nowya had wakened him and asked for help, which he did not. And Stallworthy’s letter is very specific that the events of the night took place “in [Nowya’s] mind,” which he called “absurd.” 45 However, Stallworthy

counters Nowya’s concern for him by saying that he, Stallworthy, had his own “spirits” he could

have called on. From the context of the letter, it is impossible to tell whether Stallworthy was

referring to his own Church of England religious beliefs – perhaps to the Holy Spirit – or

whether he was being facetious. If he was not being facetious, he was certainly being Eurocentric

45 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 4 November 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 80 in referring to Nowya’s spirits as being “absurd” while perhaps thinking his own were more legitimate.

When Stallworthy wrote the manuscript years later, he left out Munday’s involvement entirely, claiming that Nowya had actually destroyed the tent after his daughter’s death, and reframes the incident to be a personal danger to Stallworthy, who editorializes the account much more than he had to Bill, assigning emotions and motives to Nowya that may or may not have been accurate. In the manuscript, he wakes in the night to hear Nowya chanting with “sadness” assuming “Nowya is thinking of his baby.” When Nowya and Maria come to talk to Stallworthy about the incident, Stallworthy writes that Nowya was “sheepishly pushing back the hood of his kooleetah.” In the manuscript, unlike the letter, Stallworthy doesn’t laugh, and after Maria had left, the two of them sat smoking for a while, and Stallworthy speculated about what Nowya might be thinking.

He still smiled, but beneath the smile there was a question in his eyes. I knew there was no way that we could go further into the subject because of our different beliefs, and the difficulty of the language...I felt too, that Nowya’s spirit world was beginning to crumble a bit at the edges. He knew that I didn’t subscribe to the reality of his queer characters, and because he liked me, a little judicious prodding on my part might have been the end of Tornjak and all her kind. However, that was a problem for the Missionaries...[as he was leaving] with deliberate emphasis he said, ‘Manna namuktoo okshoot. Ah mi, Tornjak naga.’ (Now all is good. Maybe no Tornjack.) This was quite a concession on his part. Perhaps he was asking himself whether she really did exist.

Stallworthy wrote in the manuscript that Nowya showed him “a way of life that would lead me further and further into the Eastern Arctic and into a more intimate and sympathetic knowledge of its people.” 46 Clearly Stallworthy believed, or wanted his reader to believe, that he had an intimate and sympathetic relationship with Nowya that gave him knowledge of Nowya’s inner thoughts despite the language barrier. Nowya certainly influenced Stallworthy’s life, and

46 Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 81

Stallworthy hoped to have influenced his by making it less dependent on what he thought were

“queer” and unnecessary taboos.

In Stallworthy’s manuscript, he acknowledged that the three-way conversation between

Maria, Nowya, and himself lagged due to the “long rigmarole of interpreting,” however, the manuscript does record an entire conversation – paragraphs of it – with extensive dialogue in quotation marks. Stallworthy wrote that “Nowya told me, ‘Now we have travelled through the blizzards together. We have talked in a silent voice to each other all this time. I feel you are a brother to me. I can tell you something which has troubled me.’” From all accounts, Maria was a reliable translator, however, this dialogue was not in Stallworthy’s letter to Bill, and even if it were written just a short time later, it seems unlikely that Stallworthy would have remembered it word-for-word months or even decades later. In this manuscript version, Nowya is afraid for

Stallworthy, not himself:

‘She wanted you. She was after you – not me. She wanted to put you in her hood and take you away with her – down under the sea ice. This was why I was afraid. I had to protect you from this evil thing.’ I was surprised at his explanation, and put it down to the fact that he was overly filled with his sense of responsibility for my safety. His mind was troubled with his primitive superstitions...Possibly he had a dream which had wakened him with a sense of fear. 47

No longer is Nowya afraid of the evil spirit on his own behalf, after being pressured by Munday into breaking the taboo about continuing to live in a tent where someone died; now his fear is entirely for Stallworthy, although the manuscript never speculates on what Stallworthy might have done to draw the anger of the spirit, and Stallworthy speculates that perhaps Nowya’s fear came from feeling a burden of responsibility for Stallworthy’s safety, further centering the incident around Stallworthy himself.

47 Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 82

It is important to note that the manuscript has a section that was typed up but then crossed

out at some point in the editing process:

It had been a tremendous blow to him, but he knew if he made all the sacrifices necessary and obeyed all the taboos imposed upon him by the oldest woman in the settlement (and incidentally the greatest challenge to the missionaries) that his life would be happy in the future. 48

It is unclear if the “tremendous blow” was the loss of his daughter alone, or if it was also the

extensive hunting-related taboos he had to follow as a result of it, but this issue of obeying the

taboos is important, and with this line being edited out, the ending of the story makes much less

sense. As well, without the information about Munday’s involvement and a discussion of which

taboo Nowya had broken, the whole overarching structure of the manuscript’s narrative falls

apart, and it becomes a simple travel narrative when it had the potential to be something much

more profound.

The manuscript concludes with an anecdote from the spring, when Nowya, his wife,

Manni, and Stallworthy were on a trip. They spent the night in an igloo, and,

Early the next morning, I was rudely awakened. Nowya was shaking me furiously and laughing in great excitement. He shouted, “Huskie tikkiput.” (A boy has arrived.)...Although I had slept in the same igloo, I couldn’t have been more surprised. For all the fuss there had been, the baby might have been brought into the igloo by Old Lady Tornjak herself. I have never seen such joy over the arrival of a baby...Both Nowya and Manni were like people released from a spell...the end of their taboos and the end of the power of the evil spirit in their lives...The spirit of their dead baby had come back to them in the form of a boy so much better than a girl...As I looked on at the little drama, through the eyes of civilization, I thought how difficult it would be to convert these two happy people to any belief which did not offer such rich rewards as this gift from their Good Spirits. 49

Without the context of the taboo of the tent, this episode is disconnected from the larger incident of the RCMP, represented by Munday, preventing an Inuit employee from adhering to his

48 Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 49 Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 83 religious beliefs, perhaps causing him emotional trauma to the point where he believed that he would be carried away by an evil spirit. In the span of time between when Stallworthy wrote to

Bill about the taboos and when he wrote the article intended for publication, he self-edited the incident to the point where it was no longer a coherent account in what could have been a statement about the impact of the RMCP on Inuit lives. Instead, it became a travel narrative centered upon a European observer of Inuit taboos, whose worldview was framed by his mandate to bring civilization and Canadian sovereignty to the Arctic.

Comparing different versions of Mounties’ records brings clarity to the hyperbole and shining mythic image of the Mountie on patrol, cheerful in his red serge while chasing down dangerous criminals and warding off wild animals. Stallworthy’s records make it clear that he almost never wore serge while in the Arctic, and the closest he came to peril from a wild animal was falling into a crevasse while chasing one. In his view, the so-called criminals the Mounties were sent to bring to justice were people doing the best they could in difficult situations that were forced upon them. He also expressed doubt at the value gained by establishing expensive police posts. However, as Stallworthy reframed his narratives for a public audience, he ultimately directed attention to himself as a symbol of authority. His significant reframing of

Nowya’s beliefs and actions, and his suggestion that he himself was helping civilize Nowya’s beliefs by questioning their creditably, places his narratives into a larger conversation about the colonization and effective occupation of the Arctic, and its effect on Inuit communities.

Chapter 3: The Oxford University Expedition to Ellesmere Island

As demonstrated in the previous chapter, Stallworthy produced a variety of private and official discourses representing various expressions of police service that contributed to

Canadian sovereignty and northern colonialism. After his experience at Chesterfield Inlet,

Stallworthy’s career and status were elevated as a result of his next assignment, to Ellesmere

Island. As the senior officer in charge of patrolling Ellesmere, he experienced new challenges and gained experience in exploration, an important facet of establishing sovereignty and colonialism. He became known as an authority on Arctic travel, which positioned him then to be appointed to accompany the Oxford University Expedition to Ellesmere Island in 1934-35. It was also another opportunity for him to produce written work on his experiences as a Mountie in the

Arctic. This chapter discusses a variety of sources produced for different audiences, and demonstrates that certain aspects of the expedition were framed quite differently for public consumption than they were in Stallworthy’s official reports.

Stallworthy served on the expedition as a law enforcement official, an expert on Arctic travel, and as the Canadian government’s representative to this British team of explorers. As the designated representative of the Canadian government, his word was literally law, and as the most experienced Arctic traveler in the group, the party of younger men looked to him as the expert who would help keep them alive. While they were experienced travellers and used to rough conditions, they were only used to warmer climates. Three of Stallworthy’s records will be analyzed here: a public account for the RCMP Quarterly (both the published version 1 and a final

draft 2), and the most detailed primary source for the Oxford narrative; the draft copy of

Stallworthy’s official report to the RCMP. It is sixty-three typed pages, with some edits in pencil

1 H.W. Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly 3, no. 3 (January 1936). 2 Harry Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition,” N.D., Box 3, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 85 that seem to be from the time of writing, rather than Hilda’s edits after Stallworthy died. 3 There is one short letter to his new wife, Hilda; however, the only copy of this is in her distinctive handwriting from shortly after Stallworthy’s death, copied from somewhere else, so it is likely that she edited it as she did his other works. There is also one short letter to Bill and one short official report to the RCMP commissioner, both from the very early days of the expedition.

Unfortunately, Stallworthy does not appear to have written or saved a diary-style letter for Bill on this trip.

The official report provided the basis for Stallworthy’s article in the RCMP Quarterly , which presented the RCMP’s public discourse on the expedition. However, Stallworthy was instructed by the RCMP Commissioner to work with several other officers to provide only

“information as is not controversial” to the public. 4 Thus, there are two distinct versions of

Stallworthy’s reporting on the Oxford Expedition; one edited for the public and one for the

RCMP. However, he was not the only member of the expedition to frame his narrative for publication, as published accounts by most of the other members are also available, and can be compared to analyze Stallworthy’s narrative of exploration and sovereignty.

