Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, hey, or hang which means high and buy
Speaker 1: in in noukta tut which is the language of the Inuit,
Speaker 1: cool and nutgor meek for listening, which means thank you.
Speaker 1: Stumbled across some awesome like tourism videos for none of utu,
Speaker 1: which 're like, here's some simple phrases. Do you want
Speaker 1: to go now? Is it on our travel list? Oh?
Speaker 1: I've always wanted to go to the Arctic. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to go to the Arctic one day. Alaska,
Speaker 1: Northern Canada, North Pole, I'll go. Would you go to Antarctica? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I would totally go to Antarctica me too, My mom.
Speaker 1: I don't like the cold, obviously, but it's different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's freaking Antarctica. Yeah, no, you you have to go.
Speaker 1: I like the cold. I mean I don't think anybody
Speaker 1: likes that cold, but I don't think it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel so cozy in this structure that's barely keeping
Speaker 1: the my blood from freezing. My mom once was like, listen,
Speaker 1: I want to go to Antarctica, but ad refuses to go.
Speaker 1: Will you go with me? And I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: I will go, And so she was talking to me
Speaker 1: about it She's like, listen, there's a hot springs. There's
Speaker 1: a hot springs that you can swim in. And I
Speaker 1: was like, okay, so the water is warm, but what
Speaker 1: about getting out and getting in like that? There's a
Speaker 1: whole part of the hot springs that I'm not interested in.
Speaker 1: And it's the kidding. I would just would be like,
Speaker 1: I live in this water now, I guess because I'm
Speaker 1: never getting out. Well, um, we're so excited to bring
Speaker 1: you to the Arctic, not the Antarctic. Today. We're gonna
Speaker 1: go north, north, north, as far north as people have been,
Speaker 1: I mean, pretty much more or less, and we're going
Speaker 1: to tell the story of totally two and pere Vic,
Speaker 1: who were two Inuit villagers who got to travel to
Speaker 1: England and America and work as guides for British and
Speaker 1: American explorers who were trying to uncover the mysteries of
Speaker 1: the Arctic. These two had a totally unbeatable spirit. They
Speaker 1: had amazing survival skills, and that was pretty much enough
Speaker 1: to keep even the most inept sailors alive through circumstances
Speaker 1: that seem basically totally unsurvivable. So I say we jump
Speaker 1: into this story. It's so exciting. I really want to
Speaker 1: hear all about these two snowbirds and their incredible adventures.
Speaker 1: So everybody bundle up. We're stepping out into the snow.
Speaker 1: Let's go. Hey the French, come listen. Well, Eli and
Speaker 1: Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making,
Speaker 1: no romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships, a love
Speaker 1: it might be any type of person at all, and
Speaker 1: abstract cons that tour concrete wall. But if there's a story,
Speaker 1: were the second glance ridiculous role. That's a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. So okay, we're talking about the Inuit today.
Speaker 1: We're talking about way Northern Canada. Um, and the language
Speaker 1: up there is enocta tut and we are gonna swing
Speaker 1: for the fences with this and do our best. There
Speaker 1: are some great pronunciation guides out there. There's some cool
Speaker 1: videos that teach us a little bit um and then
Speaker 1: we're winging it on some of them based on uh,
Speaker 1: those pronunciation guides, kind of being like, I guess this
Speaker 1: vowel is pronounced like this, doing our best, but um,
Speaker 1: but it's really fun, like it's actually kind of a
Speaker 1: cool language to listen to, and uh yeah, I'm excited
Speaker 1: by it, and of course if you are Inuit, let
Speaker 1: us know something. We would love to correct that later on.
Speaker 1: But totally two was born around eighteen thirty eight on
Speaker 1: Baffin Island, which is like way northeast Canada, right across
Speaker 1: the Davis straight from Greenland. Now in Baffin Island, currently
Speaker 1: they have an average temperature of eighteen degrees fahrenheit, but
Speaker 1: in July it can get all the way up to
Speaker 1: forty eight. So you know, don't don't pack your speedos
Speaker 1: away just yet, because you will break a sweat just
Speaker 1: real quick. For our metric using friends a lot of joke,
Speaker 1: is an average temperature of minus eight degrees celsius, which
Speaker 1: in July can get all the way up to positive
Speaker 1: eight plus eight. Yeah, like, I don't know, I guess metric. Sure,
Speaker 1: I guess water freezes at zero and boils at a hundred,
Speaker 1: But I don't know why it's so hard to just
Speaker 1: remember that water freezes at thirty two degrees fahrenheit and
Speaker 1: boils at two and twelve degrees. That's very simple, right.
Speaker 1: So the man who would eventually become to Kalitu's husband
Speaker 1: was born about two years earlier on the other side
Speaker 1: of Baffin Island near Cumberland Sound. His name was a
Speaker 1: pier Vic. A lot of English whalers came through this
Speaker 1: area and they had a relatively positive relationship with the
Speaker 1: Inuit there, and probably should have said this earlier. But
Speaker 1: side note, the name for the indigenous people of Northern
Speaker 1: Canada in this region is Inuit, which is the plural
Speaker 1: form of Enuk. So you are and Enuk were part
Speaker 1: of the Inuit, yes, as I understand it. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: Inuit means people, So saying Inuit people is redundant. It's
Speaker 1: just a machine, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And Inuit, as I've
Speaker 1: come to understand it, is not a blanket term for
Speaker 1: all of the Native people of Northern Canada. Um, First Nations, Mati,
Speaker 1: and Inuit are sort of the three different groups. Oh
Speaker 1: I thought First Nations was the blanket terms. No, apparently
Speaker 1: first People's is a blanket term for all three of
Speaker 1: those group. But the First Nations are a different group
Speaker 1: of people than the Inuit or than the Mate. That's
Speaker 1: very interesting, yes, uh, And it's more complicated than that,
Speaker 1: and I won't be the one to explain to you.
Speaker 1: I'm just reading about it this week. So anyway, it
Speaker 1: peer Vic was familiar with English whalers at a young
Speaker 1: age because they were always coming through Cumberland Sound where
Speaker 1: he grew up. And at some point, surely he said
Speaker 1: to one of these sailors, hang I uvanga peer vic ativa,
Speaker 1: which means hello, my name is a peer Vic in
Speaker 1: my terrible enough to touch language. Um and the English
Speaker 1: then responded, but I have no idea what you're said,
Speaker 1: so we'll just call you Joe. Joe. That's not even close.
Speaker 1: They gave him the nickname Joe, and that pretty much
Speaker 1: stuck with him for the rest of his life. In
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two, when she was about fourteen years old,
Speaker 1: to Kali two started learning English from a British whaler
Speaker 1: named William Barron. It's likely that a peer Vic was
Speaker 1: already familiar with English since he had, you know, grown
Speaker 1: up around these English whalers. Um And at some point
Speaker 1: to Kali too and a Piervic were married. With living
Speaker 1: conditions being so difficult, marriage was more of a necessity
Speaker 1: than a choice in Inuit culture. Marriages were often arranged
Speaker 1: at a young age, sometimes at birth, and young women
Speaker 1: were eligible for marriage as soon as they hit puberty.
Speaker 1: While men usually were closer to seventeen or eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: and they had to prove themselves to be an effective
Speaker 1: hunter before they could marry. It's very interesting to me
Speaker 1: that you're sort of like, okay, you can now have babies,
Speaker 1: so that's all that's required. You need be able to
Speaker 1: provide for the babies, so prove yourself. Um. Sort of
Speaker 1: similar to the Powhattan tribe as well. Well. It was
Speaker 1: such an episode, you know that. What I read about
Speaker 1: Inuit culture back then especially was it was it's very
Speaker 1: much about the community. Everything you do is so your
Speaker 1: individual community can thrive. The idea of marriage reproduction these
Speaker 1: were all about like how can we survive up here,
Speaker 1: because that's constantly what they were thinking about because they're
Speaker 1: terribly difficult situations to survive in all the time, and
Speaker 1: there's not a traditional, fancy ceremony, marriage ceremony or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Often a couple would be considered married after
Speaker 1: the birth of their first child, and marriage was all
Speaker 1: about uniting the community. As you just said, Husbands and
Speaker 1: wives both could ask for a divorce, but it was
Speaker 1: frowned upon because it wasn't good for the community at large.
Speaker 1: Tugalito's sister Inuluapeak had traveled to Scotland in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: nine with a whaling master named William Penny. This would
Speaker 1: have been just after Tigalito was born, so took Alito
Speaker 1: grew up here and about that, and she always wanted
Speaker 1: to take a similar voyage. Lucky for her. In eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty three an Englishman named John Bowlby showed up. Now
Speaker 1: he had been a wine merchant, but now he was
Speaker 1: experimented with the fishing industry. It was everyone was getting
Speaker 1: into the Arctic and whaling and fishing and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and he wanted to capitalize on that. And his plan
Speaker 1: was to build a whaling station just off Baffin Island.
Speaker 1: So he goes there and meets the Annuit people and
Speaker 1: took Alitu and a pier. Vic were well known as
Speaker 1: good translators and they were well known as tough adventurous
Speaker 1: types as well. So John Bowlby met them and was like, hey, hello,
Speaker 1: maybe I should come back to England with me. And
Speaker 1: this was the opportunity of a lifetime for them. So
Speaker 1: they packed up and set sail for England. And in
Speaker 1: England they stayed in Hull on the East coast, north
Speaker 1: of London with the family of the ship's doctor, William Getney.
Speaker 1: Now it was common at the time for native people, Inuit,
Speaker 1: native amare, Amricans, Indians, Africans, basically any non Western European
Speaker 1: people to be quote unquote exhibited in world's fairs or
Speaker 1: expos as curiosities or explorers might bring a few natives
Speaker 1: around as like a fundraising ploy when they were trying
Speaker 1: to raise money for a voyage. Step right up, folks
Speaker 1: and see who I found. See who I found? And
Speaker 1: white people would come pay to see these folks in
Speaker 1: their native clothing, speaking their own language, or giving some
Speaker 1: like cultural demonstration, which is funny because they're like, I
Speaker 1: would pay to see this, but not leave you well
Speaker 1: enough alone to do it everyday life. That's where I
Speaker 1: could see it for free, maybe if you're my neighbor,
Speaker 1: But that's fascinating. Your culture is so interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to destroy it and assimilate you into mine. Yes,
Speaker 1: So of course, you know, it wasn't always for these
Speaker 1: exhibitions or whatever when not always performed willingly by these
Speaker 1: indigenous people or Africans or whomever they were trying to
Speaker 1: put on on display. But Fortunately in this instance, To
Speaker 1: kally To and A pierre Vic were willing and paid
Speaker 1: participants in these demonstrations, so yea for them. They even
Speaker 1: saw Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in London. Um Arctic
Speaker 1: stuff was particularly exciting in England at the time because
Speaker 1: everyone was swept up in Franklin fever. Oh Franklin fever. Now.
