WEBVTT - Inuit and the Explorers 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.040 The Quest for the North Pole is a production of 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:15.640 I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. It's August eighteen and 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.040 two British naval ships are dodging icebergs in Baffin Bay 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.840 on their mission to find the Northwest Passage. John Ross 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.560 commanding HMS Isabella, and William Perry in the h M 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:30.520 s Alexander are farther north along the western Greenland coast 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.720 than any previous explorers. They assume this land of glaciers 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:39.840 and stark mountains is uninhabited, but they're wrong. They spy 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.960 several figures running on a hill near shore. Ross assumes 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.839 their shipwrecked sailors in need of rescue, and he steers 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.680 the Isabella to get closer, but they turn out to 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:52.480 be native people, a community of a new wheat, living 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:57.760 farther north than Europeans believed was physically possible. Ross, following 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:01.200 the habit of previous explorers, in mediately sets out gifts 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.720 of knives, European clothing, and a Greenland dog with strings 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.080 of blue beads around its neck to signal that they 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:12.120 come in peace. Several hours later, Ross writes, the dog 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:14.319 was found sleeping on the spot where we left him. 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:19.480 The presence remaining untouched undaunted, Ross decides to raise a 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.680 flag with pictures of the sun, moon and a hand 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.000 holding a sprig of Arctic heath, the northern version of 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.920 an olive branch. At the base of the flag pole, 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.120 he puts out another bag of gifts and a sign 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.959 with a hand pointing to the ship. The following day 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.560 Rossi's a group of a new Wheat approached the gifts, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.440 he sends out his Inuit interpreter, John Sacose, carrying a 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:46.800 small white flag. Eventually, he throws a knife on the 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:48.880 ground and urges them to take it as a present, 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:52.400 But the native people are terrified of the strange men 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.840 and looming ships. They approached the knife cautiously and gingerly 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.280 pick it up. After a few moments, they begin outing 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.960 with approval and pulling their noses, a move that Sacus imitates. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:08.200 The curious Inu Whee bombard him with questions about his clothing, 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.280 the ships, and where he came from. Tho Saku speaks 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.320 a different form of the language. He finally understands that 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.680 these Inu Wheat have never before seen white people. They've 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:23.120 never met European explorers. They turned out to be one 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:26.960 of the last uncontacted communities of Arctic people in this region. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.040 From the advent of modern European polar exploration in the 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.960 sixteenth century right up until the present day, nearly every 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.480 community of indigenous people in Greenland and Arctic North America 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:45.120 had some encounter with white explorers, whalers, or traders, and 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.720 yet European explorers often thought of the Arctic as an empty, 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:53.200 inhospitable wasteland. When they did describe the people who lived there, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.720 they portrayed them as relics of the Stone Age quote 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.799 unquote savages or childlike folk who needed paternalistic guidance from whites. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.239 Of course, none of that is true, as the historian 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.960 Pierre Burton rights, during the whole of European exploration in 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.960 the North, the real children in the Arctic would be 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:17.400 the white explorers. But native people's full contributions to human 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:21.800 understanding of polar geography, wildlife, and climate are often overlooked. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.359 More than forty indigenous groups totaling over a million people 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.880 live in the circumpolar Arctic today, but in this episode, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:31.960 we're going to focus on the peoples of what is 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:36.400 now eastern Canada and Greenland. They had the most consistent 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.960 interactions with white explorers over four centuries. In this episode, 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.600 we'll try to show the other side of the explorers stories. 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.960 We'll look at how indigenous people saw the white explorers 0:03:47.040 --> 0:03:50.520 or hallunat in their lands, why they helped them, and 0:03:50.640 --> 0:04:05.880 how they saved those explorers lives. Countless times you're listening 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.320 to Mental Flaws presents the Quest for the North Pole. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:11.600 I'm your host, Cat Long, science editor at Mental Floss 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:14.600 and this is episode four and you Eat and the Explorers. 