The Bache Peninsula detachment on Ellesmere Island was a critical location from which to demonstrate Canadian sovereignty in the high Arctic by patrolling the coastline nearest to

Greenland. During his posting to Ellesmere from 1930 to 1933, Stallworthy’s detachment at

Bache Peninsula was to have been resupplied by ship and moved south on the island, back to the old post at Craig Harbour, during the summer of 1932, as coastal access was easier at Craig than

3 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 4 J.H. MacBrien, RCMP Commissioner, to The Officer Commanding G Division, 30 November 1935, Box 4, Folder 1, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 86

Bache.5 However, due to the ice conditions, no ships were able to reach them, and he and his colleagues, Constable Robert Hamilton and Constable Arthur Monro, were forced to spend a year living on scant rations, facing near-starvation. For this ordeal, they were nominated for the

King’s Police Medal. Stallworthy’s annual report for that year concludes, “There have been no untoward occurrences to report for the past year, the non arrival of the supply ship was naturally disappointing but not entirely unexpected,” 6 which is an understatement, given that the

nomination memo from the RCMP commissioner stated “during the three years Corporal

Stallworthy was at Bache Peninsula, his only actual contact with the outside world was in

1931...On being relieved in September, 1933, these men made no complaints and little mention

of the discomforts they had suffered.” 7 This experience of being cut off from loved ones, being even more isolated than he had felt at Chesterfield Inlet, and nearly starving gave him valuable

Arctic experience and a level of prestige in the RCMP that opened other opportunities for him.

While Stallworthy’s intention was to try to publish his writings about the Arctic in the press in order to earn a side income from them, as stated in his letter to Bill from Chesterfield, 8

the nomination for the medal, his patrol article in the RCMP Quarterly , and his lecture to the

class in Regina about patrolling demonstrate that he was positioned as an expert on Arctic

patrols. It was this reputation for leadership and for surviving a lengthy period on Ellesmere that

led to the RCMP asking him to accompany the Oxford University Expedition to Ellesmere Island

in 1934. Stallworthy was hesitant to do so, as he was planning on getting married, but despite his

5 Grant, Polar Imperative , 236. 6 Harry Stallworthy, Annual Report – Bache Peninsula and Craig Harbour Detachments, 12 August 1935, Box 2, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 7 J.H. MacBrien, RCMP Commissioner, to The Under Secretary of State, 8 November 1933, Box 4, Folder 1, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 8 Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 October 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 87 clear reluctance to embark for the Arctic again so soon after being reunited with his fiancée, as demonstrated in a letter to her, Stallworthy just as clearly had been bitten by the Arctic bug and was eager for one last trip. 9 It did not take long for him to throw himself into the planning for the

Oxford expedition. Stallworthy had met Hilda while stationed in Jasper, during the post-

Chesterfield Inlet period, and they corresponded as best they could while he was stationed on

Ellesmere. They were married shortly after he returned from that post, during the Oxford

planning, and she stayed with his mother in England while he was accompanying the expedition.

The trip was spearheaded by Edward Shackleton (son of the famous Antarctic explorer

Sir Ernest Shackleton), who led the Oxford University Exploration Club, made of scholars and

scientists from different disciplines. The party consisted of Dr. Noel Humphreys (a medical

doctor who was also a surveyor and botanist, as well as the head of the expedition), Shackleton

(surveyor), Robert Bentham (geologist), A.W. Moore (photographer and biologist), and David

Haig-Thomas (ornithologist). After Stallworthy’s death, Shackleton wrote a tribute to the RCMP

Quarterly in which he said: “I could tell many anecdotes of Harry Stallworthy and of his

contribution to the Expedition. The fact that we achieved anything at all and indeed survived,

owed so much to this remarkable Polar man. He taught us Eskimo; he taught us to drive dogs; he

taught us everything about Arctic living, including how to make sour dough hot cakes - and I

remember him with affection and admiration.” 10

The situation on Ellesmere Island was different from the Hudson Bay region, as it is

much closer to Greenland than to Ottawa, and was the traditional hunting territory of the

Inughuit, people indigenous to Greenland. The Inughuit were also well known as guides for

9 Harry Stallworthy to Hilda Austin, 1933, Box 2, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. The letter is in Hilda’s handwriting, suggesting it is an edited copy of the original. 10 Shackleton, “In Tribute: Sergeant Major Henry Webb Stallworthy.” 88 hunters and explorers – and Mounties – who wished to survive their time on Ellesmere.

According to historian Lyle Dick, the origins of the RCMP hiring Inughuit guides dates back to

Robert E. Peary’s expeditions of the late 1800 and early 1900s, when Peary began the practice.

Once known as “Polar Eskimos” or “Greenland Eskimos,” Inughuit share a common ancestor with Inuit; the people archaeologist call Thule, who migrated to Greenland from Alaska between

900 and 1200. Peary had set a new standard for Inughuit involvement in polar expeditions: unlike previous explorers who had hired only men and taken them away from their communities for extended periods of time, Peary, who had observed how vital Inughuit women were to life in the Arctic, hired entire families and moved them from Greenland to Ellesmere to work on his expedition. Similar to many other colonial situations, “the Inughuit economy shifted from one of indigenous self-sufficiency to production for an external market, as extensive employment of

Inughuit transformed their labor into a commodity of trade.” The exchanges Inughuit had with explorers acquainted them “with hunting grounds of the Arctic Archipelago,” which, as can be seen from archeological sites, had been uninhabited for some time. After the era of Cook and

Peary, Inughuit continued to hunt on Ellesmere, as it was rich in animal resources such as polar bear and muskoxen. 11

Game laws implemented by the Canadian government in 1917, which included Ellesmere

Island and particularly affected the search for muskoxen there, were the biggest source of conflict for the Mounties in the Arctic. According to the Qikiqtani Truth Commission, which investigated the impact of these laws on Inuit, they “caused hardship...and were a consistent point of friction between Inuit and RCMP for several reasons. The RCMP were required to work with other government agencies to enforce the laws, specifically the Northwest Game Act (1917)

11 Lyle Dick, “Aboriginal-European Relations During the Great Age of North Polar Exploration,” Polar Geography 26, no. 1 (January 1, 2002): 66–86. 89 and the Migratory Bird Protection Act (1932). The rules, especially as they applied to Inuit, made almost no sense in the Arctic context. The regulations were based on best guesses as much as on scientific fact.” 12 Mounties were also expected to keep the laws themselves, as well as

enforce them on any Europeans who travelled in the Arctic. It seems that, at least for the

Mounties on the ground, European explorers and their illegal hunting was a far larger concern

than the hunting practices of Inuit or Inughuit. However, Stallworthy risked his own life and the

lives of Inuit and dogs traveling with him on at least one occasion, and in the face of their

opposition to his decision, he upheld the law regarding hunting muskoxen rather than break it

until they were very near starvation (despite the law having a clause for such circumstances).

This suggests that, at least in writing, he regarded the law as worth upholding even in a dire

situation. The origins of the ban on hunting muskoxen can be found in the traders who would

encourage Inuit to hunt them for their pelts, leading to a higher level of slaughter and waste than

was traditional for Inuit hunting practices. Historian William Morrison points out that after “the

new Northwest Game Act of 1917...musk-oxen were protected completely by law; after that year

they could be shot only for scientific purposes, by special licence...There was one group of

hunters who did not, however, come under Canadian control. These were Inuit from the

northwest coast of Greenland, around Thule, who regularly crossed Smith Sound to hunt muskox

on central Ellesmere Island, which was in 1920 quite outside the sphere of effective Canadian

control.” 13 This issue of sovereignty and enforcing the legislation was what led to Stallworthy being sent there to oversee the Bache Peninsula detachment in the early 1930s.

Hunting animals for food is vital to survival in the Arctic, especially to feed sled dogs.

Hunting became an even larger source of pressure for the Mounties stationed on Ellesmere

12 Qikiqtani Inuit Association, “Paliisikkut,” 21-22. 13 William R. Morrison, Showing the Flag: The Mounted Police and Canadian Sovereignty in the North, 1894-1925 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1985), 162. 90

Island. They were sworn to enforce and uphold game laws protecting an endangered species, muskoxen, however, food resources on Ellesmere were limited. In Back from the Brink , William

Barr speculates that the Canadian government’s treatment of muskoxen in the 20 th century was

“interwoven” with sovereignty concerns, and that “it was almost as if the continued existence of

free-roaming herds of muskoxen in the Canadian Arctic became a symbol of Canada’s

sovereignty in the Arctic in the minds of certain administrators and politicians.” 14 In 1917, access to muskoxen in Canada’s Arctic was controlled by the government over fears for their decreased numbers, however, in 1932, while searching for the missing Krüger Expedition, led by German geologist Hans Krüger,15 Stallworthy and Constable Hamilton were forced to kill sixteen

muskoxen between them, out of more than 300 they counted, for lack of other game. 16 This was a situation that had been ongoing as long as there had been an RCMP presence on Ellesmere, as the scarcity of game inevitably led to emergency situations in which it was necessary to kill muskoxen or starve. Historian Lyle Dick states that hunting to provide meat for the dogs and personnel was “the major preoccupation for the Ellesmere detachments,” 17 and later it also became a major preoccupation for the Oxford Expedition. Stallworthy’s attitude toward hunting muskoxen was much more strict than that of the first Mounties who were sent there in the early

1920s; whether it was because of changing perceptions and application of policies or whether it was because of Stallworthy’s own moral code it is hard to determine.