Speaker 1: The Franklin Expedition was the third and final expedition of
Speaker 1: a British polar explorer named Sir John Franklin. He wanted
Speaker 1: to sail through the Northwest Passage, so cutting west from
Speaker 1: England and through all those messy clusters of islands in
Speaker 1: northern Canada all the way over to Asia. So this
Speaker 1: would have kept them from having to go all the
Speaker 1: way down south around Europe and the southern tip of
Speaker 1: Africa to get to Asia. So it was just a
Speaker 1: way shorter route. Everyone was trying to make it work.
Speaker 1: They had all these plans. They were like, we can
Speaker 1: do it, and Sir John Franklin decided he was going
Speaker 1: to be the guy to do it. So they left
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty five, but the expedition was a huge failure.
Speaker 1: Their ships were trapped in the ice and eventually the
Speaker 1: entire crew died. England, who didn't know the fate of
Speaker 1: the crew, offered twenty thousand pounds sterling to find and
Speaker 1: rescue survivors. That is a little over checking here two
Speaker 1: million US dollars today. Wow, that's quite a reward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So obviously this became a big deal and everybody's talking
Speaker 1: about it. Through the eighteen forties and fifties, over twenty
Speaker 1: expeditions would set out to either rescue the crew or
Speaker 1: find out what happened to them. So all this talk
Speaker 1: about Arctic exploration of northern Canada, of course made to
Speaker 1: Kalitu and a pier Vic extremely popular. Yeah. Everyone was like,
Speaker 1: I can finally see people, the people who lived there
Speaker 1: with my own two eyes, right, and should be said
Speaker 1: that I don't know they were paid. It may not
Speaker 1: have been great. They I'm I would definitely call this
Speaker 1: exploitation no matter what you're doing, because they toward these
Speaker 1: guys around and said, give me your money to see
Speaker 1: them and I'll go find more, you know. But um,
Speaker 1: but they did seem to love it. They did seem
Speaker 1: to have a really positive attitude about their experience in England. Um.
Speaker 1: And they seem to just really enjoy it. I mean,
Speaker 1: these these one thing we'll see what Tookali too and
Speaker 1: a pure vic is their spirits are unbreakable and they
Speaker 1: are eternal optimists, and you know, coming from the Arctic,
Speaker 1: I think that's understandable. Maybe, like it's probably really hard
Speaker 1: to get them down because look at where they live. True,
Speaker 1: they're like I have to be happy e three day
Speaker 1: and see the best in everything, or else I'd be like,
Speaker 1: why do I live on a frozen rock? It's probably
Speaker 1: nighttime for like five months out of the year, I imagine, so,
Speaker 1: or at least very long, long, long nights. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you've you've got to If you sink, you're not you're
Speaker 1: not coming back up. So yeah, they probably are very
Speaker 1: good at staying upbeat. It's just appreciating things well and
Speaker 1: you're not you're you're What you said about them being
Speaker 1: exploited is just kind of calling up for me all
Speaker 1: the side shows and also racial representation that we've talked
Speaker 1: about in the last few episodes, because it might be
Speaker 1: like that they're like, well, we're not getting paid much
Speaker 1: or whatever, but it's really helpful for people to see
Speaker 1: that the people do live in the frozen wildlands and like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're normal human individuals. So even if they're
Speaker 1: not getting paid much, you know, maybe they felt like
Speaker 1: it was a good thing, you know, for people to
Speaker 1: see them. And okay, so John Bowlby knows he's got
Speaker 1: a hot ticket and his two Inuit friends and he
Speaker 1: takes them around Hull in London doing these showcases for
Speaker 1: everyone to see and meet a real in UK person.
Speaker 1: And I p Vic was described as an intelligent, quiet man,
Speaker 1: self willed who may be led but not driven, and
Speaker 1: they said he was quote a close observer of all
Speaker 1: that passes. He sounds like a strong willed but like
Speaker 1: strong was silent type, maybe kind of reserved, but he
Speaker 1: sees all, he knows all kind of energy. And Tokuli
Speaker 1: too was described is quote active, sprightly and full of
Speaker 1: fun and that quote her laugh is a joyous laugh.
Speaker 1: So I love this couple already. He's just like chilling, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: that guy's definitely sleeping with that Guy's why his first
Speaker 1: thing when he gets to England is to like Bravo
Speaker 1: analysis to Bravo, and he's like to Chukuli too, and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh for real, like that hat and they
Speaker 1: seem to really enjoy their time in England, especially to
Speaker 1: Kuli too, who adapted well to English culture and style.
Speaker 1: We found a crowd fun site for a film from
Speaker 1: a few years ago by ronelta our Luck, who's an
Speaker 1: Inuit actress and director, and she said that tokal too
Speaker 1: liked the style she learned about in England, so she
Speaker 1: would wear a bonnet and a bustle and carried a
Speaker 1: parasol and all that kind of like English style stuff.
Speaker 1: But she would take the patterns home back to Baffin
Speaker 1: Island and make the same style clothes out of steal skin.
Speaker 1: So she was like adopting the other cultures that she
Speaker 1: learned and appreciated, but she would take it in without
Speaker 1: losing her own culture. And Renolds has said quote in
Speaker 1: as an Inuit woman, that's still very hard to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: image After spending two years in England, they had become
Speaker 1: fluent in the English language, and then they even converted
Speaker 1: to Christianity. Many Inuit who came to Europe, either voluntarily
Speaker 1: or forcibly, ended up getting sick. Of course, many died
Speaker 1: even just from being exposed to these foreign diseases. You
Speaker 1: can imagine they don't have as many viruses hanging out
Speaker 1: in the below freezing temperatures in the right. So they
Speaker 1: come out to the two warmer climates and yeah, classic,
Speaker 1: I mean that even happened for the colonists came they yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But peer Vic and Tokly two were lucky. They were
Speaker 1: totally fine. They thrived, and after two years they decided
Speaker 1: they were going to go back home to their old lives.
Speaker 1: I Pervic got back and worked as a hunter, occasionally
Speaker 1: picking up work as a translator or a guide for
Speaker 1: the whalers that came through Cumberland Sound. And soon a
Speaker 1: whaling ship would come by with a man aboard who
Speaker 1: was going to change their lives forever. And we will
Speaker 1: meet that guy right after this commercial break, and welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show. Welcome back to the snow. I
Speaker 1: should say, I see what you did there, because we're
Speaker 1: in the Arctic. Peer Vic and Tally two's lives changed
Speaker 1: forever when they met an American sale named Charles Francis
Speaker 1: Hall in eighteen sixty. And this guy was a lot
Speaker 1: of things. He was born around eighteen twenty one somewhere
Speaker 1: in Vermont or New Hampshire, and he started out young
Speaker 1: as a Blacksmith's apprentice. Then sometime in the eighteen forties,
Speaker 1: he married, had two children, and eventually moved to Cincinnati, Ohio,
Speaker 1: where he started a business as an engraver. Then in
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine he published his own newspaper called The
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Occasional. And after publishing a few stories about the
Speaker 1: Franklin Expedition, which was of course the hot news of
Speaker 1: the time, so you had to run some stories about that.
Speaker 1: They liked it or not. But he got obsessed with
Speaker 1: the story and suddenly he was a total Frankloholic. He
Speaker 1: could not get enough of this. He couldn't get enough
Speaker 1: of stories about polar exploration, and he started dedicating his
Speaker 1: time to learning everything he could about the Arctic. I
Speaker 1: love that his He started a newspaper and he called
Speaker 1: it The Cincinnati Occasional, which is like kind of setting
Speaker 1: yourself up and be like, you'll get an issue when
Speaker 1: I get around. I'm ready, the st the Cincinnati Daily,
Speaker 1: the st the Cincinnati Weekly. It's the Cincinnati Occasional. Listen, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for fun. It's a hobby when you
Speaker 1: get it homemade zine. I'm doing just really just thinking
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. I was like, we should have
Speaker 1: called our show occasional. I would really take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: By eighteen fifty seven, he had this stack of research
Speaker 1: all about the Arctic, about any expeditions that went out there,
Speaker 1: and every piece of info he could find about the
Speaker 1: Franklin expedition specifically, and he decided, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it. I'm gonna go find the survivors of
Speaker 1: the Franklin expedition. Make make way, folks. I want to
Speaker 1: make two million dollars. Yeah. Bear in mind Franklin's ships
Speaker 1: had disappeared over a decade ago at this point, but
Speaker 1: this wasn't a crazy endeavor because things moved way more
Speaker 1: slowly back then. It was so normal to not hear
Speaker 1: anything from these exploring ships for a very long time.
Speaker 1: That Franklin's mission was gone without any contact with England
Speaker 1: for three years before anyone even started to worry. Yeah, that,
Speaker 1: but that was like, you know, so long, goodbye, we'll
Speaker 1: hear from you in a decade or so. Who knows,
Speaker 1: you know, there's not like there's a postal service, there's
Speaker 1: somebody to take carry a letter back right exactly exactly so,
Speaker 1: And they knew that once you get into that region,
Speaker 1: everything slows down because sometimes you just have to weigh
Speaker 1: anchor for months and just wait for the weather to change.
Speaker 1: And with all that, it also wasn't totally impossible that
Speaker 1: the crew was stranded and surviving somewhere, either with the
Speaker 1: Inuit or maybe just on their own, like like some
Speaker 1: kind of Gilligan's Island on ice um, which would have
Speaker 1: done a much more boring show. I mean, Gillian's Island
Speaker 1: on It would be kind of fun though, to see
Speaker 1: this tropical paradise set, but they're all on skates. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, yeah that would be good. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know about Gilligan's Island, uh with an Arctic setting. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that would be a little buddy, professor,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to eat eat the professor. So
Speaker 1: do you think anyone thought of that? And then they
Speaker 1: were like, no, we need the girls in bikinis. Is
Speaker 1: often Oh yeah sure, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be like,
Speaker 1: are do you like Marianne or ginger mar like if
Speaker 1: there's their difference. I just see a parka, just walking parka.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So okay, So Hall has got no
Speaker 1: experience sailing. He's got no experience exploring, he's got no ship,
Speaker 1: no crew, but he has a hundred percent committed to
Speaker 1: finding these guys. So what does please give me the
Speaker 1: confidence exactly? And what is someone with no money or
Speaker 1: experience do to break into the hottest industry of the day.