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.680 Before European explorers began arriving regularly to Arctic Canada in 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.560 the early nineteenth century, indigenous people there had some memorable 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:37.080 encounters with them. The first was with the Vikings. Virtually 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.040 all we know of the meetings comes from two North sagas, 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.599 written two hundred years after the events. They say that 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.440 when Vikings arrived in what is now Newfoundland and set 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.839 up a small colony, they traded with the indigenous people, 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.480 but there were deadly battles as well. It wasn't a 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:58.919 great start to European North American relations. Skipping ahead a 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:02.240 few hundred years, we to the English mariner Martin Frobisher, 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:05.880 whom you might remember from our first episode. When he 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:08.840 and his crew arrived in Baffin Island in fifteen seventy 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:12.320 six looking for the Northwest Passage, they saw a group 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.640 of Innuit and kayaks coming towards them. One of the 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.320 crew described them as having long black hair, wearing sealskin 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.479 clothing and paddling boats made of sealskin stretched over a 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:26.160 wooden frame. The women had facial tattoos and blue ink. 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.320 During the first meeting, the Innuit were just in awe 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.640 the klu Nat came with their huge ship. A revered 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.960 elder named Inuki Adamy told the Canadian anthropologist Dorothy Harley 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:42.400 Eber in the nineteen nineties in oral histories, his ancestors 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:45.560 had passed on their first hand memories of Frobisher's arrival 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:50.279 in the Arctic more than four hundred years earlier. Speaking 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.440 in Inuktitut, Innuki said that the Inuit had never seen 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.400 such a big ship and such strange people. They were wary. 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.240 The Hallunut fired two warning shots in the air. I'm 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.240 sure the Kluna had good intentions, but they had never 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:09.359 seen Innuit before. An Inuit had never seen hallunat the 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:13.200 scene quickly turned confusing, heightened by the Innuit's bewilderment at 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:19.080 the englishman's outfits. Here's kristo Uliuk Sawadski, an anthropologist and 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.839 curator of Innuite art from rank and Inlet on the 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.600 western shore of Hudson Bay. She's a PhD candidate with 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:30.400 a research focus on Arctic anthropology, archaeology, and Innuit oral histories. 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.479 I think that for Innit, when they encountered these people 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:39.400 in these ships that were lost or shipwrecked or stuck 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:43.640 in the ice, I think we probably thought that these 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:47.000 guys are very feel prepared for the Arctic. You know, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:52.200 they're not wearing for clothing like we are. Cordial relations 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.360 went south when five crewmen who were ferrying an Innuite 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:59.520 man from the ship to shore never returned. Winter Forest 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:03.400 Frobish sure to go home without their comrades, but before 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.640 leaving he gathered quote unquote proof that he had found 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.360 the passage to Asia, a rock sample, and an Inuite hostage. 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.360 The man was taken to London, where artists painted his 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:19.800 portrait and sculpted his likeness. Frobishers surely expected to show 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:21.880 him off to the public as a curiosity of the 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.280 New World, but sadly the Inuit man lived only a 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:30.120 couple of weeks after arriving. Frobisher's sponsors paid a surgeon 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.560 five pounds to involve the man with the idea of 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.520 sending him back to his homeland, but for some reason 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:39.640 that didn't happen. Instead, the company paid for his burial 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:43.200 in St Olav's churchyard on Heart Street in London. So 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:46.480 the church has no record of his burial. We know 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.160 of his fate only from an accounting book belonging to 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:55.120 Frobisher's chief sponsor. The sponsors were much more interested in 0:07:55.160 --> 0:08:00.040 Frobisher's rock samples anyway, they believe they contained gold. In 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.240 fifty seven they sent Frobisher back to Baffin Island with 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.559 a direct order to stop exploring and focus on gold mining. 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:10.680 As the men hacked at the ore, Innuit watched from 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.680 a nearby hill, wondering why the Hallunat were obsessed with 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.800 this worthless rock. The scene made a big impression on them. 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.240 Even in the mid twentieth century, a respected shaman pointed 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:23.400 to the shiny flex and a river and said to 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.480 his grandson, never show that to the klu Nat. It 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:32.560 steals their minds. Though mining was their sole objective, Diannice Settle, 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.480 one of the ship's masters on this voyage, took note 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:39.040 of the Innuit customs. He saw that they hunted marine 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:43.720 mammals and birds for food. They lived in sealskin tents, 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:46.680 which were the traditional summer housing of the Innuit, easily 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:49.560 moved from place to place as they hunted migrating animals. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:53.080 He admired their resourcefulness and putting every part of an 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:57.120 animal to good use. He wrote, Those beasts, fishes, and 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:04.120 fowls which they kill are their meat, drink, apparel, houses, betting, hose, shoes, 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.120 thread and sails for their boats, with many other necessities 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:13.360 whereof they stand in need, and almost all their riches. Meanwhile, 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.360 Frobisher and another crew member searched for the missing sailors. 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:20.640 Encountering to Innuit on a beach, he tried to abduct them, 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:23.000 intending to ransom them for the return of his men. 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:26.520 One of the captives shot Frobisher in the buttocks with 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:29.920 an arrow and escaped. The other was wrestled to the 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.079 ground as he tried to run away, and was brought 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.440 back to the ship. Some of the English later explored 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.040 the area and found what they thought was evidence that 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:41.200 their missing comrades were nearby, so they chased down the 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:44.920 Innuit and cornered them on a beach. The Innuit defended 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.760 themselves with bows and arrows. The old stories say that 0:09:48.800 --> 0:09:51.120 the Innuit were so terrified of these white men in 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.680 the row boats that, thinking they were not of this world, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.960 they started shooting arrows at them, and Nuki said several 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:01.760 centuries later. In one account, five or six Inuite were killed. 0:10:02.360 --> 0:10:06.480 The crew kidnapped a young mother and her baby. Frobisher 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:09.920 attempted to negotiate a hostage trade for the five missing men, 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.440 but that failed, so as soon as they filled their 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.400 ships holes with two hundred tons of ore, they left 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:21.640 the island with the three Innuit captives. What we know 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:26.560 of the captives after their abduction comes only from English sources. Unfortunately, 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.240 their own words and experiences are not recorded by history. 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.000 The Inuite man was named Collicho, while the woman was 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.560 called something like Arnac, and her baby was called Newtok 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.280 or Nutiak, although these words may have meant woman and 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:45.600 child in their language. To the sailors on the ship, 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:48.080 the man and woman appeared not to know one another 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.880 when they were brought together in their cabin, but they 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.400 seem solicitous of each other, and Arnoc prepared meals for Collicho. 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:59.880 They arrived in Bristol, England, in September. Like in a 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.199 Elizabethan p t Barnum, Frobisher wanted to show off the 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.880 native people for paying customers and to the leaders of 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.800 the city. Callicho allegedly met the mayor of Bristol and 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:12.240 showed off his hunting skills by shooting ducks on the 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.720 River Avon with darts, even though he was also suffering 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.280 from broken ribs and other injuries, apparently from being tackled 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.559 by the English sailor. All three had their portraits drawn 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:28.040 and printed for the public before Frobisher could exploit them 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.880 as a side show. Though Collicho died of his injuries 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:35.320 in Bristol, the physician who treated him, Edward Dodding, made 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.360 Arnoc attend the burial to show her that the English 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:41.880 people did not practice human sacrifice or cannibalism, as he 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.840 believed the Innuit did. Arnoc was unwilling to see the ceremony, 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.200 and Dodding commented that she appeared stoic throughout, but she 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:54.240 was also suffering from a disease that historians believe was 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:58.440 measles and died four days later. She was buried next 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:03.800 to Colicho and Bristol's St Stephen's Church. Frobisher sent Little 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.360 New Talk to London because Queen Elizabeth the First was 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:11.040 especially keen on seeing him, But tragically, the baby died 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:14.080 just over a week after arriving in the capitol. He 0:12:14.200 --> 0:12:18.080 too was buried in Say No Loaves Church, and just 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.320 as tragically, none of their family and friends on Baffin 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:26.840 Island knew what had happened to them. Frobisher was not 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.840 done yet. His sponsors arranged a fleet of fifteen ships, 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.520 four hundred sailors and settlers and supplies for setting up 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:37.960 a colony next to the mines on Baffin Island. But 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.080 on their way there, the ships carrying their prefabricated house 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:44.520 sank in a storm, a site that so abashed the 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.080 whole fleet that we thought, verily we should have tasted 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:52.040 the same sauce, wrote Thomas Ellis, another ship's master. The 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.040 Englishman built a few workshops and a kiln for making bricks, 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:59.360 surely planning to return the following year. An elder named 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:02.719 udluri ac Inniak told Dorothy Harley Eber in the nine 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.760 nineties that her ancestors used to talk about the Queen's people. 