Herbert Patrick Lee, who, in July 1922, was one of the first nine Mounties ever sent to

Ellesmere, indicated in his memoir that their detachment did hunt muskoxen from time to time;

14 William Barr, Back from the Brink: The Road to Muskox Conservation in the Northwest Territories , Komatik Series ; No. 3 (Calgary: Arctic Institute of North America, 1991), 84. 15 For further detail on the search for Krüger, see Barr’s biography of Stallworthy, in which he devotes a whole chapter to subject. 16 Barr, Back from the Brink , 82. 17 Lyle Dick, Muskox Land: Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001), 294. 91 not every time they were seen, but only when the Mounties were in need. His first impression of

Ellesmere was “something of a shock...Looking at the solid ice-cap which seemed to cover the whole interior we wondered if there could be a single spot in all its 76,000 square miles which could grow a blade of grass or be fit for human habitation. Of living creature there was absolutely no sign.” 18 The hunting was bad for the entire first fall, and the Mounties “determined

to get fresh meat by hook or by crook even if it were only seal meat. The prospect of a long

sunless winter without fresh meat or vegetables was appalling, and we were anxiously looking

forward to the time when we could travel westwards to search the valleys for caribou or musk-

oxen.” 19 Seal meat is the staple of most traditional Inuit diets, however, for most Mounties, it

was not as appealing as muskoxen meat that resembled the beef at home. And seal was not

always easily available; in late February and early March they were able to obtain a couple of

bears, but that was all. When Kakto [the Inuit guide from Pond Inlet 20 ] went hunting by himself

in early April, he got caught in a blizzard and nearly died. 21 By the end of April, the stormy weather was finally letting up, and a hunting party set out, but another blizzard set in. Lee reported that “the following day the hunters returned, nearly frozen...They had found a herd of musk-oxen and had succeeded in shooting four animals.” 22 Their verdict was that “the meat turned out to be excellent, in every respect similar to cow’s meat of civilization, and we determined to lay in a good supply before winter came again, to make hunting impossible.” The hunting did improve when summer finally came, and when Lee had the opportunity to hunt muskoxen himself, they found a small herd of five, and

18 Herbert Patrick Lee, Policing the Top of the World (London: John Lane, 1928), 28. 19 Lee, Policing , 50. 20 Peter Schledermann, “The Muskox Patrol: High Arctic Sovereignty Revisited,” Arctic , 2003, 101–106, 103. 21 Lee, Policing , 74. 22 Lee, Policing , 78. 92

as they smelled us the musk-oxen ran off up a steep ravine which led inland. Fearing to lose them in the mountains, I told Panik-pa to cut loose Ipuksae [one of the sled dogs]. In a flash she was off, and in five minutes had rounded up the herd, backing them to the edge of a small plateau...There was a big bull, an old cow, two smaller bulls, and a young cow about three years old. As we approached we could see how the herd had formed into a ring. Now and then one of the bulls would charge with lowered horns towards the barking Ipuksae, only to return to his place in the defensive circle. We shot them in a few minutes. 23

Mounties’ accounts of hunting polar bears are usually full of suspense and a certain amount of danger, and seal and walrus hunting also had an element of risk, but none of that is present in this muskoxen hunt. The dog, Ipuksae, only used to corral the animals, and the situation seems more like slaughter of cattle than hunting. Lee’s account makes it quite clear that from the perspective of hungry Mounties, in order for Canada to establish sovereignty over Ellesmere Island, it would be necessary to kill the very animals they were legislated to protect. Stallworthy was once again caught in this situation when he returned to Ellesmere with the Oxford Expedition.

To accompany the expedition, Stallworthy enlisted several experienced Inughuit guides and their families, including Nukappiannguaq (also spelled Nookapingwa or Nukapingwa, and called Noocap), who had pulled Stallworthy out of the crevasse on his earlier trip to Ellesmere.

Historian Lyle Dick claims that

Nukappiannguaq 24 was probably the most famous special constable at the Ellesmere Island detachments. He was the most experienced High Arctic traveller of his day, and reputed to be ‘the best hunter in north Greenland.’...No other Aboriginal constable was as knowledgeable of the lands and seas of the High Arctic in his own era or since, or served so long with the Mounties at Ellesmere Island posts. For his exploits with the Force, he has been lionized in Mountie folklore...he served the Mounties in almost every year until the Craig Harbour detachment was closed in 1940. 25

RCMP Inspector A.H. Joy, who had, in the mid-1920s, patrolled with Nukappiannguaq’s

assistance, expressed his “appreciation of the splendid assistance rendered by

23 Lee, Policing , 184-185. 24 Dick’s spelling of this name is based on what he believes to be the most official orthography. 25 Lyle Dick, Muskox Land: Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001), 290-291. 93

Nookapeeungwak...He is an Eskimo from North Greenland, and bears the reputation of being one of the best hunters in that district. I found him on this journey to be all that is said of him, and in addition to being a first-class hunter, he is a capable and energetic traveller.” 26

Nukappiannguaq has more geographic features named after him than Stallworthy, including

Nookap Island, Mount Nukap, the Nukap Glacier, the Nukapingwa Glacier, and the Nukapingwa

River. 27 While the records of the expedition acknowledge that all of the “Eskimos” were

invaluable to the success of the party, Nukappiannguaq was clearly something of a celebrity, as

more information remains available about him than any of the others.

Stallworthy’s official report about the expedition appears to be transparent in its

description of the people, and the tensions, that made up the party. Originally the plan had been

for the group to travel from England to Ellesmere in the summer of 1934, and begin exploration

after establishing a base camp on the coast closest to Greenland. However, the weather and ice

conditions forced the party to establish camp in Greenland, and Stallworthy believed that “the

Expedition’s scientific reports may not be as interesting to the department concerned as they

might have been,” given that they would not be able to explore as much Canadian territory as

they had planned. However, he still managed to find over sixty pages of information to write

about, from arranging supplies to the details of days spent fishing on Ellesmere. He consulted on

most of the expedition’s supplies before they left England, and noted the difficulty in finding

small boats, and of the two they were able to find, they were only able to take one due to having

“considerably more cargo than the ship was capable of carrying.” 28

26 Dick, Muskox Land , 299. 27 C.R. Harington, “Nookapingwa (1893-1956),” ARCTIC 42, no. 2 (1989). 28 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 94

They sailed from London on the evening of July 17, 1934, and arrived at Godhavn 29 , on

Disko Island, just off the coast of Greenland, on August 5. There they met the Danish Colonial

Governor of Greenland, and acquired more supplies, including building materials for the

expedition house and “sealskin footwear (komiks) had been made for us by the Eskimos through

arrangements by wireless with the Governor.” Here Stallworthy also selected fifty sled dogs

from the 200 on offer, and they sailed on to the next port, Jakobshavn, 30 where they purchased

another twenty-one dogs, as well as some other supplies, including a dory to replace the boat

they had been forced to leave behind. They wound up their errands at Robertson Bay, near Etah,

which was “the northern-most Eskimo settlement in the world.” While there, “Dr. Humphreys

requested me to attend to the matter of employing Eskimos,” and Stallworthy

discussed the plans regarding the sledge journeys, the hunting, and other matters with the head man, Enu, and several other Eskimos I knew, including one of their council men. A number of them were willing to join the expedition, and after some wireless communications with Mr. Sand 31 , who was then at Thule, he approved of Nookapinguaq and Inuatuk accompanying us, under certain conditions regarding their pay, Insurance, the time of their return, and other matters. Both of these men were well known to me; Nookapinguaq having served with the police for 8 years and Inutuk had made a 900 mile sledge journey with us in 1931. 32

After leaving Greenland, the ship headed north and tried to cross the strait to their destination on Ellesmere Island, where they intended to set up a base of operations. However, the ice made it impossible, and after a couple of days of trying, the captain “informed the expedition that it was futile, under the present conditions to attempt to force a passage further North. This caused a difference of opinion between the crew and some members of the expedition. Captain

With refused to discuss the matter with Dr. Humphreys as the charter had been arranged and

29 Godhavn is now known as Qeqertarsuaq. 30 Jakobshavn is now known as Ilulissat. 31 Rudolf Sand, the Danish administrator of Thule station. Jens Brosted, “Danish Accession to the Thule District, 1937,” Nordic Journal of International Law 57, no. 3 (1988): 259–65. 32 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 95 signed by the ship’s owner and Shackleton.” Because the charter for the ship was to expire on

August 20, they were under significant time constraints. Stallworthy, when consulted on the issue, “agreed with the Captain that, for the present, it would be an unnecessarily dangerous proceeding to try to force a passage,” so they set up camp at Etah, Greenland, instead of on

Ellesmere in Canadian territory. They moved their tons of equipment and supplies “from ship to shore in the ship’s one lifeboat, assisted by the Expedition’s motor boat,” and while Humphreys still harboured some hopes of getting further north, as he asked Stallworthy and the Inughuit about moving the supplies via boat, the logistics of moving sixty to seventy tons of supplies via a small boat made the idea too impractical. 33

The first order of business was to set up facilities for cooking and dining, and Stallworthy

“was in charge of building the house, at which work I was employed most of the time until the end of September. For the actual building site we utilized the foundation made by the McMillan

[sic] Expedition. None of the other members of the Expedition had had any experience in carpentry or cooking. I was ably assisted in the work of building by Bentham, who was a practical man and a diligent worker.” Also during September, Stallworthy, Bentham, Haig-

Thomas, and Nukappiannguaq made a boat trip to establish a supply cache, intending to go to

Cape Calhoun, just north of the Humboldt Glacier, however, the ice pack was extensive and they were only able to go as far as Cairn Point, where they cached the supplies with the hope of being able to move them further another time. Stallworthy reported that when Humphreys was informed by Haig-Thomas about how the trip had gone,

the doctor was given the impression that Nookapinguaq and I were not keen enough and were afraid to take any chances. There then followed some long discussions in which some most extraordinary plans and theories were advanced in regard to getting more

33 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 96

pemmican north. As far as possible, Bentham and I avoided these discussions and carried on with the work of building the house, being assisted occasionally by the Eskimos. There were 5 other trips made to the North, of from one to six days duration. On one occasion the doctor, Bentham and Moore and Thomas left with a small load of pemmican, and in order to save weight did not take a primus lamp, sleeping bag or a grub box for the trip. On this, as on other occasions, the boat was left too low on the beach, and was filled by the incoming tide, resulting in the loss of a rudder and two oars, which floated away; also putting the magneto out of commission. The party walked back the following day. They were tired and thirsty having found no fresh water. 34

A primus lamp was vital for cooking and heating. They also did not take food or water or bedding, and were lucky to have made it back to camp at all. Stallworthy does not say anything about how he felt about being accused of “not being keen enough” and being “afraid to take any chances,” however, he would not have been able to survive life in the Arctic for as long or as successfully as he did without knowing when to take chances. He also did not comment on the foolhardiness of a party setting out so poorly-equipped, however, perhaps they learned their lesson from the consequences of their actions, their only boat now having a broken motor and no oars, seriously hampering their ability to travel. But then again, perhaps not, as another, more serious incident occurred when the cache team had trouble with the backup motor and became stranded on an ice floe and “drifted south for about twenty-four hours...it was indeed fortunate that an on-shore wind blew up, breaking up the new ice and making it possible for them to reach the shore.” Now the expedition did not have a working boat motor, and the next cache trip had to be “accomplished by rowing and the aid of an improvised sail.” 35