Speaker 1: He starts crowdfunding. Oh yes, he set himself up a Kickstarter.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey everyone that here's here's your second update.
Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone who pitched in so far. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw in an enamel pin for as a new park
Speaker 1: for anyone who decides to give over a hundred dollars uh,
Speaker 1: and if you give over five hundred I will send
Speaker 1: back as signed block of ice after in a in
Speaker 1: a plastic bag. Right, guys, I'm adding to the stretch goal.
Speaker 1: I'll send you your own piece of whale blubber. N
Speaker 1: I take a few months to get to you, and
Speaker 1: you won't want to eat it when it gets If
Speaker 1: you haven't if you haven't received your block of ice
Speaker 1: or whale blubber in three years, that reach out. So
Speaker 1: after about two years, Hall had crowdsourced a little stack
Speaker 1: of cash, his primary benefactor being Henry Grinnell, a merchant
Speaker 1: and philanthropist, and he sold his newspaper and that was
Speaker 1: enough for him to get a spot on a whaling
Speaker 1: ship that was heading out to Cumberland Sound, right near
Speaker 1: bath An Island. The ship was called the George Henry
Speaker 1: and it was captained by Sydney Buddington. Of course, Charles
Speaker 1: Hall was a complete amateur. He had very little support
Speaker 1: on this voyage. But his belief was, you know, if
Speaker 1: I can live among the Inuit, then anyone could have
Speaker 1: survived with them. He's like, I'm an idiot, I have
Speaker 1: no experience. My paper comes out occasionally. So if I
Speaker 1: can survive with the Inuit, anyone can. Like So his
Speaker 1: idea was basically like, let me go put myself amongst
Speaker 1: the Inuit, and if I end up not dying, then
Speaker 1: I know then I've got a shot at finding the
Speaker 1: Franklin expertise. I've been well. So in eighteen sixty the
Speaker 1: George Henry arrived at Baffin Island, haul hopped off the
Speaker 1: ship and walked into a coastal Inuit village which just
Speaker 1: happened to be the home of a peer Vic and
Speaker 1: to Kali too. Now in their early twenties, they walked
Speaker 1: out to meet Charles Hall, and he's like, greetings, I
Speaker 1: am American. I come in peace. Can you teach me
Speaker 1: the ways of your people? And they stared him for
Speaker 1: a second and then they're like, yeah, man, sure, like
Speaker 1: come on through, I'll show you where we hang our coats,
Speaker 1: like you want a beer? So he's like, oh, ship boy,
Speaker 1: it's my face red from frostbite problem. I was just
Speaker 1: about to say maybe he was embarrassed, but I'm not
Speaker 1: getting the impression that this guy gets embarrassed. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think Charles Hall knows how to get embarrassed. Great,
Speaker 1: I will take a beer, thank you so much. I mean,
Speaker 1: haul hit the jackpot landing here with Tokali too and
Speaker 1: beer Vic because are totally versed in British culture and
Speaker 1: and you know a good bit of American culture as well.
Speaker 1: They speak fluent English, and they've had experience sailing with
Speaker 1: white explorers. So the two of them hit it off
Speaker 1: with Hall right away. Also, remember they're like the friendliest,
Speaker 1: nicest people in the world at this time, I think,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, yes, welcome, please, I I love you.
Speaker 1: They're like immediately just hugs and jokes. Right. They all
Speaker 1: go back to their home to get to know each other,
Speaker 1: and Hall says, you know, probably something like, hey, so
Speaker 1: how are you all doing. My name's Charles Hall. What
Speaker 1: are your names? And she says I'm too Kalito. And
Speaker 1: Hall is like, oh uh, you know what, how about Hannah?
Speaker 1: What if your name is Hannah? That's too hard to say?
Speaker 1: And peer Vic says, well, a lot of people call
Speaker 1: me Joe, but my name is a peer Vic and
Speaker 1: Hall writes down, got it Joe beer bing Beer being like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I said it pere Vic. He said, yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I said it Beer being where the fund did
Speaker 1: you get a bee? From? Charles being where are you tying?
Speaker 1: So but that is true to this day. Most of
Speaker 1: the writings, you'll see them referred to as Hannah and
Speaker 1: Joe at beer Bingo, and they even, I mean they
Speaker 1: seemed to like this. I mean they kind of adopted
Speaker 1: the names, and they even signed their letters Hannah and
Speaker 1: Joe especially, I mean their letters to other white people.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: at the time it was a cute thing for them.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, that's cool, we got our own
Speaker 1: like American names. That's fun. What's sort of like I
Speaker 1: took Japanese in high school and they all got to
Speaker 1: choose our Japanese. Same with French. For me. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: friend was like, you should be Suco because it means
Speaker 1: little flower, and I thought it was so cute compliments
Speaker 1: I got in high school. But I me. We were
Speaker 1: given a list of names in French class to pick,
Speaker 1: and I picked Serge, uh specifically because I thought it
Speaker 1: was funny that it sounded like Surge, which was a
Speaker 1: hot soda at the time. What's so funny about you
Speaker 1: saying that is that I immediately thought of Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: Cop three because Eddie Murphy has a French friend who
Speaker 1: calls Surge instead of Saragh keeps correcting him, of course,
Speaker 1: and then he goes, Surge sounds like a detergent. I was.
Speaker 1: I looked out because with my last name Banks, so
Speaker 1: I was early in line to pick names. We just
Speaker 1: she just went through the list and was like, we
Speaker 1: all had the same list of names. She went down,
Speaker 1: everyone tell me what yours is and I said Serge,
Speaker 1: and I heard four other guys go, oh man, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be Surge alright. So Joe and Hannah a
Speaker 1: beer being took him in. They showed all their ways,
Speaker 1: and for two years he lived with the Inuit, and
Speaker 1: as an avid writer, he documented more about their culture
Speaker 1: and their lives than any visitor before him. His journals
Speaker 1: describe their traditions, their oral histories, their language, and details
Speaker 1: of how they managed to survive for so long in
Speaker 1: such a seemingly unsurvivable climate. Yeah, that would be fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, you were describing some of the Igloe stuff
Speaker 1: and ship I was like, the igloos are so interesting
Speaker 1: to me because just I'll do a quick side note here.
Speaker 1: Igloos were not traditionally like their main houses. They usually
Speaker 1: used them as shelter when they were hunting, you know,
Speaker 1: when they were going to be gone from their village
Speaker 1: for a while. And you build ice blocks up in
Speaker 1: a in an eglue shape like you're thinking, and um,
Speaker 1: it keeps the wind out and it holds body heat in.
Speaker 1: And when you're in there at night sleeping, your body heat,
Speaker 1: you know, fills the igloo and it starts to kind
Speaker 1: of melt the ice a little bit, and then when
Speaker 1: you leave in the daytime to go hunh that ice
Speaker 1: freezes again and it solidifies the igloo more and more
Speaker 1: so that the longer you spend in it, the more
Speaker 1: sturdy and hard the structure gets. So it's it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean the way they come up with these things.
Speaker 1: You have to drill air holes in your otherwise you'll
Speaker 1: fill it with carbon dioxide and you know, suffocate yourself. Um,
Speaker 1: but they they could build fires in these igglues. That's
Speaker 1: so cool. So you had no idea. I literally thought,
Speaker 1: it's just so ice house and it's freezing in there,
Speaker 1: and like, why would you live like that? No, it's great,
Speaker 1: although I didn't read that their villages they usually used
Speaker 1: whalebone and skins to build their more permanent homes. I'll
Speaker 1: also say, just because of Charles Hall is very interesting
Speaker 1: interpretation of a pure bicks name. I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: I really find his language notes to be very very reliable.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, it sounded like they said, I think it's
Speaker 1: I'm yeah or something. But the longer Charles Francis Hall
Speaker 1: lived with the Inuit, the more he was convinced that
Speaker 1: the crew from Franklin's voyage could still be alive. Um.
Speaker 1: He dressed like the Inuit, he drank, he ate their food.
Speaker 1: He adopted their lifestyle quickly, and he again knew if
Speaker 1: he could do it, anyone could do it. And during
Speaker 1: the two years that he stayed, Pierre Vic and Tukuli
Speaker 1: Too helped him travel and map much of the Frobisher
Speaker 1: Bay area on the south side of Baffin Island. He
Speaker 1: found some evidence of British explorers around this area, but
Speaker 1: all from earlier expeditions in the sixteenth century, nothing from
Speaker 1: the Franklin expedition. I love I love that he shows
Speaker 1: up and he's like, oh, all I found was some
Speaker 1: three hundred year old this is worthless the water. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he did. He needed to get to King William Island
Speaker 1: and that was not going to happen on this trip. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: tukule Too and peer Vic, we're getting a taste of
Speaker 1: the difference between a American and British whalers. To kuli
Speaker 1: Too once wrote to Charles Hall quote, I feel very
Speaker 1: sorry to say that many of the whaling people are
Speaker 1: very bad, making the Inuits bad too. They swear very
Speaker 1: much and make our people swear. I wish they would
Speaker 1: not do so. Americans swear a great deal more and
Speaker 1: worse than the English. I wish no one would swear, well, funk,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. It's true. My ass is the one
Speaker 1: telling this story. Would not. She would not for this show.
Speaker 1: She was so friendly, but she would have been like, damn,
Speaker 1: that girl, she's so nice, but she swears so much.
Speaker 1: Said damn, that's true. That girl. Girl is so nice,
Speaker 1: but she's a mouth like a sailor. Then, in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty two, to Kali Too and at Parvik gave birth
Speaker 1: to their first child, a baby named Tara Leaky Talk
Speaker 1: and that means butterfly. Hall wrote of him, quote, I
Speaker 1: never saw a more animated, sweet tempered, bright looking child
Speaker 1: likely to be remembered by all who ever saw him.
Speaker 1: Hall invited to Khalitu and a Piervic, along with their
Speaker 1: newborn son, to go back with him to the States
Speaker 1: to raise money for his next expedition, and they become
Speaker 1: good friends. At this point, and because of Hall's infectious enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: the two of them were pretty much getting super invested
Speaker 1: in finding the Franklin expedition too. And they got back
Speaker 1: to the States and just like in England, they were
Speaker 1: brought to exhibitions, and this included Barnum's American Museum in
Speaker 1: New York. City run by P. T. Barnum, and they
Speaker 1: were advertised as the quote first and only inhabitants of
Speaker 1: these frozen regions ever brought to the United States, And
Speaker 1: of course it was sensationalized and totally inaccurate and probably
Speaker 1: pretty racist. And in fact Hall did stop bringing them
Speaker 1: to these big exhibitions because there wasn't money up front. Uh,
Speaker 1: it was a little too sensational, and he was worried
Speaker 1: about their health, it says in some sources, so he
Speaker 1: stopped doing those big extravagant expeditions and instead took them
Speaker 1: on this lecture tour of the East Coast with him
Speaker 1: that that's probably, yeah, you could control a lot more
Speaker 1: about a lecture tour than you can yeah, and probably
Speaker 1: take more of the money for yourself, I think was
Speaker 1: a big part of it. Probably name your price, right.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the Barnum exhibit, they had to
Speaker 1: be there three times a day, for two hours each time,
Speaker 1: every day of the week, so it was like a
Speaker 1: noon to two, four to six, and seven to nine
Speaker 1: kind of thing they had to do three times a day.