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.840 They had this deep trench and used it to repair 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.600 their boat, and they also had a water supply area 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:15.360 and the buildings they made for themselves, and there was 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:17.560 also a place on a cliff side where they fixed 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:21.480 their masts. That's how it got its name, not Parusovik 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.480 where the poles are set up. That name is still 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:29.120 in use today. But unbeknownst to Frobisher, they would not 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:33.920 be returning their gold was actually worthless. Iron pirate, just 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.240 like the Innuit new it ended up this building material 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:42.880 all over Elizabethan, England. While a few other European explorers 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.000 poked around the Canadian Arctic, they didn't stay long and 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:50.240 Innuit life continued on as usual. Here's Kristo Uluk Sawatsky. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.920 The explorers didn't have a huge impact on other than 0:13:56.000 --> 0:14:00.920 adding to the stories that shared or to old I 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.160 don't think you know, today necessarily think about explorers as 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.720 like a detriment. I don't think that you necessarily think 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.560 of them as like, oh, this was first contact. You 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.360 know it went downhill from there, or it was great 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.080 from then on, or you know, there's not that sort 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.840 of mentality immunity, not that I know of. Like I said, 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.760 a lot of the change that occurred for Innuit was 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.560 around the whaling era, and so I think that, you know, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:35.120 we appreciate when there's stories about first encounters with explorers 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.240 in the sense that these are old stories and they've 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.800 been passed on, you know, for hundreds of years, and 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.560 that's kind of cool, you know. I think people appreciate 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.000 that aspect of it, But in terms of um their 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.560 attitudes towards explorers, at least in where I'm from, you know, 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.840 people don't give much thought to explorers other than James Knight. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.680 And there might be a story are here there that said, oh, yeah, 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.880 my grandfather remembers this story about his elders when they 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:08.680 remembered seeing the first ship arrived, that they had never 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.120 seen a ship before and it was shocking to them. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.080 They saw it from far away, and they thought it 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.520 took them so long to come to shore because they 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.920 didn't realize how big it was. You know, there's those 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.560 types of stories, but compared to other later in contrast, 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:27.880 they're not as impactful. We'll be back in a minute. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.360 In eighteen eighteen, when John Ross and William Edward Perry 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.640 sailed up the western coast of Greenland to find the 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.480 Northwest Passage. They were lucky to have John Sacchus on board. 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:49.440 Sacus was born in western Greenland. Around when he was 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.880 about eighteen years old, he found his way aboard a 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:55.160 Scottish whaling ship called the Thomas and Anne, and arrived 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.680 in Leith, the main port of Edinburgh. Reports from the 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.280 time indicate that he was interested in learning English and 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.360 becoming a missionary. Unlike the Innuit brought to England against 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.640 their will in the sixteenth century, Sakus is the first 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.800 known Inuit person who came to the United Kingdom by choice. 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.680 Saku seems to have enjoyed living in Edinburgh. He sketched 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:20.800 passers by at the harbor, and even demonstrated his paddling 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.360 skills against those of six men in a whale boat, 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.800 out maneuvering them in his canoe as a huge crowd watched. 