An even more important form of transportation than their boat were seventy sled dogs, cached on an island in the fiord. Stallworthy reported that the Inughuit guides “had made

34 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 35 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 97 requests through me that they should hunt walrus and take fresh meat to the island for the dogs, and make caches on the island at the mouth of the fiord,” however,

on several occasions when the dogs should have been fed there were no boats available to take the feed to the island. I made a number of friendly suggestions to the doctor with regard to the hunting, feeding the dogs, and general preparations for the winter, on which he always had the negative views as well. On every occasion he was polite and outwardly agreeable, but he invariably did the opposite, usually under the influence of Thomas, [here a line of text is aggressively crossed out: ‘and to the disapproval of the others’] whom he had previously placed in charge of the boats and hunting. This procedure on the part of the leader met with the general disapproval...Some of the most incredible plans were formulated by Thomas, one being that he, Moore, and Inuatuk...would take the two motor boats, loaded with supplies to Cape Calhound, which was over a hundred miles north of the pemmican cache at Cairn Point, where they were remain to kill and cache walruses (although the Eskimos had informed us that walrus did not frequent that vicinity) until the boats ‘froze in’ and then walk back to Etah in October... Inuatuk told me that he would refuse to accompany the party. Nookapinguaq had already refused to accompany them on these dangerous and unnecessary trips. The attempt, however, did not materialize, as was the case with other plans equally impractical. 36

It is clear that the tension between Stallworthy’s experience and Humphrey’s desire to do things his own way caused a significant amount of friction and delay in planning and actually getting on with the work of the expedition. For the Inughuit guides to refuse to go along with these plans undoubtedly means that the plans were foolhardy and dangerous. Given the concept of ilira, that they refused to Stallworthy might mean that they either trusted and respected him, or that they were afraid enough for their lives to speak up, or perhaps that they were simply siding with the person they believed to be the most powerful authority figure in the group.

When the party finally retrieved the dogs from the island on October 10, they discovered bones of dogs, and could tell that four or five of them had been killed and eaten by the others.

Seventeen were missing. This was because the

water supply had been adequate, but they had not been given enough feed. Without a large quantity of feed, it is difficult to make a fair division between so many loose dogs.

36 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 98

Some of them were in fair condition, but others were wretchedly thin...Four other dogs were in such poor condition through starvation that they were destroyed on the advice of the natives and myself, as there was no surplus of feed with which to fatten them at this time of the year. Three more which had become quite wild and unmanageable had to be shot. 37

This was only the beginning of the issues with the health and feeding of the dogs, without which the expedition had no chance of accomplishing their goals, and they had clearly been neglected.

The loss of two dozen dogs through lack of adequate attention was a severe blow to the expedition’s mobility, and could easily have been avoided.

For Stallworthy, it was a long winter, “the most inactive I have spent in the north...Bentham and I went out occasionally to build snow igloos, a useful pastime, which did not seem to appeal to the others. It might be interesting to note that Bentham, although the youngest man on the Expedition mastered the art of building an igloo and killing a seal, which, to my mind is quite an accomplishment in his first year in the Arctic.” Stallworthy always wrote well of Bentham, and seemed to respect him, Moore, and Shackleton the most. Humphreys and

Haig-Thomas, on the other hand, were much more difficult. By the end of February, as the light was returning, the expedition was joined by several more Inughuit families and their dog teams, and by this point, “the original plans of the Expedition had now been entirely changed; it was quite apparent to me that Thomas was asserting himself as leader, and seemed to have the doctor under his influence. He had discussed various plans with the Eskimos, and having practically no knowledge of their language, they did not know what to make of the whole affair.” Humphreys’ plan for exploring Ellesmere was for a large party of sixteen people to travel together along the

Grinnell Land icecap. Stallworthy wrote that “without any experience of Arctic travel, and after a glance at the map, one might conclude that such plans are well founded and suitable...However,

37 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 99 the Eskimos were adverse to a large party travelling this route. Their chief concern was the question of dog-feed.” Further, his arrangement of rations gave “comparatively little thought...to dog rations, as the quantity of pemmican available for the journey would give the dogs a much shorter range than the men...the doctor, Shackleton and Thomas had shown but little interest and no aptitude for driving the dogs, and handling sledges, yet these plans meant that, after sending the support party back, we should have loads of about 900 lbs...It seemed now, that all the members and the Eskimos had lost confidence in the doctor as a leader, and that, if the expedition was to be a success, the plans would have to be changed.” So, after “a good many discussions...any new plans would be held in abeyance until after making a sledge journey to advance supplies one day north which...would serve as a ‘try-out’ for the inexperienced men.” 38

None of this is alluded to at all in Humphreys’ relatively short statement about logistics of dog teams, found in his report published in The Geographical Journal . Humphreys did not seem have a good attitude about working with Inughuit; his report on the expedition is full of comments like

“The Eskimo agreed to this but insisted on first returning to Bache Station in order to dry their clothes,” or “The Eskimo would not now attempt the crossing,” and “The natives now wanted to rest the dogs.” 39 His tone and the frequency of the complaints suggest that he felt they were being unreasonable, however, an experienced northern traveller would have known that freezing to death or working one’s dog team to death would be very poor choices to make.

Stallworthy’s report indicated that the test run was a valuable learning experience, as “the doctor and Shackleton had a good deal of trouble in getting along with their load, and had carried their load piecemeal over places which were bare of snow....Shackleton was willing to have an

38 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 39 Noel Humphreys, “Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition,” The Geographical Journal 87, no. 5 (1936): 385–410, 402-403. 100

Eskimo for his sledge partner, but this was not the case with the doctor, although it was well known to the other members that he was not physically fit for the work of handling heavy sledges.” 40 The trial “proved to be quite an experience, and in fact a disappointment, for some of the members, chiefly because they had over-estimated the capabilities of the dogs and the weight which could be carried on the sledges.” The issues with the feeding of the dogs continued, as the pemmicanthey had bought for human consumption proved to be too salty to be edible (and was eventually returned to the manufacturer), and the pemmican for the dogs contained ingredients that gave them chronic diarrhea. 41 Most of the dogs were out of shape thanks to the severe winter winds, the fact that not many sledge journeys had been made during the winter and the lack of food on the island, complicated by an ongoing issue with finding walrus to hunt for feed. Thus, because of the conditions of the dogs and the lessons learned from the test run,

a complete and final change of the sledging plans then took place...as one of my duties concerned the welfare of the inexperienced men on the Expedition, I would not travel with a detached party, unless the other party or parties had Eskimos with them. After some long, but not unfriendly discussions the following decision was arrived at: that there should be three parties, consisting of Moore and myself [with Nukappiannguaq, Inuatuk, Rassmise, and Elko], to follow the main objective of exploring Grant Land; the Doctor and Thomas to cross Grinnell Land for exploring and survey work; and Shackleton with Bentham to visit Bache Peninsula and work north along the Ellesmere Coast to do geology and survey work. 42

Given that the men who caused the most drama ended up paired together, it is easy to speculate that while logical reasons were given for these teams based on their scientific interests and

40 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 41 Pemmican is a traditional Indigenous food made from dried meat and fat, and sometimes berries. The Oxford Expedition brought along pemmican for dogs and humans manufactured in England. For more information, see R. J. F. Taylor, A. N. Worden, and C. E. Waterhouse, “The Diet of Sledge Dogs,” British Journal of Nutrition 13, no. 1 (February 1959): 1–16. 42 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 101 technical knowledge, perhaps the clash of personalities also played a part in dividing the groups, despite the discussions being “not unfriendly.”

Stallworthy’s team set out on April 3, with three sledges and fifty-nine dogs, “on a long journey, full of determination to travel as far into unknown Grant Land as possible. This was

Moore’s first [‘real’ was inserted later] experience of Arctic travel, and I feel sure that he shared the same feeling with me, that we had been entrusted and had the confidence of the other members of the Expedition, to carry out the main journey, which was expected to be the most difficult.” 43 Moore’s published account described the beginning of the trip, heavy with foreshadowing: “For the first few days we travelled mainly along the shore-ice; the going was fast and during these days the dogs pulled well and were lively. Little did they guess however what the future held for them, and those which worked now were the first to collapse when times were hard.” 44 At the beginning, seal were easy to hunt, and they were even able kill a “sizable” polar bear, which was especially important given that the dogs’ pemmican was making them sick. They found “a good many fossils...They were corals, and appeared to us to be quite interesting” when the stopped for lunch at Cape Calhoun. On April 14, they sent the support team back to base, although the report does not list which of the men returned. As they were traveling along the shoreline, campsites were windy, which was hard on the dogs, and one had to be shot before they reached Fort Conger, an important site in Arctic history; because of its coastal location, many ship-based expeditions established base camps there. Stallworthy and

43 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 44 A. W. Moore, “The Sledge Journey to Grant Land,” The Geographical Journal 87, no. 5 (May 1936): 419–27, 420. 102

Moore stayed in “Peary’s House,” a remnant of the Peary Expeditions in 1905 and 1908, which had been built from the remains of the Greely Expedition buildings from 1881. 45

At this point in the account, Stallworthy had written most of a page with references to spotting muskoxen, however, the section was then crossed out. He wrote, “Nookapinguaq, who knows this district quite well, also expected to see muskoxen on the hills, the absences of game here was probably due to the deep snow.” He also wrote, “On the south side of the Peninsula, we saw the first muskoxen on the side of the mountain. With the aid of binoculars, I could see four cows and three young calves. It seems to me that it was rather early to see calves at foot (April

23 rd ).” This content seems quite unobjectionable, so it is not clear why Stallworthy went to the work of typing it up, only to cross it out. He discusses muskoxen again on the next page, mentioning that they saw a herd of sixteen muskoxen as well as the tracks of a larger herd, so perhaps it was a structural edit rather than anything potentially controversial. They came to Lake

Hazen, and “had seen no signs of caribou nor of Arctic hare since leaving Fort Conger. Our only chance of getting enough feed to condition the dogs for the strenuous trip into Grant Land would depend on the success of our fishing...While we were chiseling the first holes through the ice,

Moore and I had visions of pulling out large salmon trout (char) and feeding the dogs all the thawed fish they could eat.” He also recorded that the dogs were “exhausted” and that their “feet were bleeding and sore owing to the crusted snow and rock surfaces.” 46

45 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. See http://fortconger.org/page/reconstruction_virtuelle-virtual_reconstruction . Also see Lyle Dick, “The Fort Conger Shelters and Vernacular Adaptation to the High Arctic,” SSAC Bulletin 16, no. 1 (n.d.): 13–23. 46 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 103

For twenty-six hours, they tried different holes in different spots on the lake, but were only able to feed the dogs less than a pound of fish each. This pattern continued for three days.