Speaker 1: People paid twenty five cents to get in, which is
Speaker 1: only about eight bucks today, and then of course they
Speaker 1: switched over to this lecture tour, and when they weren't
Speaker 1: on the road doing that, the Inuit family stayed with
Speaker 1: Captain Sydney Buddington in Groton, Connecticut, and they totally fell
Speaker 1: in love with this town. To Kali too became especially
Speaker 1: good friends with Mrs Buddington, and she referred to her
Speaker 1: as her pretty mother. Soon totally too was like a
Speaker 1: celebrity within the Buddington's circle of friends, and they all
Speaker 1: said that she was quote full of frolicsome and comical
Speaker 1: ways except for the swearing. I think I could totally
Speaker 1: hang out with too curb in the tongue. Look, you
Speaker 1: do good with kids mostly mostly except when I slip up,
Speaker 1: I'll go fuck. I'll be like, damn kid, oh shit, fuck.
Speaker 1: It just gets It's all that time on the whaling
Speaker 1: ship you spent the sailors, you know, so Tokuly to
Speaker 1: peer vic Entree k tuck toward the East coast with
Speaker 1: Hall as he gave lectures and raised money, but it
Speaker 1: took a real toll on all three of them. Buddington
Speaker 1: told Hall he wanted to bring them back up north
Speaker 1: on his next trip out of concern for their health,
Speaker 1: but Hall fought with him about it, he said it
Speaker 1: was unnecessary, and then sadly, in the spring of eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, Tara Leak Talk, who was still an infant,
Speaker 1: died of pneumonia in New York, and he was buried
Speaker 1: in Groton, Connecticut, not far from the Buddington's home where
Speaker 1: they had been staying. And Tukal too was understandably inconsolable,
Speaker 1: and it suggested she was even suicidal, but eventually she
Speaker 1: regained her health and the next year, in eighteen sixty four,
Speaker 1: they went with Hall on his next exhibition to King
Speaker 1: William Island, and they toured Rose Welcome Sound, trying to
Speaker 1: find Inuit guides who were more familiar with the islands
Speaker 1: in this area, but they weren't nearly as willing to
Speaker 1: help him travel as a pure Vic and Tukuli too were,
Speaker 1: but the two of them helped him communicate, and he
Speaker 1: started to learn more about the Franklin Expedition crew who
Speaker 1: had come through there nearly twenty years earlier. At this point,
Speaker 1: but it was difficult to return to the ice. Tukul
Speaker 1: two was missing the warm years they'd spent with the
Speaker 1: Buddington's in Connecticut. In July of eighteen sixty four, Tukali
Speaker 1: too wrote a letter to them, saying, quote, Mrs Beddington,
Speaker 1: how are you. I've been sick three or four day.
Speaker 1: I like to come see my pretty mother during this time.
Speaker 1: Homesick Joe lame back and leg sometime he can't rest
Speaker 1: in night. I'm sorry for him. I think of him
Speaker 1: every day, sometime better, sometime very hard time. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that. Um yeah, I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the clearest examples of how they felt about each other too,
Speaker 1: Like they were really close. I think it's interesting that,
Speaker 1: you know, I read that they don't necessarily mary by
Speaker 1: choice or marry out of love. They said it did
Speaker 1: happen sometimes, but because there were so few people, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like you had a lot of options. But I
Speaker 1: think that those bonds must have formed just out of adaptation,
Speaker 1: you know, like you had to really care about everyone
Speaker 1: because you were all like a single thing living up there.
Speaker 1: You know, like you're almost these villages almost a single
Speaker 1: organism in terms of how close and connected everyone was,
Speaker 1: and if one person doesn't well or if you didn't
Speaker 1: like somebody, that could ruin it for everyone. Um. But
Speaker 1: I so, and then seeing them together on these trips.
Speaker 1: It's I thought it was nice to read this and
Speaker 1: hear her say, like I think of him every day,
Speaker 1: I'm really sorry for him, Like it's kind of sweet. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you do see that with arranged marriages all the time,
Speaker 1: love does form and grow over the years, and especially
Speaker 1: in their In their case, you know, they're being brought
Speaker 1: together and kept together by some extreme circumstances, not only
Speaker 1: in their regular life, but also with all these expeditions
Speaker 1: and like going out there being the only two Inuit
Speaker 1: people around. I'm sure that was they became a great
Speaker 1: comfort to each other. And they lost a child together.
Speaker 1: Either bind you or separate you, but I think in
Speaker 1: this case they probably were really clinging to each other
Speaker 1: for a lot of comfort in a strange place. A
Speaker 1: few years later into this journey to King William Island,
Speaker 1: par Vic and Tokuli too had another baby, who also
Speaker 1: died in infancy after a long, difficult sledding trip. A
Speaker 1: little bit of tragedy, a lot of tragedy for them
Speaker 1: in the family family way. Definitely, definitely, it's just those
Speaker 1: I you know, I couldn't speak to how common that
Speaker 1: was or anything, but I imagine those could those conditions,
Speaker 1: it's got to be hard to keep a baby alive,
Speaker 1: I mean insane, Yeah, because you especially on these expeditions
Speaker 1: where they're like, well, we might just end up having
Speaker 1: to sit here in the snow for six months, or
Speaker 1: we might have to take this sledding trip a thousand miles,
Speaker 1: you know, into the ice, and you don't know what's there.
Speaker 1: You don't know what's there. Yeah, you can assume, but
Speaker 1: you don't know, right, you're literally going to find out.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like how it was going around the
Speaker 1: internet got viral for a minute a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago about how women in Iceland will leave their babies
Speaker 1: bundled up in a full leave them outside like a
Speaker 1: coffee shop or something while they go in and have
Speaker 1: a drink. And people are like, what, this is insane,
Speaker 1: you know, but of course in an Icelander where I'm
Speaker 1: guessing I'm I think I'm guessing Iceland. But they were
Speaker 1: kind of like, well, you have to get them used
Speaker 1: to the cold. I mean this is where they live,
Speaker 1: like they need to be feeling warm in Groton, Connecticut. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this whole expedition took a whole five years and
Speaker 1: in eight sixty eight, which is about four years into it.
Speaker 1: They had a huge argument which broke out between much
Speaker 1: of the crew and Charles Hall, and he ended up
Speaker 1: shooting and killing a man named Patrick Coleman. Because Hall
Speaker 1: claimed that they were trying to mutiny, he never faced
Speaker 1: charges for it. I can't imagine that that made things
Speaker 1: less awkward for the trip home, but um somehow they
Speaker 1: pressed on and when they finally reached King William Island,
Speaker 1: Hall finally found some of the crew from Franklin's expedition.
Speaker 1: All his work and paid off. He was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're here, except just one little problem. They were skeletons,
Speaker 1: so he couldn't exactly ask him what happened. And with
Speaker 1: no survivors discovered and very little evidence as to what
Speaker 1: did happen to them, their expedition was at an end.
Speaker 1: They were not going to find the Franklin. It was
Speaker 1: time to go home, and so they packed up and
Speaker 1: set sail back for the States. On their way back,
Speaker 1: the ship stopped at an Inuit settlement called iglu Leak,
Speaker 1: which means there is a house here. I think it's
Speaker 1: a great name for a town. There is a house
Speaker 1: here that's like the town I grew up in and
Speaker 1: upstate New York. It was like there there is a
Speaker 1: house here. Don't don't blink or you'll miss it. And
Speaker 1: in iglu Leak, they met with another Inuit couple named
Speaker 1: te Lee Comb and poo Kinning who had a two
Speaker 1: year old daughter named Is. A guy took and it's
Speaker 1: not clear why the couple was willing to do this,
Speaker 1: but at Hall's suggestion, took ale To and a Pirevic
Speaker 1: adopted their little girl. Um. Apparently initially the mother was
Speaker 1: super into it and the father was resistant, but Hall
Speaker 1: gave them a sled in exchange, which was a pretty
Speaker 1: mus been nice sled deal because they were both like,
Speaker 1: all right, now this sounds like a good idea, and
Speaker 1: yeah it's strange. Um, I think he was just like,
Speaker 1: these these guys need a kid. They've been through a lot,
Speaker 1: and they need a kid. And I think maybe speculation station,
Speaker 1: maybe this couple didn't want or was having a hard
Speaker 1: time with a kid or something. For whatever reason, they
Speaker 1: were willing to do it. As they adopted this girl
Speaker 1: and they called her Panic, which is simply enucta tut
Speaker 1: for daughter. Now, Hall of course had to do his
Speaker 1: thing and give her an American name, which was Sylvia Grinnelle,
Speaker 1: a beer being named after his benefactor, Henry Grinnell. So
Speaker 1: he was like, well, she gets an American name too,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna throw Henry's name in there because he
Speaker 1: keeps giving me money. They returned to Groton, Connecticut in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, and this all American family, Hannah, Joe,
Speaker 1: and Sylvia bought a two story house for three hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: which is about six thousand, one hundred dollars today, And
Speaker 1: just for reference, the median home price in Groton right
Speaker 1: now is three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, so pretty
Speaker 1: good deal. And in Groton, Joe worked as a carpenter
Speaker 1: and Hannah as a seamstress, and they hoped to settle
Speaker 1: down and live a nice, warm Connecticut life together. But
Speaker 1: two years later, in eighteen seventy one, adventure called once again.
Speaker 1: After the Civil War ended, the American government got very
Speaker 1: interested in the global race to the North Pole, and
Speaker 1: with Henry Grinnell's support, Charles Francis Hall caught the attention
Speaker 1: at President Grant, who named him a man with survival
Speaker 1: skills but no academic background in traveling and no experience
Speaker 1: leading men or commanding a ship. The commander of the ship,
Speaker 1: great idea. And when we come back, we'll join them
Speaker 1: on their most dangerous, harrowing, ridiculous voyage yet an absolutely
Speaker 1: catastrophic journey full of ice, snow and murder. So bundle
Speaker 1: up and we'll be right back. Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: So everyone's trying to be the first to the North Pole.