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:32.720 Prominent artists painted or drew Sakus's portrait. One by the 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.880 Scottish painter Alexander Naysmith shows him in a sealskin jacket 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:41.680 holding a harpoon. Sakus was himself a talented artist, and 0:16:41.760 --> 0:16:45.800 Naismith offered him drawing lessons. Sakus also traded lessons in 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:50.600 inuktitute for instruction in English and writing. He joined Ross's 0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:55.160 expedition as an Inuit interpreter. Ross perhaps hoped that Sakus's 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:57.680 presence among the white men would put native people they 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.800 met at ease, and that he would be able to 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:04.600 such scenes that few Europeans could imagine. In fact, Sacho's 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.359 drawing of Ross and Parry meeting the Inu Wheat is 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.880 a revealing depiction of contact when the New Wheat accepted 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.119 the gift of the knife, Sach, who has found that 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:18.119 their languages were close enough that they could communicate. After 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:20.800 a brief chat, Saku's motion to Ross and Parry to 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:22.600 come over to where he and a group of eight 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:26.399 in New Wheat stood. In the drawing, Ross and Perry 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.600 are in full naval dress, complete with bi coorn hats 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:34.280 and gold fringed epaulets, looking extremely out of place. The 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.960 New Wheat shouting and raising their arms where fur parkas 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.240 and tall boots, and some are gazing at themselves in 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.040 mirrors that Ross gave them as presents. Zachu has captured 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.879 a meeting that voted well for future explorers in their lands. 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.160 The descendants of these very people would play important roles 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:54.160 and explorer's quests for the North Pole nearly a century later. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.960 According to the anthropologist Jean Malorie, who lived with the 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.400 Inu Wheat in the ninth fifties, Ross and Perry's visit 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.080 to their home in eighteen eighteen was a cardinal date 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:09.280 in their history. Ross made a similar impact with Innuit 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.760 on the other side of Baffin Bay too. After the 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:17.040 embarrassing Croaker Mountains experience, in which he mistook a common 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:20.000 Arctic mirage for a mountain range, which we talked about 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.879 in our first episode, Ross was basically blacklisted from leading 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.359 any more naval expeditions, but he didn't give up. He 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:31.440 got a wealthy gin distiller named Felix Booth to give 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.080 him more than ten thousand pounds, with which he bought 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:38.720 a steamship named the Victory. In eighteen twenty nine, Ross 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:42.240 set off towards Prince Region inlet, a large channel leading 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.399 south from Lancaster Sound, hoping to locate the Northwest Passage. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.240 The Victory spent the summer of eighteen twenty nine cruising 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.960 the eastern shore of a peninsula that he named Boothia 0:18:53.359 --> 0:18:57.320 after his benefactor. As winter came on, the Victory hunkered 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:01.240 down in a small bay ross called Felix Harbor. There 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.880 they encountered a groove of Innuit, the Netzelingmiut, who had 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.720 had no prior contact with Kalunat. The net Selingmiut called 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.080 the spot where they encountered the victory Kabluna Kyuvik, the 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:17.920 place for meeting white people. An elder named Bibbion niv 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:22.000 Yovak described the famous meeting to Dorothy Harley Eber. A 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:24.480 group of hunters happened to be in the tom Bay area. 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.439 One hunter named Abulukte wandered away from the group and 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.320 saw something strange. He went toward it and found the Kalunat. 0:19:32.960 --> 0:19:35.159 He was scared because he had never seen them before. 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.359 He ran so fast that the tail of his parka 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.639 flew out behind him. When he got back home, he 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.560 told everybody that these were really different people with long 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:49.240 necks and long faces. He scared everyone. The other hunters 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.240 were not sure if they should go towards a ship. 0:19:51.840 --> 0:19:54.359 The shaman in their village spoke through his spirit to 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:57.440 the Khalunat in English and then told the Innuit that 0:19:57.480 --> 0:20:01.200 the Kalunat were not dangerous. The following day they went 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:05.119 to the Victory. According to Eber, the tale of Abiluktuk, 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:08.440 his flying parka and meeting the Kalunat is still shared 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:14.200 with laughter among communities all across the region. Ross presented 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.240 the Netzelenmia with gifts of metal implements. Soon a cluster 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.560 of igloos went up, which Ross sketched and called snow cottages. 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:25.639 Ross also instructed the ship's carpenter to fashion a wooden 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.800 leg inscribed with the ship's name, for an Inuite man 0:20:28.800 --> 0:20:31.720 who had lost his to a polar bear. The man 0:20:31.760 --> 0:20:34.359 was able to resume hunting and providing for his family. 