They were

in a difficult if not dangerous position with regard to making any further progress as a party. I am sure at this stage that if our dogs had been subjected to absolute starvation for a few days, we would have found ourselves without any means of transportation. It was quite evident then, that the whole party could not venture into Grant Land for any length of time without starving a number of dogs (unless we resorted to killing muskoxen), which would make it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to get out of the country. It was I therefore decided that Moore and Nookapinguaq, with the pick of the dogs and one sledge, should travel as far into the unknown country as possible; while I stayed with Inuatuk at the lake and fished at various places, with a view to getting sufficient fish ahead for their return, and to try, in the meantime, to get the thinnest dogs into condition for the return journey...It was naturally a great disappointment to me not to travel further north from Lake Hazen...I had every confidence in Nookapinguaq’s judgment and ability to take Moore as far North as possible under these adverse conditions; while I felt keenly my responsibility in the safe return of the party. I may say that Moore, although very ambitious to go himself, very sportingly offered to cast lots as to which of us should go on; but taking everything into consideration, I felt that it was better for me to stay at the lake to act as a support party in case of an emergency. 47

In his own report, Moore wrote that “Stallworthy, who is a very experienced Arctic traveller and was the technical adviser to the expedition, generously waived his claim to be in the final effort.

This was no mean sacrifice and meant days of monotonous fishing, but he turned to this task with his never-failing energy and enthusiasm.” 48

After they left, Stallworthy and Inuatuk kept fishing for four more days, moving twice.

“While feeding the dogs half rations, we were able to lay aside about 50 to 60 pounds of fish, which, together with 96 pounds of pemmican...would at least get the whole party as far as Fort

Conger.” Fishing was a miserable experience; the men ate raw, frozen fish, because “we could not afford to use our scanty supply of coal oil more than once a day to make cocoa, which we

47 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 48 Moore, “The Sledge Journey to Grant Land,” 423. 104 found very beneficial before turning into our sleeping bags, after the long cold days spent lying on the ice, jigging at the fishing holes.” 49 The trip into Grant Land was not a comfortable experience either; because of the shortage of food, Moore and Nukappiannguaq were not able to explore as far as they had hoped, and made the difficult decision to turn back sooner than they would have liked. While on their way back to Lake Hazen, Nukappiannguaq was able to shoot three caribou, and Moore wrote “What a vast difference it would have made if we could have seen caribou a few days before this!...When the dogs smelt it they went nearly crazy, and made short work of their liberal feed; it was the first meat since the bear killed in Peabody Bay.” 50

They arrived back at the lake on May 5, having gone approximately forty or fifty miles north of the lake, and having seen mountains which it was believed that no one had ever seen before.

They had also discovered that the United States Mountain Range had been incorrectly mapped.

They saw only one muskox, in addition to the three small caribou they brought back for dinner, and even those, along with the fish, were not enough to restore the dogs, and they were exhausted long before Fort Conger, even the ones that had rested at the lake. Stallworthy was forced to kill four dogs that were too weak to go on. Four more were too weak to pull the sledge, but they decided not to kill them yet, in hopes of finding seal within a few days. They discarded as many supplies as possible, including one of the sledges. Stallworthy kept a few coal samples

“to bring to Ottawa, which might be of some interest” from a seam that had “been well described by the British Arctic Expedition, and also the Greely Expedition.” At Fort Conger, they cut up as much sealskin footwear and leather harness as they could and fed it to the dogs. Stallworthy also

49 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 50 Moore "The Sledge Journey to Grant Land," 425-426. 105 left an official record of their visit there, in case someone else should visit the fort and find it,

“with a request that the finder forward it to Headquarters at Ottawa.” 51

When they finally reached a known seal hunting location, they only caught one “small seal...this was only an appetizer for the thirty-two hungry dogs. The first two attempts at hunting seal were unsuccessful; one failure being the result of bad marksmanship, which often proves to be the case when there is a scarcity and one is in dire need of food.” After more travel, they camped at Cape Calhoun, and

Inuatuk shot a (Ukjuk) bearded seal in the water, quite close to the tent. There was a frantic scramble to save it from sinking. As it floated towards the ice in the strong current, we pulled it up on a floating ice-pan, cut it up, and quickly hoisted it with ropes to the shore ice about ten feet above the water level, only just before the pan was turned up on its edge by the current...Our concern over dog feed, which had been a serious problem on this journey was now at an end. The meat and blubber weighed about eight hundred pounds. The dogs were fed to their entire satisfaction, in fact this was the first time I had seen our dogs with more than they could eat since they had joined the Expedition. A portion of the seal blubber was kept for cooking as we were out of coal oil. It was now May 17, and the days were warm and pleasant. Inuatuk walked a considerable distance back on our trail for one of his dogs, which was in too starved a condition to keep up with the team, and should have followed after a rest; but unfortunately he could not find him.

With the danger of starvation past, they turned back to their scientific duties and “made a more thorough search for fossils along the cliffs to the north of Cape Calhoun, and found that corals were very numerous. I photographed some of the largest ones which we could not have transported...Some of the broken rock at the foot of the Cape seemed to be a conglomeration of nothing but fossils. We gathered what seemed to be the best specimens, which I later handed over to Bentham at the base, with a few other geological specimens.” After they moved on, they were able to keep up a supply of seal for the dogs, and Stallworthy “could hardly believe that these dogs were on the verge of staggering with weakness a week ago, as they strained on their

51 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 106 traces with their bushy sails curled over their backs, apparently enjoying their work.” When they arrived at the base on May 26, they had travelled for fifty-five days, covering approximately 900 miles. 52

By June, the expedition was beginning to wind down, and they focused on hunting and collecting biological and botanical specimens. They were picked up on August 23, but owing to very bad weather, could not go ashore at Thule for several days. They left there on September 1, making several other stops in Greenland along the way. Their experience crossing the Atlantic was also marked by bad weather, to the point that the ship was damaged and off-course, and drinking water had to be rationed. On October 7, they finally made port in Castle Bay, Scotland, and

The doctor, Thomas and Moore left the same day on the mail steamer for London...Since the Expedition had several tons of stores on board, as well as the police effects under my charge, Shackleton, Bentham and I remained at Castle Bay. On October 11, I was able to get the police effects transferred to a mail steamer, on which I left for Oban with Shackleton...the following day, Shackleton and I left Oban for Glasgow, where he had an appointment with the B.B.C. to broadcast news of the Expedition...Upon arriving in London, I communicated with Headquarters, reporting the return of the Expedition, and requesting leave of absence pending the departure of the R.M.S. Empress of Britain for Canada on November 1; which was granted. On leaving London with my wife, we said good-bye to Dr. Humphreys, at Waterloo Station, and were accompanied as far as Southampton by Shackleton, Moore and Bentham.53

The ending of his official report is far more dry than the conclusion of his Quarterly article, which is more sentimental and received several edits at the draft stage:

Arrival in London meant the end of my long and very enjoyable association with the members of the Expedition, who now had to their credit a good knowledge of Arctic conditions and valuable experience in the technique of Arctic travel. Unless I am very much mistaken, five more men [“a further 5 individuals” was inserted later] may now be

52 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 53 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 107

added to the list of those who know and understand the ‘call of the North.’ Exploring for new lands in a big way [to a major degree] in the Arctic is more or less complete, but there still remain many thousands of square miles in the Arctic regions to be filled in by Exploration parties, particularly in the fields of Geological and Geographical survey, besides many other branches of scientific investigation. Some of these young explorers will undoubtedly, at some future date respond to the desire to return to the Arctic to carry on the work. I appreciate the opportunity afforded me by the Force, which enabled me to accompany this Expedition, whose objects in the main were acco mplished and who brought back to civilization a wealth of valuable information [and to associate with its members who after the rigours experienced in the Arctic, have been successful in bringing back to civilization a wealth of extremely valuable information.] 54

Given Stallworthy’s comments in his official report about the ineptness of some of the expedition members, his published comment that they now “know and understand the ‘call of the

North,’” and that they had gained “valuable experience in the technique of Arctic travel,” appear to be technically true. However, having limited experience, knowledge, and a desire for Arctic travel does not mean that Stallworthy thought they should ever try to undertake such an expedition again; he certainly was not in favour of Haig-Thomas ever returning, which will be discussed later in this chapter.

For the public, Stallworthy framed the expedition as a clear success for scientific knowledge, and in other publications, such as the Winnipeg Evening Tribune 55 and the Polar

Record , framed it as a triumph for British-Canadian Sovereignty, as “a new range of mountains”

was spotted by Moore, who “planted the Union Jack presented to the expedition by H.R.H. the

Duke of York [later King George] in Lat. 82 °25’N...The new range of mountains was named,

provisionally, the British Empire Range.” 56 While not furthering Canadian sovereignty as such,

at this time Canada’s politics were still very much intertwined with England’s, and planting the

Union Jack was certainly a display of Eurocentric occupation.