Speaker 1: It's the space race of the day, right, and America
Speaker 1: thought this guy, who did have a ton of experience
Speaker 1: sailing in the Arctic and certainly never shut up about it,
Speaker 1: should be the one to do it. Right. It was
Speaker 1: all over the Cincinnati occasionally, every once in a while,
Speaker 1: occasionally it was talked about. So the ship and the
Speaker 1: expedition were both named the Polaris. And of course, because
Speaker 1: Hall had no sailing experience and he knew it, he
Speaker 1: knew he was going to have to be super selective
Speaker 1: in choosing his officers and his crew. He mostly hired
Speaker 1: whalers who were experienced with sailing Arctic waters, and these
Speaker 1: were salty gruff sailors who had a different kind of
Speaker 1: discipline than the British vessels who used mostly military crews.
Speaker 1: For these kind of voyages. So he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: he's probably smart in terms of who he's picking for
Speaker 1: being able to navigate these waters. But also these were
Speaker 1: not guys who were easy to control. Um, they were
Speaker 1: not trained like disciplined sailor types. They were like, I
Speaker 1: do what I want because that's how we survived, Like teamsters,
Speaker 1: you know, like they were like this, this is how
Speaker 1: it's done, boss. But for his sailing master, of course,
Speaker 1: he knew he had to get Sydney Buddington, who had
Speaker 1: been his captain on his on the George Henry back
Speaker 1: in his earlier voyages. Even though they had fought a
Speaker 1: whole lot in the past and didn't seem to actually
Speaker 1: like each other very much, he knew that like, Sydney's
Speaker 1: my boy. That guy is going to be able to
Speaker 1: do a good job. This guy knows what it's like
Speaker 1: to sail up there. So he picked him. And Buddington, however,
Speaker 1: was like, oh no, please, please, no, don't make me
Speaker 1: go with I don't don't make me go with this
Speaker 1: guy again. But when another one of his contracts fell through,
Speaker 1: he had to say, yes, do it. In the time
Speaker 1: that Buddington wasn't going after he turned him down. Charles
Speaker 1: Hall asked another guy named George Emery Tyson to do it,
Speaker 1: who also said no. But then Sidney came back and
Speaker 1: said yes, and then Tyson came back and said yes.
Speaker 1: So Hall's asked a few too many questions, He's made
Speaker 1: a few too many offers, and so to make up
Speaker 1: for this, he just makes up his position for Tyson
Speaker 1: and he calls him the assistant navigator. And basically what
Speaker 1: this meant was that this ship had three people who
Speaker 1: thought they were in charge. Terrible, terrible idea. So a
Speaker 1: pere Vic and took to couldn't turn down Hall for
Speaker 1: this trip. But they brought their adopted daughter Panic along
Speaker 1: with them and they left in June seventy one and
Speaker 1: immediately had problems. Before they even left the Brooklyn Navy Yard,
Speaker 1: the cook, a fireman, and an assistant engineer deserted the ship.
Speaker 1: They were like, wait, where are we going? Never mind,
Speaker 1: I distinctly heard you, says I thought we were going
Speaker 1: to the Caribbean, and the ship Steward was immediately discovered
Speaker 1: to be a drunk and was left behind. The doctor,
Speaker 1: a German named Emil Bessels, thought Hall shouldn't be in
Speaker 1: charge at all, and Tyson, the assistant navigator, wrote in
Speaker 1: his diary that a lot of the crew didn't like
Speaker 1: Charles Hall and quote already some have made up their
Speaker 1: minds how far they will go and when they will
Speaker 1: get home again. So they were like, I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: along for as long as I feel like being there.
Speaker 1: You don't tell me what to do. So it was
Speaker 1: just a messy bunch all around, like nobody on this
Speaker 1: I bet Tuculi too and a peer Vic. We're like,
Speaker 1: do y'all not know about the community thing? Y'all not
Speaker 1: familiar with how we all have to live together and
Speaker 1: about The only people on Hall side were too Couldly
Speaker 1: too and a peer Vic. Everybody else kind of just
Speaker 1: saw him as this micromanaging jerk right. Particularly to and
Speaker 1: a peer Vic were old friends of his, and of
Speaker 1: course they just saw the good in everyone, Like like
Speaker 1: you said, they were more about like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: we all have to get along the community here. Why
Speaker 1: would I focus on your worst qualities when I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to live next to you for the life and let
Speaker 1: me find what's good about you and focus on that.
Speaker 1: I guess that makes sense. So nevertheless, they pressed on
Speaker 1: and in early September, they crossed the ropes and Canal
Speaker 1: and set a new record eighty two degrees eleven minutes north. Now,
Speaker 1: no white man had ever been closer to the North
Speaker 1: Pole at this point is they're really feeling good about themselves.
Speaker 1: They really made it far. At this point, the three
Speaker 1: commanders started to argue about what to do next. Hall
Speaker 1: and Tyson agreed that they should sail further north to
Speaker 1: minimize the amount of time they would have to spend sledding,
Speaker 1: but Buddington's thought that was too risky for the ship.
Speaker 1: They should anchor here and start sletting north from here.
Speaker 1: In the end, Hall and Tyson one out. But as
Speaker 1: they sailed north and winter got worse, they were forced
Speaker 1: to anchor the ship, which was exactly what Buddington was
Speaker 1: trying to avoid. They ended up in a place called
Speaker 1: Thank God harbor. Whoever named it was like, thank God,
Speaker 1: there's a harbor here. Yeah. Right. At this point, Hall
Speaker 1: decided that he was going to go ahead on foot,
Speaker 1: kind of scout out the area head see if they
Speaker 1: could sled up to the North Bowl from here, and
Speaker 1: he would have taken Tyson with him. They were getting
Speaker 1: along better than anyone in Buddington at this point, but
Speaker 1: he told Tyson, quote, I cannot trust Buddington alone with
Speaker 1: the ship, so he asked him to stay behind and
Speaker 1: keep an eye on him. Literally, maybe Buddington will turn
Speaker 1: and leave while we're gone, or maybe he'll just you know,
Speaker 1: screw everything up. Because Buddington's may have been an Alca Hollick.
Speaker 1: There's some evidence in the cruise testimony afterwards that he
Speaker 1: was stealing liquor from the ships stores, including alcohol from
Speaker 1: the science lab that they were using to preserve specimens.
Speaker 1: So that that's the sign of a serious alcoholic when
Speaker 1: you're drinking. Yeah, yeah, that's fairly bad. Although it makes
Speaker 1: me think this ship steward must have been a really
Speaker 1: bad drunk and they realized it before they even left,
Speaker 1: and they had this guy chart. Maybe Budington was like, listen,
Speaker 1: it takes one to know why that guy out of
Speaker 1: here is Melbow Crooker. So Hall took two sleds, his
Speaker 1: first mate Chester, a peer Vic and another Inuit guide
Speaker 1: named Hendrick, and they left on October tenth for the
Speaker 1: sledding expedition to see if they could make it to
Speaker 1: the North Pole, and Tookoli too, stayed behind to take
Speaker 1: care of their child. Panic. Hall sent Hendrick back on
Speaker 1: day two with a bunch of instructions for the rest
Speaker 1: of the guys. For example, he told the doctor, who
Speaker 1: was a scientist with three degrees, don't forget to wind
Speaker 1: the clock. And he left Buttington, who was a sailing
Speaker 1: master with over two decades of experience, a lengthy to
Speaker 1: do list while he was away, And this was the
Speaker 1: kind of micromanaging that made everybody hate him. Seriously, you're
Speaker 1: a manager, remember Charles Hall, and don't be like that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that. He like that. They
Speaker 1: left and two days later he was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: you know what, I gotta I gotta something to say
Speaker 1: to these guys. He's been thinking about it this whole time.
Speaker 1: I should have left them something to do there. What
Speaker 1: are they going to get up to while I'm gone?
Speaker 1: Not work, that's for sure. So they were gone for
Speaker 1: two full weeks and when they came back, they had
Speaker 1: a nice cup of coffee and a Pierrevic took his
Speaker 1: to his room to drink, but at ten pm, to
Speaker 1: Kali two came to get a peer Vic and told
Speaker 1: him that Hall was very sick and vomiting and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't let anyone see him except to Kali too. He
Speaker 1: was convinced someone on the ship had poisoned him, and
Speaker 1: to calit You told him, you know, why don't you
Speaker 1: go see the German doctor who's sitting right here and
Speaker 1: meal vessels. But Hall was like, that's probably the guy
Speaker 1: who tried to kill me, So no, I'd like to
Speaker 1: not see him. And for a few days he was
Speaker 1: terribly sick, just vomiting and feeling weak and tired of aching,
Speaker 1: and his left side all hurt. It was crazy, but
Speaker 1: he started to improve. A couple of days later he
Speaker 1: was getting better. He was back on his feet, and
Speaker 1: on November four he was able to go above board,
Speaker 1: and finally he relented. The one of the other officers
Speaker 1: convinced him, like, you've got to go see vessels. He's
Speaker 1: our doctor. You're sick, Like, can we just forget all
Speaker 1: all this? And and you go talk to the doctor
Speaker 1: and he says, all right, I'll do it. And then suddenly,
Speaker 1: after seeing vessels, he started to get sick again. A
Speaker 1: few grueling days later, Charles Hall vomited, collapsed and died.
Speaker 1: Now Bessel's diagnosis was apoplexy, which is a dated term
Speaker 1: they don't use anymore. That meant like a ruptured organ
Speaker 1: or a stroke. They took him ashore and they had
Speaker 1: a formal burial, but the mission wasn't over. They needed
Speaker 1: to press on. But now Buddington's was in charge, okay,
Speaker 1: So of course things got way worse. Morale and discipline
Speaker 1: totally diminished. Buddington was drunk all the time, although Tyson
Speaker 1: started to drink a lot more too, and one of
Speaker 1: the crewmates even stole and made a copy of Buddington's
Speaker 1: key so that they could all steal liquor from the stores.
Speaker 1: Do you think get any point anyone opened the stores
Speaker 1: and like, there's no fucking They must have brought so
Speaker 1: much to have several drunks, and the whole crew was stealing.
Speaker 1: There must have been a lot of booze when they left.
Speaker 1: I mean that's you know, when you're picking out your
Speaker 1: provisions that remember one thing. At some point we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to sit in the snow for six months, so
Speaker 1: there was no set bedtime. Everyone was just doing as
Speaker 1: they pleased. It was total chaos. And then Buddington decided
Speaker 1: to start handing out firearms to everyone. Nobody knows why.