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.560 Ross noted and wrote in his journal, I am sure 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:40.560 the simple contrivance of this wooden leg raised us higher 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:43.000 in the estimation of this people than all the wonders 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.000 we had shown them. The wooden leg is now in 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:52.080 the collection of the Manitoba Museum. The first winter passed 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.359 with the Victory crew and the Netzelenmia enjoying friendly relations, 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.639 but Ross would soon face a nightmare. Throughout eighteen thirty 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.560 and eight, Ice and Prince Region Inlet trapped the victory 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.479 along a twenty miles sliver of coastline. What Ross had 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:10.800 envisioned as a one or two year expedition turned into 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:17.359 an ordeal lasting four years. Four dark, frigid winters, four 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.400 years of surviving on canned food and ship's biscuit, four 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.320 years of facing the same few people, four years of 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.879 waiting to go home. The one bright spot was that, 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:33.560 for the most part, Ross's crew avoided scurvy, the often 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:36.600 fatal vitamin C deficiency that was the bane of sailors, 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.320 because the nets Alignia shared fresh meat with them. The 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:44.720 crew mounted the first phase of their escape in January 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:47.960 two by removing every useful thing from the victory and 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.440 piling it on shore. Some of the supplies were bundled 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.720 into caches and left along their planned retreat. Valuable instruments 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:58.879 were buried in permafrost. The rest of the supplies were 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.479 left for the local people. On May twenty nine, they 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:06.000 abandoned the victory and began marching towards Fury Beach, a 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:08.680 depot of supplies salvage from the wreck of the h M. S. 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:14.720 Fury Perry's old ship from an earlier expedition. There, the 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:18.040 crew hoped to repair the Furies whale boats obtained provisions 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.360 and sail to Lancaster Sound, where they hoped the European 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:24.720 whaling fleet would be able to rescue them, But whalers 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.639 always left the area in August ahead of winter, and 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.040 the Victory crew didn't make it in time. That meant 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:35.399 a fourth winter in the Arctic. The men built a 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:38.200 hut out of the furies timbers and packed snow all 0:22:38.240 --> 0:22:42.080 around the walls and root for insulation. They called its 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.600 Somerset House, after the elegant London building that houses several 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:50.560 of Britain's learned and scientific societies. Now without interaction or 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:54.000 food from the nets, Alumiut days turned into a grind 0:22:54.080 --> 0:22:57.560 of boredom and malaise. Everyone in the crew had a 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.960 touch of scurvy, which made them irritable into pressed. When 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:05.560 spring finally came, they were determined to escape the Arctic 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.520 or die trying. Despite their weakened state, they rode frantically 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.359 to Lancaster Sound, where they prayed they would be rescued 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:19.200 by a whaler. On August three, a ship did spot 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:21.240 the whale boats and sent out an officer in a 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:25.600 boat to meet them. As Ross wrote, I requested to 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:27.800 know the name of his vessel, and expressed our wish 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:30.760 to be taken on board. I was answered it was 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.600 the Isabella of Hull, once commanded by Captain Ross, on 0:23:34.640 --> 0:23:37.120 which I stated I was the identical man in question, 0:23:37.640 --> 0:23:40.840 and my people as the crew of the Victory. The 0:23:40.920 --> 0:23:43.679 mate assured me that I had been dead for two years. 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:47.040 I easily convinced him, however, that what ought to have 0:23:47.080 --> 0:23:51.119 been true, according to his estimate, was a somewhat premature conclusion. 0:23:52.040 --> 0:23:56.600 They were back in England by October. Meanwhile, the wreck 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.760 of the Victory continued to provide supplies for generations of 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:03.440 net to Lignut, about thirty five miles north of where 0:24:03.440 --> 0:24:07.359 Abeluktuk first saw the ship. Elder Gideon Caduacs said in 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:10.600 the ninety nineties there are some old pieces of iron around, 0:24:10.720 --> 0:24:13.200 but a lot of it is vanished. The Innuit never 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:17.520 found exactly where they buried their stuff. Hunters also tried 0:24:17.520 --> 0:24:19.800 to salvage the victories wooden mass to cut up for 0:24:19.920 --> 0:24:23.679 sledges and harpoons. Many families in the area repurposed the 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:26.840 thick copper sheathing from the Victories hall to make traditional 0:24:26.880 --> 0:24:33.679 seal oil lamps. Here's Kristo Ulikaatski. One of the misconceptions 0:24:33.720 --> 0:24:37.600 that there might be is this idea that the explorers 0:24:37.640 --> 0:24:41.040 came and it was like, damn, the world changed for Nui, 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:45.160 but not necessarily. Like there's a misconception right there that 0:24:45.400 --> 0:24:48.639 you know, it was like first contact, but it was 0:24:48.800 --> 0:24:52.320 brief and there was not a whole lot of engagement, 0:24:52.720 --> 0:24:55.160 and then that was it. You know, they came, they said, 0:24:55.359 --> 0:24:59.680 and they lacked. There wasn't like this big bang that 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:05.320 people might think happened with explorers. But early explorers did 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:08.840 leave their mark in another noticeable way. Some of the 0:25:08.960 --> 0:25:11.920 legacies that explorers have left, or some of the impacts 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:16.359 that explorers have made, is the names on our maps, 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:19.960 Like Hudson Henry Hudson was an explorer. Now we have 0:25:20.040 --> 0:25:22.959 Hudson's right and Hudson Bay. And it's like, that's not 0:25:23.080 --> 0:25:25.680