54 Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition.” 55 “Canada Gets New Mountain Range,” The Winnipeg Evening Tribune , December 11, 1935. 56 “Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, 1934-35,” Polar Record 11 (January 1936): 56–60, 57. 108

The differences between Stallworthy’s official report and the public article can be

explained by a memo from the RCMP commissioner dated November 30, 1935, to the Officer

Commanding G Division. He had read Stallworthy’s report and that it was

a very good one and also full of interest. It is intended that the major portion of this report shall appear in the RCMPolice Quarterly but for reasons which will be obvious to you it will not be possible to publish the report verbatim. It is therefore suggested that you permit A/Sergt. Stallworthy to co-operate with Inspectors Armitage and Rivett-Carnac in order that certain parts be either re-written or omitted for the purposes of the Police Quarterly. This is no reflection, of course, upon Sergt. Stallworthy’s report, but it is evident that the general public can only be furnished with such information as is not controversial...I desire to commend A/Sergt. Stallworthy for his excellent conduct and deportment in what must have been very trying situations while attached to this Expedition. 57

Given this feedback from the RCMP Commissioner, it seems that this unpublished RCMP report is likely the most authentic record of the events of the Oxford Expedition, especially since the only letter written by Stallworthy that made it into the archive is from very early on in the trip, and given that all of the other primary source materials were published in one form or another, having received revisions to avoid potential controversy. Unfortunately, whatever was “obvious” to the Officer Commanding and the Commissioner was not recorded at the time, however, by comparing the draft of the official report with the version that was published in the Quarterly , it is possible to analyze the changes that were made, although it is only possible to speculate on why, and what might have been so “trying” about the expedition. It is likely that what was most trying was the conduct of David Haig-Thomas, the party’s ornithologist.

In his official report, Stallworthy recorded that while they were attempting to reach

Ellesmere,

eight walrus were killed by shooting them on the floating ice pans...Consequently a number were drowned and other wounded, some of which undoubtedly died. Knowing

57 J.H. MacBrien, RCMP Commissioner, to The Officer Commanding G Division, 30 November 1935, Box 4, Folder 1, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 109

that the members of the Expedition did not know the provisions of the Greenland laws in this respect, I thought it advisable to mention the subject to Dr. Humphreys, although the actual killing of walrus, with one exception, had taken place considerable distance off shore. The two Eskimos had complained to me with regard to the walrus sinking and were willing to harpoon them before any shooting took place in the manner prescribed by their own laws, but since Dr. Humphreys and the other members of the Expedition, led by Haig-Thomas, continued to shoot at every opportunity, the Eskimos joined in with their rifles, more to prevent the wounded ones from slipping off the ice-pan into the water. Under the circumstances, there was nothing I could do to prevent this indiscriminate shooting except to hand Dr. Humphreys a handbook of the North Greenland Game Laws. 58

Given that they were not in Canadian territory at the time of the incident, Stallworthy’s law enforcement capabilities were limited.

In the Quarterly , Stallworthy ignored the ugliness of the incident entirely, simply writing that “while cruising among the ice-floes in Smith Sound, we had obtained eight walrus, which made a welcome addition of about five tons of meat and blubber. The walrus is very fond of sleeping on floating ice-pans during the warm days. They are easily killed by rifle fire. If they are killed instantaneously by an accurate shot through the neck they would remain on the ice.

Indiscriminate shooting of walrus on ice-pans or in the water results in the loss of many.” 59

Using passive voice, Stallworthy erased direct reference to the apparent ringleader of all hunting related shenanigans, Haig-Thomas. In his book, Shackleton wrote that Haig-Thomas “was usually in charge of the hunting parties, since he combined great aptitude with a rifle with a marked distaste for box-shifting, which was the usual occupation for those not engaged in building the house!” 60 This comment certainly has a sense of being a backhanded compliment.

However, Haig-Thomas was not the only person to ignore the game laws. Stallworthy reported

58 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 59 Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition.” 60 Edward Shackleton, Arctic Journeys: The Story of the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, 1934-5 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937), 68. 110 that, while the team made several trips to establish caches of supplies, “the two Eskimos complained to me that the members of the Expedition had wounded and thereby drowned walruses, and that on one occasion, Dr. Humphreys had fired at a walrus in the water, at close range with a 12-gauge shotgun.” 61 A drowned walrus would be impossible to retrieve, and was therefore a great waste.

Illegal hunting was clearly of great professional concern to Stallworthy, and he reported on how the Danish government had attempted to rein in the excessive hunting of Humphreys and

Haig-Thomas. In February, while the party was living at the base camp in Danish colonial territory, Humphreys and Haig-Thomas made a trip to Thule, Greenland, and hunting was a topic of discussion while they were there.

The Danish Authorities had advised...that the Expedition were permitted to take 20 walrus but no polar bear or Arctic fox, also that our attached Eskimos could kill caribou in Greenland. With regard to bear and fox, none of these animals were killed by members of the Expedition. Natives Nookapinguaq and Inuatuk trapped and shot some white and blue fox, some of which were used for clothing, but no pelts were retained by the Expedition. During the visit of the doctor and Thomas at Thule, and as a result of the matter being brought up by the Eskimos, they were charged with shooting and wounding walrus without the use of harpoons to prevent them from sinking, during September and October, within the three mile limit in the vicinity of Little, in the Cape York District of Greenland. They appeared before Mr. Neilsen [a Danish colonial authority] and an Eskimo Council and the case was apparently dismissed after Mr. Neilsen had explained the laws regarding the killing of walrus and other game in his district. I was informed later that the doctor stated that he had no idea that there was such a law. Thomas told me that he ‘defeated the charge’ by explaining that in each case the shooting of walrus was an emergency. Since, at the time in question there was ample dog-feed at the base...I am of the opinion that Mr. Neilsen was most considerate towards the Expedition. 62

Stallworthy clearly had doubts about Humphreys’ defense, and when the expedition finally began their work in Canadian territory in 1935, he reminded all participants that they had to

61 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 62 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 111 adhere to the game laws of Canada while they explored Ellesmere. Stallworthy reported that before they set out on the spring expeditions, he “had a meeting with all the Eskimo men and thoroughly went into the question of muskoxen and made the matter quite clear to them that these animals were not to be killed for any purpose.” 63 This seems to be an escalation from the earlier RCMP stance of hunting muskoxen only in cases of extreme need.

After the expedition returned to England, some of its members gave a presentation at

Oxford, and Colonel George Vanier, representing the High Commissioner for Canada, was recorded by the Geographical Journal as saying: “there is one thing that the members of this expedition did not tell us...that they used extraordinary self-restraint when dealing with the musk-ox which you saw on the screen. They were sporting enough never to shoot one of them, although at times they must have been sorely tempted to do so because the dogs were hungry...when they go back I am sure that they will have the whole-hearted support of the

Canadian Government, and we shall see whether it is not possible to obtain permission to shoot a few musk-ox.” 64 The saga of whether or not to allow explorers to hunt muskoxen for any reason continued in 1936, when the Royal Geographical Society applied again to the Canadian government to allow an expedition to Ellesmere. The expedition would be led by David Haig-

Thomas, who:

requested permission to bring a few Inughuit and to shoot six ‘old bull Muskox,’ which he claimed were very numerous on the western coast of Ellesmere Island...He also sought permission to use...a cache at Framhaven and the authorities' approval to collect birds and archaeological remains of ‘old Eskimo settlements’...When asked to comment...Sergeant Stallworthy responded that he knew Haig-Thomas ‘intimately’...and added: ‘I doubt very much whether his personal objective in another expedition is in the interests of science. His chief interest in the OUEL expedition was undoubtedly big game hunting, which

63 Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 64 Percy Cox et al., “Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition: Discussion,” The Geographical Journal 87, no. 5 (1936): 441–43. 112

hobby he has pursued in other parts of the world’ 65 ...Overall, Stallworthy stated that he was ‘not impressed with his [Haig-Thomas's] ability as a Northern man, particularly where manual labour, care of dogs, cooking, etc. were concerned.’

So the RCMP made Haig-Thomas sign a letter promising that he and his party would adhere to

Canada’s game hunting laws. 66

Nukappiannguaq accompanied the expedition, and later gave the RCMP a sworn statement about Haig-Thomas’ hunting practices:

On arriving at Ulvingan Island we saw lots and lots of muskoxen. Davy said 'I would like some muskoxen' and asked me if I would talk, and I said 'Yes, the Police will know,' Davy then said 'I want three muskoxen, you will not talk, I am your boss, you will not even talk to the Eskimo, you will not talk to the Police,' I said 'No, I am afraid, I worked for the Police before and they will be angry.' Davy said 'I want Muskoxen, you will go and shoot them.' I went with my gun and shot three male muskoxen. We brought them from the land and skinned them on the ice. Davy helped with the skinning. Davy said 'We will skin them on the ice so the Police will not find out.’

Nukappiannguaq reported that they were not in “dire” need of food, and based on his testimony, the Canadian government made an official complaint to the Royal Geographical Society.

However, Haig-Thomas “denied all the allegations,” and “the RGS affirmed its support for his version of events, while expressing concern that the Canadian government could believe that a

‘solemn undertaking given to its Council and transmitted to it had been broken.’” 67 Given

Stallworthy’s and Nukappiannguaq’s critical feedback of Haig-Thomas and the extent to which

these two colleagues are remembered as being experienced, reliable Arctic travellers, the

Canadian government’s complaint against Haig-Thomas seems well-established, and they were

clearly intent on making a statement that the ban on hunting muskoxen was not to be taken

lightly. Haig-Thomas also stepped on their toes when he wrote in his book that he thought “how

foolish it was of the Canadian Government to waste so much money in building a police station

65 Dick copied this from “Memorandum of Sergeant Stallworthy to the Officer Commanding, RCMP, Moncton Division”, 24 March 1937. 66 Dick, Muskox Land, 314-315. 67 Dick, Muskox Land , 317. 113

here,” and when the RCMP detachment was inspected in 1939, the Mountie reported that Haig-

Thomas “had used it, alternately, as a dwelling, repair shop, and slaughterhouse.” 68

Haig-Thomas had a history of seeking hunting and seeking adventure around the world.