Speaker 1: It was just like we're all getting drunk, so have
Speaker 1: a gun. You got a gun. You got a gun.
Speaker 1: Let's add freaking weapons to that. Just total nonsense going
Speaker 1: on in this ship. In January, Tyson wrote in his diary, quote,
Speaker 1: last month, such an astonishing proposition was made to me
Speaker 1: that I have never ceased thinking of it since, enough
Speaker 1: to make Captain Hall stir in his ice cold grave.
Speaker 1: He wrote that he and the first mate agreed that
Speaker 1: the proposition was monstrous and unthinkable, and he never said
Speaker 1: specifically what they were talking about, but Canadian writer Farley
Speaker 1: Mowitt suggested that the proposition they're talking about was that
Speaker 1: they would fake the rest of their journey to the
Speaker 1: North Pole and just cartend they had made it. That's so,
Speaker 1: I mean, like, yeah, for for someone whose job this is,
Speaker 1: you can imagine, that is like the craziest thing anyone
Speaker 1: has ever said to you. Yeah, you want us to
Speaker 1: just go back and lie about it and have the
Speaker 1: whole world like hail us as heroes for something we
Speaker 1: never did. That sounds like a nightmare. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to sleep at night, you know, right well,
Speaker 1: and at this time, you know, there were lots of
Speaker 1: guys that had this sense of honor where it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I could call an eye and kill an
Speaker 1: entire coasts worth of people, but if I cheated cards,
Speaker 1: I'm a real asshole, Like you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: I would never do something terrible. So I agree, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he really did think like to go back,
Speaker 1: And as you say, I didn't think about that. To
Speaker 1: be hailed as heroes for something you never did certainly
Speaker 1: be really uncomfortable. That would weigh on you. You were
Speaker 1: a right well. They chilled out until June until some
Speaker 1: of the men set out in a smaller boat to
Speaker 1: try and get to the pole, but the boat was
Speaker 1: crushed by ice and they were forced to walk back
Speaker 1: to the ship. Another mini team set out, but within
Speaker 1: days Buddington's got cold feet and sent a piervic to
Speaker 1: bring them back, and so they had to abandon their
Speaker 1: boats and walk back to the Polarists once again, and
Speaker 1: now they were short for lifeboats. God, so the Polaris
Speaker 1: mission was over. They were like, we're done with this.
Speaker 1: We are not going to get to the North Pole.
Speaker 1: Is not even a hot mess, it's a cold mess.
Speaker 1: I guess at this point, they were just like we're well.
Speaker 1: Buddington already was like, I'm stugged down with this. I'm
Speaker 1: going home. I've had We're out of booze. I'm getting
Speaker 1: out of here. Tyson was like he hasn't got the
Speaker 1: bottom for this voyage. Tyson was pretty bummed out about this.
Speaker 1: He really, I think, wanted to go on and finish.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote what opportunities have been lost? And there's
Speaker 1: a there's longer quotes about how he's just like, this sucks.
Speaker 1: Somebody's going to get to the North Pole at some point,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be mad that people got in
Speaker 1: my way and it couldn't have been me. Well, and
Speaker 1: they were already all the way up there and had
Speaker 1: already been through all this stuff. I'm sure it's like
Speaker 1: a little bit of sunk cost fallacyies like, no, I
Speaker 1: have to make it so seriously, seriously. So they turned around.
Speaker 1: They started to head south back to the States, but
Speaker 1: in October Buddington ran the ship into an icy sandbar
Speaker 1: and they started taking on water. So he was drunk
Speaker 1: mending white possible, I mean almost definitely drunk sailing. He
Speaker 1: starts ordering cargo to be thrown overboard so that they wouldn't,
Speaker 1: you know, sink, they could lighten the ship, balance things out,
Speaker 1: and booie the ship. But because they sucked so bad
Speaker 1: at discipline and order and they just there was no
Speaker 1: clear chain of command, everything was just chaos and they're
Speaker 1: just throwing stuff over overboard with no one telling them
Speaker 1: where or how to throw it. So they ended up
Speaker 1: losing a ton of cargo. Like everything they jettison basically
Speaker 1: it was never seen again. Meanwhile, pere Vic Tukali to panic,
Speaker 1: Hendrick Tyson and fifteen other crew members. We're all out
Speaker 1: on the surrounding ice at night. They had told everyone like,
Speaker 1: it's not safe on the ship, so let's all just
Speaker 1: go hang out on the ice and tell we know
Speaker 1: things are good, and then we'll bring you back on board.
Speaker 1: And suddenly the ground started to break, the ice cracked
Speaker 1: and split, and soon the nineteen people on that ice
Speaker 1: flow we're floating away from the polaris terrifying. I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine a more scary thing than to be on a
Speaker 1: freaking piece of ice, floating through a frozen sea from
Speaker 1: your ship. Oh my god, terrifying nightmares. I wonder if
Speaker 1: Tyson Speculation Station maybe maybe if I'm Tyson, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what this is better? Wait to Tokali, to
Speaker 1: andre Vick here, Oh we're good, right, Seriously, I just
Speaker 1: keep thinking of yukonk Nelius and Rudolph the red Nose
Speaker 1: Reindeer when they're running from the Abosmiable snowman and the
Speaker 1: like he chops the ice up and they float away
Speaker 1: on that. Not not as cute, but they drifted over
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred miles for six months, and it is universally
Speaker 1: agreed that if pere Vic and to Kalitu as well
Speaker 1: as Hendrick hadn't been with them, everyone would have died.
Speaker 1: I definitely would have thought that because the sailors were
Speaker 1: again just terribly undisciplined. They went through their food rations
Speaker 1: like crazy. They even had a night where they just
Speaker 1: went hog wild and started feasting just stuff in their
Speaker 1: faces with their rations because they just couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 1: They were like, what I really want is to become
Speaker 1: a cannibal, so let's get all food. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: wait to eat a person. They're like it's day three
Speaker 1: and they're like, I can't take it anymore. And not
Speaker 1: only that, but they actually had some lifeboats with them,
Speaker 1: but they were confused about where they were. Uh. They
Speaker 1: thought they were on one side of Greenland, but they
Speaker 1: were actually on the other side. So they kept expecting
Speaker 1: to see land come up, but they didn't. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they were just looking in the wrong direction
Speaker 1: or what, but they decided that the lifeboats were useless
Speaker 1: to them, and they broke them up for firewood. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, So they are not handling this well. Nobody's
Speaker 1: listening to Tyson. He like tries to take command, and
Speaker 1: everyone just does whatever they want, so he basically gives up. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: pere Vic and Hendrick start hunting seal and they're on
Speaker 1: the middle of this chunk of ice in the Arctic
Speaker 1: Ocean with like nothing around them. They start bringing in
Speaker 1: seal for everyone to eat and to Kalit builds IgG
Speaker 1: loose so they have somewhere to get away from the
Speaker 1: wind and the cold and save their body heat. So
Speaker 1: these guys just start working for these lazy asses, start
Speaker 1: collecting up and started just making sure everyone's gonna survive
Speaker 1: all in all. I mean, it sounds like a pretty
Speaker 1: nice cruise, you know. Oh, I guess it's on par
Speaker 1: with that carnival cruise where everybody, Yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: which would you rather be out in the middle of
Speaker 1: the ocean freezing for six months eating nothing but seal
Speaker 1: in any glue, or six weeks on the carnival cruise
Speaker 1: covered in ship. That's a game show right there. That's
Speaker 1: a tough one, a real sofas chowing. They were picked
Speaker 1: up in April of eighteen seventy three on the coast
Speaker 1: of Newfoundland by a whaling ship, and their Inuit guides
Speaker 1: were hailed as heroes, which obviously they were. Everyone will
Speaker 1: be dead without them. Meanwhile, Buddington had gotten the Polaris
Speaker 1: moving again, but they burned too much coal without any
Speaker 1: discipline during the voyage, and soon he had to run
Speaker 1: the ship aground. And since they lost so much of
Speaker 1: their ship when he had them throw it overboard, they
Speaker 1: really didn't have the supplies they needed to survive another winter.
Speaker 1: So they pulled lumber from the ship and built shelters.
Speaker 1: And they were fourteen of them, huddled together with few
Speaker 1: survivor skills among them, very little food, near death, when suddenly,
Speaker 1: lo and behold, the Eta Innuit showed up and helped
Speaker 1: them survive through the winter. Man. Innuits are the real
Speaker 1: heroes of this whole story throughout stranded in the art,
Speaker 1: you better hope some innuit show up to help you out,
Speaker 1: because you will die only where these people lived, and
Speaker 1: in June of seventy three they built ships from salvaged
Speaker 1: wood and sailed south and were eventually rescued by a
Speaker 1: whaling ship in July. So, the nineteen people from the
Speaker 1: ice flow get back to the States and the US
Speaker 1: Navy is like, hey, uh, you, what the hell happened
Speaker 1: out there? This looks like the frozen hell happened. You're
Speaker 1: like where, I'm sorry, where's your captain? Sorry? Where's your ship?
Speaker 1: By the way, you didn't get to the North Pole.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing. Uh. They brought back more questions than answers
Speaker 1: or people, more questions than people boats anything. So the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy opened a formal inquiry. Obviously this was a lot
Speaker 1: of money went into this. At this time, Buddington and
Speaker 1: his people hadn't even been rescued yet, no one knew
Speaker 1: what happened to the polarists. At this point, they asked
Speaker 1: to Galita and she had actually said, oh, they're they're good.
Speaker 1: They parked somewhere safe. If they wait till the summer,
Speaker 1: then they'll be able to sail out no problem, which
Speaker 1: of course Buddington was not able to do, but she
Speaker 1: thought it should be no problem for them. So they're
Speaker 1: kind of waiting for them to show back up. She
Speaker 1: had a lot of faith. She was such an optimist,
Speaker 1: she really is. So they bring Tyson in to give
Speaker 1: his sort of testimony about what happened, and he says, basically, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: Buddington's sucks, and we think the doctor might have poisoned
Speaker 1: Charles Hall, like that's probably something that happened apparently. So
Speaker 1: they decide they're gonna they want to talk to everybody,
Speaker 1: and they bring in pier Vick and Tokalitu as well,
Speaker 1: who again were considered heroes of this trip, and they
Speaker 1: get their testimony. If pier Vick laid it out, he said, quote,
Speaker 1: I didn't like Buddington always talking behind back. Hall told
Speaker 1: me when sick, somebody give him something bad. He was
Speaker 1: sick two weeks. Buddington did not take care of him.
Speaker 1: I think it not right. Made me feel bad. He says,
Speaker 1: something bad in coffee I drink last night, making me
Speaker 1: sick and stomach bad. And then he said in the
Speaker 1: few days where Hall felt better, that Hall was looking
Speaker 1: through the doctor's medicinal books and he pointed to something
Speaker 1: and told it peer Vick that that thing is making
Speaker 1: me sick, and I peer Vick didn't know what it
Speaker 1: was specifically, but he said in this deposition quote something
Speaker 1: about poison, I think. And to Kuli, to gave testimony
Speaker 1: to their experience on the ice flow, she said she
Speaker 1: was taking her stuff off the ship after the big leak,
Speaker 1: and a fireman had told her the ship was going
Speaker 1: to be okay, but Buddington told her to ignore that
Speaker 1: and just take her stuff and her daughter and go
Speaker 1: out on the ice where it's safe, and then the
Speaker 1: ice broke up. God never listen to Buddington. He was
Speaker 1: right that one time. That's true. So it's I mean,
Speaker 1: they were none of them were. None of them were
Speaker 1: ever right very often. That's the problem. And they asked
Speaker 1: to Kali too, who was in command on the ice flow,
Speaker 1: and she said nobody, which definitely sounds accurate. And they asked,
Speaker 1: you know what about Tyson, because he's this assistant navigator
Speaker 1: or whatever, and she said, quote, well, he could not
Speaker 1: control them. He tried to do everything he could. He's
Speaker 1: a good man. We have known him a good many years.
Speaker 1: He tried to do everything for the best I saw,
Speaker 1: and Joe very sorry to sometime little provisions left. And
Speaker 1: she tells a story about how they thought they were
Speaker 1: about to starve, but a bear showed up across the
Speaker 1: ice killed a seal, and while the sailors laid down
Speaker 1: and tried to stay hidden, appear Vic chased the bear
Speaker 1: off and took the seal meat for everyone. We chased
Speaker 1: a bear, and we we must assume that this was
Speaker 1: a polar bear, which, if you're called last a couple episodes,
Speaker 1: if it's white, good night, good night, You're not so
Speaker 1: everybody is. I'm sure he told everyone else, Okay, you
Speaker 1: all laid down, stay quiet, I'll take care of this bear.
Speaker 1: And just when I don't know whatever he did, no, bear,
Speaker 1: you can't have your food. We're taking it. Like that's
Speaker 1: not a conversation you have with a polar bear. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. And also like she's apologizing, oh my god,
Speaker 1: for what she's well, because there wasn't more food, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever. I'm so sorry. There wasn't always a lot
Speaker 1: of food, but we only with zero bait. I can
Speaker 1: chase the bears off this ice plod for you. She's
Speaker 1: so sweet, I can't stand it. She's the best. And
Speaker 1: through all this testimony and in interviews later, it's the
Speaker 1: same thing. Authors and historians keep pointing out that if
Speaker 1: pier Vik and took al To just refused to have
Speaker 1: a bad attitude about anything, they like kind of grumbled
Speaker 1: about Buddington, but they didn't want to ever say anything
Speaker 1: out right bad about anybody, even the lazy sailors on
Speaker 1: the ice flow, who they basically had the hand feed
Speaker 1: the whole time they were out there, like let me
Speaker 1: chew up this CeAl and spin your mouth, even them,
Speaker 1: if peer Vick was like, oh, they're good guys offered
Speaker 1: me a cigar once. The bar is low to say,
Speaker 1: like what they offered me a cigar once? I kept
Speaker 1: them alive for six months and they offered me a
Speaker 1: cigar one time. I mean, like we said, tukali To
Speaker 1: apologized for their not being enough food. I think it
Speaker 1: speaks to how they were so loyal to Hall as well,
Speaker 1: because this guy, I mean, it really seemed like he
Speaker 1: exploited them in the States, taking them on this lecture tour.
Speaker 1: I don't think he had bad wishes for them, or
Speaker 1: they didn't care about them necessarily, but he was definitely yeah,
Speaker 1: but he was definitely using them. And they were always
Speaker 1: just like, oh, he's a good friend of ours, he's
Speaker 1: a good guy. He means well, he's trying his best.
Speaker 1: You know. They just they're super optimistic, which, like we said,
Speaker 1: you must have to be. You got to bring your
Speaker 1: own sunshine. Did not have time for a bad attitude
Speaker 1: in the Arctic. That's going to get everybody in trouble.
Speaker 1: I mean, we could all learn a little bit from
Speaker 1: Tukali to a little bit of that energy into our
Speaker 1: everyday life. In all honesty, I'm saying like, sometimes times
Speaker 1: it's not like if you have comforts and you have
Speaker 1: stability and security, that you can't be upset, that that
Speaker 1: things can't bother you, that you can't be angry or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But I do try to remind myself
Speaker 1: that I'm not living on a sheet of ice. You
Speaker 1: know that your outlook, your attitude towards your community, towards
Speaker 1: other people around you who are just trying to survive
Speaker 1: with you, matters a lot. And I think we have
Speaker 1: a lot of cynicism and negativity that is very infectious, right,
Speaker 1: And if you imagine yourself in a smaller community like that,
Speaker 1: thirty forty people living in a village in the middle
Speaker 1: of the harshest conditions on earth, and you learn that
Speaker 1: like that, that negativity really is toxic, Like it spreads
Speaker 1: and it hurts and it doesn't do anything to help us.
Speaker 1: So if you're not, if your attitude isn't also contributing
Speaker 1: to our survival, then check it. Yeah, it's not that easy.
Speaker 1: I also believe that you know, emotions are real and
Speaker 1: you know, go by them sometimes, but it's just just
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. Yeah, I mean it is.
Speaker 1: There is such a thing as toxic positivity, and you know.
Speaker 1: But but I do agree with you that a sousson
Speaker 1: of Tokuli too and pere Vic could not could not
Speaker 1: go wrong in all of our views. Well, in the end,
Speaker 1: there was not enough evidence for any charges to be
Speaker 1: filed in Hall's death. Um The final report said, quote,
Speaker 1: we are of the opinion that Captain Hall died from
Speaker 1: natural causes and that the treatment of the case by
Speaker 1: Dr Bessel's was the best practice under the circumstances. But
Speaker 1: in ninety eight, Charles Francis Hall's biographer, Chauncey Chester Loomis Jr.
Speaker 1: Took an expedition of his own to exhume Hall's body,
Speaker 1: and he was remarkably well preserved for being dead two
Speaker 1: hundred years because of the whole of the ice you
Speaker 1: kind of, I mean, that's sort of what it does.
Speaker 1: They didn't like thaw him out, and he's like in
Speaker 1: Sino man who the world has changed? Dudes? That would
Speaker 1: be dope for real. And testing of his exhumed body
Speaker 1: showed that he died from arsenic poisoning, although it must
Speaker 1: be said that a lot of medicines contained arsenic back then. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's possible that he even accidentally poisoned himself. So
Speaker 1: we're still not sure it's like a malicious poisoning or not.
Speaker 1: Certainly he was poisoned. Just who did it? Why? It's
Speaker 1: up in the air. Although I think I'm still personally
Speaker 1: prosecuting Dr Emil Bessel's in my head because in another twist,
Speaker 1: it turns out Bessel and Hall we're both into the
Speaker 1: same girl back in New York City. Her name was
Speaker 1: Vinny Reem and she was a famous sculptor and Vessels
Speaker 1: was more into her than Charles Francis Hall was, but
Speaker 1: she was more into Hall. So there's a whole love
Speaker 1: triangle that is a crime recipe for a poisoning. Was like,
Speaker 1: I see a great opportunity to clear the field for myself.
Speaker 1: If there was any more information than just that, this
Speaker 1: would be a whole episode for us. That's a little
Speaker 1: bonus romance because there's not anymore. That was a good one.
Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, that's just another possible motive for the sociopath.
Speaker 1: Dr right, just kidding. It remains unproven. Vessels was never charged.
Speaker 1: We don't know Speculation Station. He wasn't charged there, But
Speaker 1: here on ridiculous romance, in the safety of Speculation Station,
Speaker 1: we're going to say he did it. He definitely did it.
Speaker 1: He murders love so a pier vik tokal Too and
Speaker 1: Panic returned to Connecticut, but panics health had been poor
Speaker 1: ever since the six months they spent on the ice
Speaker 1: flow understandably. Um So she did go to school, but
Speaker 1: in early eighteen seventy five she caught pneumonia and in
Speaker 1: March of that year she died at just nine years old.
Speaker 1: I know. Tkalito fell into declining health after that, and
Speaker 1: in December of eighteen seventy six. She died at thirty
Speaker 1: eight years old. I know, it's just so tough for
Speaker 1: her trying to raise a family. They never had much
Speaker 1: luck with that, um, but she cared about those kids
Speaker 1: so much. UM. They were all buried together to Gal too,
Speaker 1: was buried right there in Groton beside her children. Panic
Speaker 1: and tar Leaky talk and a pear. Vic was heartbroken
Speaker 1: after Tito's death, of course, and he avowed to return
Speaker 1: to the North. In eighteen eighty he joined Frederick Schwatka's
Speaker 1: expedition in search of records of the Franklin Expedition, So
Speaker 1: once again going back to his roots. I mean, Franklin
Speaker 1: Expedition really defined his life, you know, and people were
Speaker 1: so interested for like decades and decades. I feel like
Speaker 1: it was like the Titanic of their day, right, or
Speaker 1: maybe like the Donner Party type, or they just disappeared
Speaker 1: and you're like, what happened? Like we're still are asking
Speaker 1: that all. Yeah, for sure, that voyage didn't wasn't very successful.
Speaker 1: They didn't end up turning up very much. And when
Speaker 1: they decided it was over, Piervic decided that he was
Speaker 1: going to stay in the North and there, he remarried,
Speaker 1: and it's unknown exactly when, but it appears that he
Speaker 1: died just a few years later after that and peer
Speaker 1: Vic was described by American journalist January US McGann as
Speaker 1: quote one of the most interesting and pleasant characters he
Speaker 1: has ever met. A Beer Being Bay in Canada and
Speaker 1: Joe Island in Greenland are both named after him, and
Speaker 1: the two Kali two Inlet in None of It, and
Speaker 1: Hannah Island and Greenland are both named for her. In
Speaker 1: Canada named Tokuli two and A peer Vic persons of
Speaker 1: National Historic Significance for their contributions to exploration, cultural insight,
Speaker 1: and saving the lives of those on the ice flow right,
Speaker 1: Get damn right, historical significance. Indeed, I mean, for real,
Speaker 1: these these two were awesome. I mean, I'm so sad
Speaker 1: about them never getting to grow a family because it's
Speaker 1: clear they really wanted Why but um but they really
Speaker 1: did some. I mean, you could say she was sort
Speaker 1: of mother to all of these nasty sailors. You could,
Speaker 1: but I don't think she'd say. They're very nice boys.