In Hunting for Empire , Greg Gillespie examines the tradition of British Imperial hunting practices, a cultural legacy that Haig-Thomas clearly identified with. The stereotypical British hunter was defined by certain characteristics, and “his exposure to the edges of empire made him rugged, but he retained his moral, rational, imperial masculinity for which Victorian society lauded him as heroic and courageous. In addition to stalking game with their rifles, British sporting gentlemen hunted with their pencils and sketchbooks...natural history...formed an integral part of the nineteenth-century British imperial hunting cult.” 69 Haig-Thomas wrote in a memoir that his ambition from the time he was five years old was that “I would poach,” in reference to a local scandal about “the gipsies” who had gotten into a fight with a gamekeeper over an alleged incident of poaching; apparently he identified more with the idea of illegal hunting than he did with the gamekeepers charged with upholding hunting laws.70 While he was a young student at Eton, he bought a pistol from an antique shop, talked a passing motorist into driving him around, and shot at pheasants from the car window until he killed one, which he took home for the staff to cook. 71 An entire chapter of his memoir is devoted to the time he killed an endangered ibex in the Spanish king’s preserve, the skin of which he donated to a museum in

England. He plainly admits that the scientific outcome of donating the skin was entirely an excuse for the adventure and the excitement of hunting. On a trip to Sardinia, he was arrested by the local police for fishing without a license, but convinced the police chief, while they “drank

68 Dick, Muskox Land , 318. 69 Greg Gillespie, Hunting for Empire: Narrative of Sport in Rupert’s Land, 1840-70 , Nature, History, Society (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007), 43. 70 David Haig-Thomas, I Leap Before I Look: Sport at Home and Abroad (London: Putnam, 1936), 3-4. 71 Haig-Thomas, I Leap Before I Look , 4-7. 114 large quantities of red wine,” to give him permission to fish anywhere he liked, whenever he liked. 72 It is clear that Haig-Thomas’ illegal hunting that so vexed Stallworthy was part of a pattern of privileged behaviour, however, despite the fact that Haig-Thomas’ worldview is plain in his memoir, published the year after Ellesmere, the expedition’s official reports downplay it, and it is found most explicitly in Stallworthy’s RCMP report.

While Stallworthy’s official report detailed the expedition’s lapses in following laws, the public version of his report that was published in the Quarterly , only twenty-three pages long, obscures those lapses. There are only a few variations between the draft of the Quarterly article and what appeared in print, and the tone of it is more formal than his official report. It contains some details that are different from the official report, like who the members of the expedition were and what their experience was, which the officers reading his report would already have known, unlike the more general audience of the Quarterly . It presents the expedition as far more harmonious than his official report, even though the report was also fairly understated, however, understatement is clearly a theme in Stallworthy’s written records when comparing his accounts of his adventures with the accounts others wrote about him. An example of the differences between the accounts can be found in the time they spotted muskoxen while their dogs were starving near Lake Hazen, which had received only a brief, edited mention in the official report, as discussed earlier in this chapter. In Stallworthy’s Quarterly article, he expanded on the event:

“For four days we had seen two muskoxen grazing on some foot hills on the north side of the lake. The Eskimos, of course, made repeated requests to kill muskoxen, which I could not permit. Nookapinguaq said that the muskoxen at Lake Hazen gave him a ‘headache’ all the time he was at the fishing holes trying to get feed for the dogs . but owing to the game laws, a part of which is framed for the express purpose of preservation of this extremely rare and almost extinct

72 Haig-Thomas, 266. 115 species of animal, it was decided that they should not be molested not withstanding the very meagre rations of the party.” 73 Shackleton’s interpretation of events was that the party “had been irritated by the sight of two musk oxen grazing on some foothills on the north side of the lake but owing to the Expedition’s undertaking to the Canadian Government, it was decided that they should not be molested, notwithstanding the very meagre rations of the party.” 74 Here the echo in the wording makes it seem as though Shackleton was working from a draft of Stallworthy’s

Quarterly article.

Shackleton’s published account, Arctic Journeys: The Story of the Oxford University

Ellesmere Land Expedition, 19434-5, is another valuable primary source, for which Stallworthy provided feedback. However, Stallworthy’s letters to Shackleton are not in the Stallworthy fonds, only Shackleton’s response to Stallworthy’s feedback is available. Most of the narrative in the book is Shackleton’s; however, he copied verbatim portions of the others’ reports after the expedition had split into smaller parties. In his letter to Stallworthy, Shackleton wrote: “Thank you very much for your comments...I thoroughly agree with all the criticisms, particularly regarding the Eskimo and the dogs...I quite agree that the dog bit gives thoroughly wrong impressions. On the whole do you think I have been fair to the Eskimos, except for the two

Humphreys’ chapters which I cannot do anything about, (I have toned this down tremendously in actual fact). I have tried to emphasise their absolute indispensability on an Arctic Expedition... I have been able to incorporate all your main suggestions.” 75 It is hard to say exactly which incident is “the dog bit.” He could have been referring to keeping the dogs on the island and losing so many. Or perhaps he was referring to the practice of knocking out some of the dogs’

73 Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition.” 74 Shackleton, Arctic Journeys, 250. 75 Edward Shackleton to Harry Stallworthy, 15 September 1936, Box 1, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895- 2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 116

teeth to prevent them from chewing on the sled harnesses, however, this appears also in

Shackleton’s article in the Geographical Journal. 76 Interestingly, this practice does not appear in

Stallworthy’s published RCMP Quarterly article, but it appears in the draft version, so it is unclear if it may have been controversial or not (see Appendix 6 and Appendix 7 for excerpts from Stallworthy’s archival documents regarding the dogs). It could also refer to the general state of near-starvation and the high death rate that the dogs experienced during the expedition’s time in the Arctic.

Despite the issues, and the tone of Shackleton’s mention of Humphreys to Stallworthy,

Shackleton’s conclusion to the book was glowing:

Thus ended an expedition which...will always remain in memory as one of the most enjoyable periods of our lives. It is very difficult to apportion justly the share of praise to which each of my companions is fully entitled...on no occasion during the Expedition was there a single real quarrel, in spite of the very close confinement in which we lived for four months during the winter. This may be attributed to two reasons in particular. The first was the fact that whenever anyone was obviously feeling bad-tempered...there was a tacit but nevertheless absolute understanding that the rest of us should give way on points over which a disagreement might arise. The other factor which was of equal importance was the great tact shown by Humph as leader. 77

This clearly conflicts with Stallworthy’s reports that Humphreys was unrealistic about Arctic

conditions, lost Inughuit respect as a leader, and flouted the games laws of Greenland. Tensions

over planning remained a common theme from when the ice blocked their way to landing in

Canada until spring, when the actual expeditions began. Barr, Stallworthy’s biographer, accessed

a letter from an archive in England to Shackleton from his sister, Cecily, who wrote that

Humphreys would

76 Edward Shackleton, Noel Humphreys, and A.W. Moore, “Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition: Papers Read at the Evening Meeting of the Society on 18 November 1935,” The Geographical Journal LXXXVII, no. 5 (May 1936): 433–40. 77 Edward Shackleton, Arctic Journeys: The Story of the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, 1934-5 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1937), 314. 117

try to get (whatever else he may profess to you) the jam in the sandwich, having left you to work on the first slice of dull bread, i.e. preliminary plans, collecting money, etc., and will leave for you the other slice of bread, i.e. finishing up affairs and collecting of balance...I am awfully sorry that Dr. H. and Harry do not get on and that the former is so incompetent as leader...You say that Dr. H. is kind and friendly; do not be too sure of this. I am certain that he is very jealous of you and his silly articles bear this out...however unpleasant it may be, you will have to take a stand with Dr. H.; he has done for himself by the obviously biased articles which he has written and I believe that the originals...were really pretty bad, as Charles Elton 78 told me that he had had to cut out quite several bits, some because they were not too wise. 79

Barr found another extraordinary document signed by all the Europeans on the expedition, except for Humphreys and Haig-Thomas, which stated “that at no time was any attempt ever made, discussed or considered to depose Dr. Humphreys from Leader... At all times in the opinion of the undersigned, Serg. Stallworthy carried out all orders and instructions given him by the leader of the Expedition, and endeavoured to help the expedition to the best of his ability both in giving advice and by his own personal example...These statements are made in view of certain specific and unfounded charges made by Dr. Humphreys.” 80 Barr does not speculate on the reasons for or results of these documents, but it seems clear that some members of the expedition thought that Humphreys was seeking fame for himself at the expense of the rest of the group. Whether Shackleton was attempting to present the events in the best light for his readers or whether in hindsight his excitement over the trip glossed over the more difficult episodes, or whether, as his sister suggests, he did not see how difficult the others found Humphreys, his presentation of the harmony of the party is far different from Stallworthy’s official report.

Among the items of concern in Stallworthy’s RCMP report was the treatment of the dogs, which is presented quite differently in Stallworthy’s public publication. His Quarterly article only made brief mention of the results of penning the dogs, unsupervised, on a distant island:

78 Elton was the head of the Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford , and the editor of the Journal of Animal Ecology. “Charles Elton - Ecology,” in Oxford Bibliographies , May 28, 2013. 79 Barr, Red Serge and Polar Bear Pants , 267-269. 80 Barr, Red Serge, 270. 118

“We realized as a result of finding some bones on the Island that four of the dogs had been killed and eaten by the others, but there were now seventeen missing, some of which might have left the Island and become stranded on ice-floes. It is very difficult to make a fair division of food when feeding so many loose dogs.” 81 Here Stallworthy makes no mention of the negligence that is referenced in his official report. Reports by other members of the expedition also downplayed the miscalculations and errors in the dogs’ treatment. Humphreys glossed over his inept dog handling, miscalculations of loads, and found other explanations about why they lost so many of the dogs. He blamed “strong winds” for the harm that came to the dogs penned on the island, as that “prevented us from getting to the island regularly by boat to feed them...they were so wild that when we landed with food many ran away and could not be fed. Some had died or were killed by the other dogs...It is possible on other occasions dogs drifted out to sea [on ice floes] and were not recovered.” Rather than owning up to the near disaster they faced, he simply reported that they divided the remaining fifty-five dogs into six teams “and practised dog-driving on the frozen fjord. It took us a long time to get our teams together and to learn the art of dog- driving; it was especially difficult to acquire the knack of using the 30-foot dog whip...Our dogs were now reduced to forty-seven, as during the winter we had had some deaths from poisoning from dried shark flesh. In these circumstances we reduced our teams to three.” 82 He makes no reference to the endless discussions that Stallworthy reported, and made the whole business of figuring out the spring exploration plan seem smooth and conflict-free when that was contrary to what Stallworthy recorded.