Speaker 1: They're not mine. They ain't mine. I don't know them.
Speaker 1: They really are amazing, I do I will say they
Speaker 1: they lived full lives, short lives, but I think they
Speaker 1: did and saw more in there you know, forty issue
Speaker 1: years here than most of us will in a in
Speaker 1: a eighty or hundred, you know, which is you know,
Speaker 1: a small comfort, but still amazing. I love that they
Speaker 1: had these lives that they saw so much, that they
Speaker 1: had such a tie to their home and it mattered
Speaker 1: to them, but they also got to live in completely
Speaker 1: different places and have all these like cultural mash up
Speaker 1: of experiences, which I think is so cool that they
Speaker 1: were able to kind of retain themselves but also adapt
Speaker 1: and make all these friends with all these Americans and stuff,
Speaker 1: like what a life. And clearly they were both just
Speaker 1: so awesome and charming, like like she was full of
Speaker 1: fun and laughter, and he's like pleasant and interesting and
Speaker 1: like observant, and so they probably were just so much
Speaker 1: fun to be around. So when they're like in a
Speaker 1: Inuit village of thirty people to grow in Connecticut to
Speaker 1: breaking London, where there's probably more people they've ever seen
Speaker 1: in their lives, and then they go around all around,
Speaker 1: you know, the East Coast on some lecture tour and
Speaker 1: see all these people that you know, it's just as
Speaker 1: much of a community to them as their own tribe
Speaker 1: back home, which I think is a really lovely way
Speaker 1: to look at the world. Yeah, definitely. I feel like
Speaker 1: I learned a lot from Tuculi to and a pear Vicks.
Speaker 1: I think so too, how to view things and people. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: like I think like we were saying, like it's the
Speaker 1: kind of comparative nature of your surroundings, Like what you've
Speaker 1: seen before and what you're seeing now are so important. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, they could be having a rough day in Groton,
Speaker 1: Connecticut and be like, well, what was a rough day
Speaker 1: in Baffin Island. This is pretty nice? Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: in comparisson to that, but just such a just such
Speaker 1: a I don't know, just two very bright lights, very
Speaker 1: uplifting people. Yeah, I love them. Plus, is such a
Speaker 1: cool era of history when everyone was so interested in
Speaker 1: the polar ice, like expeditions and all this stuff. Just
Speaker 1: the era of exploration in general is so fascinating, and
Speaker 1: I so wish it wasn't so clouded with colonialism, you know,
Speaker 1: and imperialism, because that's obviously the downside of it all.
Speaker 1: But speaking from you know, the twenty first century comforts,
Speaker 1: I'm very used to. It seems so weird to me,
Speaker 1: an alien and idea to be like, let me go
Speaker 1: put myself in the most extreme conditions on the planet
Speaker 1: that I can find, because I just want to know
Speaker 1: what's there and see if I can do it or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like I I can't imagine be like, especially back then
Speaker 1: when they've had very few ways to heat themselves or
Speaker 1: wrap themselves up or anything like that. Like to choose
Speaker 1: negative degrees. It is so crazy to me. But of
Speaker 1: course I'm from Georgia where we rarely go under thirty,
Speaker 1: So but yeah, I do. I wonder about the people
Speaker 1: who say there who who moved and moved across you know.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere that the Inuit may have come originally
Speaker 1: from Mongolian travelers um up across the Bearing Strait into Canada.
Speaker 1: Could be wrong about that, but that's something I've read.
Speaker 1: But in either case, getting to Baffin Island. At some point,
Speaker 1: somebody got to Baffin Island and said, yeah, this is good.
Speaker 1: I'll stop here and stayed yeah, this is good. Probably
Speaker 1: doesn't get any better than this. Do you think someone
Speaker 1: next to him was like, are you sure this is good?
Speaker 1: Feel like the further that way we walk, the warmer
Speaker 1: it gets maybe we should keep going. We're good. Look
Speaker 1: we got fish, we got ice. What else is there?
Speaker 1: What else? What else? It's nights, sometimes it's day sometimes.
Speaker 1: I may have mentioned this on the show before, but
Speaker 1: I remember driving from Atlanta to l A, which was
Speaker 1: an amazing road trip, and then you and I got
Speaker 1: to take an almost similar one out to Utah. But
Speaker 1: when I drove from Atlanta l A, and I was
Speaker 1: in the desert, you know, crossing Texas and New Mexico
Speaker 1: and Arizona for hours and hours and hours and hours,
Speaker 1: like a full day of driving out there, driving my
Speaker 1: car at seventy eight miles an hour, and I just
Speaker 1: wondered they were explorers here. Even pre colonial there were
Speaker 1: people who walked out to the desert, saw nothing but
Speaker 1: desert in front of them for as far as they
Speaker 1: could see, and said, let's keep going. No, I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: on the other side of this, there's gonna be palm
Speaker 1: trees and water. It's gonna be great. And and then
Speaker 1: they probably spent days and days walking and then said
Speaker 1: let's keep going, let's keep at it. And that to
Speaker 1: me is a level of human ambition that I that
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know if we have anymore. Um,
Speaker 1: I certainly don't. I think we have it, but it's
Speaker 1: so much more specialized because the what's what's left to
Speaker 1: explore but ocean and space, and you need kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, specialized equipment for that. At least back then
Speaker 1: you could just walk until you found something new. Um.
Speaker 1: But Tony Horwitz said that in his book Fourage, Long
Speaker 1: and Strange, he was talking about the conquistadors coming up
Speaker 1: through Mexico and walking through the plains, and he was like,
Speaker 1: at some point they were in the middle of summer
Speaker 1: in their freaking armor, Like they're wearing full conquistador gear
Speaker 1: and it's hot and there sweating, and he's like, all
Speaker 1: they can see for miles and miles and miles and
Speaker 1: miles is nothing but grass. It's nothing, there's it's it's
Speaker 1: just like seeing dessert, but it's just grass, no trees, nothing,
Speaker 1: And he's like, and they decided, let's keep walking. And
Speaker 1: he was also like blinking, Like when I do that,
Speaker 1: I don't think. I don't think unless I got this
Speaker 1: book advanced, I'd probably not be doing it right now. Amazing.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I do admire that I admire that in
Speaker 1: the past, for sure. I don't know. I guess we
Speaker 1: like I say, we still have it, but it is
Speaker 1: so much more specialized in and concentrated into certain fields
Speaker 1: and a more complicated world. I think that we live
Speaker 1: in two where it's like, look, I love space exploration.
Speaker 1: I'm all for it. I think we need to do
Speaker 1: more of it, but um, probably not necessarily the way
Speaker 1: we're doing it now. Like I feel like there's something
Speaker 1: that's a little more beneficial for everyone, and maybe a
Speaker 1: way to disperse those resources to kind of stabilize things here.
Speaker 1: Sounds like a lot of communisms. Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to say, you can kind of see, though I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is just off the top of my head,
Speaker 1: but you can kind of see. As we discovered more
Speaker 1: and more of the world around us and had a
Speaker 1: better picture of what was been and out there, um,
Speaker 1: and there was less to explore out there. The more
Speaker 1: we started turning inward and trying to understand our own
Speaker 1: human experience, our own selves, and started thinking about psychology.
Speaker 1: And now of course we're in a real mental health
Speaker 1: like kind of renaissance. It feels like people are like, no,
Speaker 1: this is everyone should be in therapy, like you don't
Speaker 1: need to experience a traumatic event to need therapy, like
Speaker 1: we we we should all be examining why and what
Speaker 1: and who and where these biases are coming from our
Speaker 1: unconscious thought patterns or whatever. So I guess you could
Speaker 1: kind of. I don't know. I'm just kind of seeing
Speaker 1: like these people were looking out and seeing a lot
Speaker 1: to go find that was not had anything to do
Speaker 1: with me, myself and I. But like as as we
Speaker 1: progressed in that way and govern Martin, we kind of
Speaker 1: had to make it smaller, almost turn inwards and look
Speaker 1: at this because all those explorers at rampant A d
Speaker 1: D and depression and alcoholism, well now and then somewhere
Speaker 1: in between, mean that is me and Dorothy Putnam who
Speaker 1: are like my therapy is to travel. I would just
Speaker 1: like I would rather explore. Please, Yes, that sounds great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: including the Arctic. I would totally go to Baffin Island.
Speaker 1: I would love to check it out up there. Um,
Speaker 1: I hope if you are Inuit or not, anyone who
Speaker 1: is set us up, I would love to come. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, and I've mentioned it before, this hurts me
Speaker 1: and travel. I'm a vegetarian that includes fish and um,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just have to pack a snack, is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It will be hard. It's going to
Speaker 1: be hard to feed you something only food up there,
Speaker 1: it's fish. But you know I'll work it out. I
Speaker 1: always do. UM. So I would love to come visit
Speaker 1: Northern Canada, Greenland, the Arctic. We have gotten a couple
Speaker 1: of offers to crash with some of our listeners and
Speaker 1: are amazing places in Scotland or in Munich, or a
Speaker 1: couple of places. I want you to know that we're
Speaker 1: taking you incredibly seriously and I am writing a whole
Speaker 1: tour down for us where we can crash on your couch.
Speaker 1: So don't offer unless you mean it's because we will
Speaker 1: descend upon you and then make you show us around.
Speaker 1: I am ready, Yeah, I am so ready. So if
Speaker 1: you would like, please reach out and tell us what
Speaker 1: you thought about this episode, when you think about Chikuli too,
Speaker 1: and appear Vic or any of these dumbasses they were
Speaker 1: helping out. Or if you haven't offered to crash on
Speaker 1: your couch somewhere cool we can travel. We would love
Speaker 1: to hear that too. Our email is Romance at i
Speaker 1: hurt media dot com, or you can find us on
Speaker 1: social media. I'm at oh Great, It's Eli on Twitter
Speaker 1: and Instagram. I'm Dianamite Boom and the show is at
Speaker 1: pridic Romance, So please reach out let us know what
Speaker 1: you thought, um, and if we made any errors, please
Speaker 1: correct us as usual um, but hopefully not and we
Speaker 1: will see you at the next episode. Right, So any
Speaker 1: and knocker Mick listening Kermick, So long, friends, it's time
Speaker 1: to go. Thanks for listening to our show. Tell your
Speaker 1: friends neighbor's uncles in dance to listen to a show
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Well Dance