If not for Stallworthy’s official reports, and his later memos to the RCMP on Haig-

Thomas, and if the RCMP Quarterly article were the only record Stallworthy had left of this

81 Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition.” 82 Noel Humphreys, “OXFORD UNIVERSITY ELLESMERE LAND EXPEDITION,” The Geographical Journal 87, no. 5 (1936): 385–410. 119 particular expedition, the interesting case of the Canadian government protesting the actions of a

British citizen in their attempts to establish sovereignty over Ellesmere Island might have been lost. While most of Stallworthy’s edits between the draft and final versions of his Quarterly article appear to be more structural than controversial, the contrast between his RCMP report and his public report are stark. The records left by the other members of the add more elaboration to the narrative, and demonstrate different ways of framing it. Stallworthy’s official report was tailored to the concerns of the RCMP, highlighting logistical problems and decision-making issues by the expedition’s leaders. It also reported on issues of law-breaking by the expedition in relation to Canadian and Danish laws. Stallworthy filtered and reframed his discourse for the public audience of the Quarterly , affirming the benefit of the Oxford Expedition through confirming Canada’s authority on Ellesmere, expanding scientific knowledge, and underlining the RCMP’s control over Inughuit muskoxen hunters as the Canadian government enlarged its effective occupation of the Arctic. 120

Conclusion

On the surface, this thesis explores a few incidents in the life of an individual Mountie,

Harry Stallworthy. However, in depth it examines how Stallworthy’s work intersected with

Canadian sovereignty and colonialism in a period of Canadian history when representations of

Canadian icons (the North and the Mountie) were of great importance. It also develops a framework that could be used to analyze texts found in many archival fonds.

When conducting textual analysis of an archival fond, numerous questions can be asked: who the writer was, what his background and worldviews were, what his goals in life were, and what his goals in creating the records were. Questions can be posed about how the writer’s memories of the same incident changed over time or for different audiences, and perhaps conclusions can be drawn from the variations. A fond can be a collection of different forms of expression from an individual: in this case, Stallworthy was an Englishman who came to Canada and search for interesting work, and who created records to report to his superiors in the RCMP, communicate with his family, and some manuscripts that were intended for publication.

However, historical actors’ range of lived experiences and reactions to those experiences are too complex to be accurately condensed into a short description, and it is unwise to draw broad generalizations from the analysis of a single text from a fond, as can be seen by comparing some of Stallworthy’s different texts based on the same incident.

Questions can also be asked about how the materials came to be part of the fond, and who or what affected which documents were saved and archived and whether any were deliberately discarded or accidentally lost, and consider how this affects the shape of the fonds as a whole.

What can the process of compiling the archive reveal about the person involved? In this case, the

Stallworthy fond was heavily influenced by Hilda Stallworthy as she attempted to preserve what 121

she saw as her beloved husband’s legacy, as she made handwritten notes in the margins of his

original documents, and re-wrote some of his accounts while changing the wording. She hoped

to honour his wish to publish his writings in some form, but was not able to complete the project

before she died herself. However, she left her own visible paper trail across Stallworthy’s, and

the extent of her invisible input is unknown.

Further, questions about the historical situation from perspectives that the writer would

not have seen at the time should be considered. For instance, while Stallworthy was aware of the

issues of arctic sovereignty and policing a very different culture, which he discussed in his first

letter to Bill from Chesterfield Inlet, he was obviously not aware of ilira . Therefore, he could not write about this cultural context and its effects in his interactions with Inuit and Inughuit the way a modern reader of his archive should, and consider the implications of it. It is important to consider the context and the standards of the day in order to understand Stallworthy’s interactions with his time and place.

This thesis has investigated the way Stallworthy wrote differently for different audiences

about the experiences he had during the time his work was to support the Canadian government’s

attempt to establish control over the Arctic in the 1920s and 30s. Chapter 1 examined

Stallworthy’s involvement in the death of Maggie Clay at Chesterfield Inlet. The different

versions of her death can be combined to give a fuller picture of the incident itself and the way

the incident took on new meaning for different audiences. By comparing Stallworthy’s letter to

his brother a few months after the incident, a revised manuscript version from fifty years later,

and the official detachment diary, kept by Corporal Oliver Petty, the whole story can be pieced

together in a more complete way than any one of those sources alone. By contrasting those

eyewitness reports with later, third-party reports, it is clear that the death of Maggie Clay took on 122

a life of its own in the imagination of other writers, displaying themes of heroism and

martyrdom, while often misrepresenting aspects of the incident. Even Stallworthy’s account

changed in later years. Over the years, her death became an excuse to destroy sled dogs, which

had severe implications for Inuit communities, despite the fact that an RCMP dog-culling policy

was something she would not have wanted. This demonstrates the way that Eurocentric attitudes

and records have long-term, unforeseen consequences in different cultures, and demonstrates

how narratives grow and change without any influence from the original characters.

Chapter 2 examined elements of the patrol, an iconic activity in RCMP history, which was carried out in a unique way in the Arctic. Stallworthy's letters to his brother and his official reports are similar to each other in the way he describes patrolling, but are different from many other Mountie narratives, which tended to be more dramatic. For Stallworthy, patrolling was a pragmatic and administrative duty expected of Mounties, but for many people it was framed as a larger-than-life feat of heroism. However, later in life Stallworthy’s writing style shifted more to the dramatic when he described patrolling for a public audience, placing himself more at the centre. He also, whether intentionally or not, rewrote details about negative impacts of the

RCMP on Inuit lives. But, even then, he does not appear to have subscribed to the iconic image of the Mountie on patrol, dashing and heroic in the pursuit of justice. He presents the patrol as an occasion for personal growth and friendship with the few other people present, whether other

Mounties or the local guides he depended on. It is not possible to tell whether the Inuit and

Inughuit guides reciprocated Stallworthy’s feelings of friendship.

Chapter 3 examines the Oxford University Expedition to Ellesmere Island, and how

Stallworthy's official reports portray a different working environment than the harmonious image of the expedition that the members presented to the public. The private records provide a 123 different perspective on events that the party tried to frame as a classic triumph for scientific research. However, Stallworthy’s report demonstrates that it was plagued by interpersonal tension and wasted resources, particularly animal resources, a situation that later nearly led to an international incident. This also demonstrates that one fond, like the University of Calgary’s

Stallworthy collection, does not stand alone, but is networked to others through different documents about the same incident. Taken together, the different texts demonstrate that effective occupation through exploration is expressed differently for different audiences.

This project has also identified some areas of Arctic history that would benefit from

further research and publication, including: Inuit perspectives on the RCMP and the effects of

ilira, the perspectives of special constables, the perspectives of Indigenous people regarding post-

colonialism, and whether the concern for regulating Indigenous hunting actually had a sound

scientific basis or if it was unfounded conjecture based in colonial practices. As well, there are

many published heroic Mountie narratives, both fiction and non-fiction, but little scholarly

analysis of them individually or as a whole, other than works already cited in this thesis. In

particular, Thomas Morris Longstreth and Nora Hickson Kelly are two prolific early writers of

RCMP history whose works would benefit from scholarly study. 1 Further, the memories of

RCMP wives, whether published or not, deserve greater scrutiny.

Whatever Stallworthy’s personal views on sovereignty, his archive was deliberately shaped by him and his wife, and contributes to the record of Canada’s attempts to establish sovereignty over the area known as the Canadian Arctic. It was enlarged by Barr adding copies of documents he found in other archives, and preserved and organized by an archivist. Overall,

Stallworthy’s fond contains a collection of discourse demonstrating different ways colonial

1 Thomas Morris Longstreth, The Silent Force: Scenes from the Life of the Mounted Police of Canada (New York: Century, 1927). Nora Hickson Kelly, The Men of the Mounted (Toronto: J.M. Dent, 1949). 124 authority was assumed and enacted by people of European descent who moved into Arctic spaces in the twentieth century. These official reports, private letters, and published narratives, whether in realistic depictions or iconic narratives, demonstrate that the Canadian government was attempting to claim land and resources already in use by Indigenous residents; the same residents the Canadian colonial officials relied on for survival in an unfamiliar environment, and who had already established effective occupation in the Arctic for generations. 125

Appendix 1 Chesterfield Inlet Daily Diary from the day Maggie Clay was injured

Library and Archives Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police fonds, R196-0-7-E, “G Division” series, volume 3017, subseries “Daily diaries from northern detachments,” file “Daily Diary G Division 1924.”

126

Appendix 2 Excerpt from Stallworthy’s letter to Bill regarding the newspaper articles after leaving Chesterfield Inlet, with my translation of his handwriting

127

Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 28 August 1925, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895- 2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 128

Appendix 3 Stallworthy’s official report regarding falling into the crevasse while hunting

Harry Stallworthy, “Bache Peninsula Detachment to Head of Flagger River, Craig Harbour and Mackinson Inlet, Ellesmere Island,” 31 May 1931, Box 2, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 129

Appendix 4 Stallworthy’s letter to Bill regarding Nowya’s vision, with my translation of his handwriting. The page numbers appear to have been added by Hilda.

130

Harry Stallworthy to Bill, 4 November 1923, Box 1, Folder 15, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895- 2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 131

Appendix 5 Pages from Stallworthy’s Chesterfield Inlet manuscript regarding Nowya

132

Harry Stallworthy, untitled, N.D., Box 3, Folder 11, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 133

Appendix 6 An excerpt regarding the dogs from Stallworthy’s draft of his Oxford Expedition article for the Quarterly . The notes are mine, indicating the differences from the published version.

Harry Stallworthy, “An Arctic Expedition,” N.D., Box 3, Folder 4, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 134

Appendix 7 An excerpt regarding the dogs from Stallworthy’s official RCMP report on the Oxford Expedition. The note/edit is Stallworthy’s.

Harry Stallworthy, Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition 1934-1935 , November 1935, Box 2, Folder 7, Harry Stallworthy Fonds 1895-2002, Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary Archives and Special Collections. 135

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