9. First encounters with the Inuit.

The question of when did the Franklin expedition first encounter the Inuit is interesting.  Captain David Woodman (1991 and 1995) has suggested that the Franklin expedition had no contact with the Inuit until after the 1848 retreat. They would therefore have no knowledge of Sir John Franklin nor of his funeral.  His case for lack of contact is a good one. When Captain Leopold McClintock and Lieutenant Hobson searched King William Island in 1859, they found that along the north-west coast of King Willa Island the relics and abandoned boats and tents of the Franklin retreat were untouched by the Inuit.  They had not known about them until told by McClintock.  The Inuit did not commonly go to the north of King William Island because it is barren compared to the south. The south has many rivers and lakes and in the summer becomes a garden of flowering plants.  These in turn attract the caribou, many birds and there are abundant fish around the coast and in the lakes and rivers.  So the Inuit spent their summers on southern King William Island.  Traditionally they met the caribou both when they cross onto King William Island and again when they leave.  This was at Malerualik – the narrowest crossing place in Simpson Strait.  Also each summer they camped at Lake Amitsoq where they gathered and caught an abundance of trout in the river there. The Franklin ships from the time they were trapped in the ice until at least late summer 1848 (when Erebus may have been worked south through Alexandra Strait), remained in the northern area where few Inuit ventured.

There is an excellent account of a meeting between the officers of the Franklin expedition collected from an Inut named Kok-lee-arng-nun.  The testimony was collected by Charles Francis Hall in 1866 Hall on route to King William Island. He encountered a group of Inuit whose head man was the old and blind Inut Kok-lee-arng-nun who provided much testimony.  Hall believed that the description was of Sir John Franklin  (Nourse 1879, p. 255):

‘The Pelly Bay men described the Esh-e-mut-ta as an old man with broad shoulders, thick and heavier set than Hall, with grey hair, full face and bald head. He was always wearing something over his eyes (spectacles, as Too-koo-li-too interpreted it), was quite lame, and appeared sick when they last saw him.   He was kind to the Inuit; – always wanting them to eat something. Ag-loo-ka (Crozier) and another man would go and do everything that Too-loo-ark told them, just like boys; he was a very cheerful man, always laughing; everybody liked him – all the kob-lu-nas (white men) and all the Inuits. Kok-lee-arng-nun showed how Too-loo-ark and Aglooka used to meet him. They would take hold of his hand, giving it a few warm and friendly shakes and Too-loo-ark would say, ‘Ma-my-too-mig-tay-ma’. Aglooka’s hand shaking was short and jerky, and he would only say ‘Mun-nig-too-ne’. After the first summer and winter, they saw no more of Too-loo-ark; then Ag-loo-ka (Crozier) was the Esh-e-mut-ta.’

The description sounds like Sir John Franklin who had, amongst Arctic explorers a unique appearance with his bald head and rare old age for an Arctic explorer. The 1848 Victory Point record states that Sir John Franklin died on 11th June 1847. So if this is Sir John then it is a very early meeting.

Kok-lee-arng-nun also gave more critical testimony that might be dated. He spoke about the change of leadership of the expedition that Hall believed would have followed the death of Sir John Franklin when Captain Crozier took over the leadership.  Hall wrote:

‘Through Too-koo-li-to who as usual soon proved a good interpreter, it was learned that these Inuit had been at one time on board of the ships of Too-loo-ark, (the great Esh-e-mut-ta, Sir John Franklin), and had their tupiks (tents) on the ice alongside of him during the spring and summer………………. After the first summer and winter, they saw no more of Too-loo-ark; then Ag-loo-ka (Crozier) was the Esh-e-mut-ta.’

There are two interpretations possible for this testimony.  Kok-lee-arng-nun may have camped near a ship off the north-west coast of King William Island when Sir John Franklin died in June 1847.   Alternatively he could have camped alongside a ship off the west coast of King William Island and witnessed the burial of Captain Crozier some years later. Captain Crozier was partly bald.  The second interpretation is favoured by Captain David Woodman.

Roobol (2019) has suggested that very shortly after the death of Sir John Franklin, ice movements threw Terror over onto her side. This also seems to have been witnessed by Kok-lee-arng-nun:

‘The old man and his wife agreed in saying that the ship on board of which they had often seen Too-loo-ark was overwhelmed with heavy ice in the spring of the year. While the ice was slowly crushing it, the men all worked for their lives in getting out provisions, but before they could save much, the ice turned the vessel down on its side, crushing the masts and breaking a hole in her bottom and so overwhelming her that she sank at once, and had never been seen again. Several men at work on her could not get out in time, and were carried down with her and drowned.  ‘On this account Ag-loo-ka’s company had died of starvation, for they had not time to get the provisions out of her.’

The ships were not released in summer 1847 to return home and were abandoned in late April 1848 when 105 men marched south (Victory Point 1848 record). The retreat failed and Erebus was remanned by some of the crew (Roobol 2019 has suggested about 58 men). In autumn 1848 the remanned Erebus may have been worked about 155 km along the coast of King William Island, past Cape Crozier and through Alexandra Strait to arrive in the Terror Bay/Imnguyaaluk Island area where she may have spent two years again locked in the ice.

There is a second period of two years (1848 to 1850) when the remanned H.M.S. Erebus was trapped in the ice at Terror Bay/Imnguyaaluk Island. At this time there was contact between the Inuit and the ship including a successful joint caribou hunt, also described by Kok-lee-arng-nun:

‘Kok-lee-arng-nun was ‘a big boy when very many men from the ships hunted took-too (caribou).  They had guns and knives with long handles, and some of their party hunted took-too on the ice, killing so many that they made a line across the whole bay of Ook-goo-lik’.

This testimony can be dated to 1848 at the earliest as the ship had to be on the west side of King William Island and at a time when the abnormally cold summer had passed and both the Inuit and the caribou were present. The big question is whether all of Kok-lee-arng-nun’s testimony refers to the two years the ships were off the north-west coast of King William Island or if they were in the west at Terror Bay/ Imnguyaaluk Island area. The reason for considering this is because the testimony describing the ship of Too-loo-ark was thrown over on its side breaking the masts.  Parks Canada divers have found that it is the wreck of Terror that had her mass broken off and lying along her starboard side with rigging still attached to the hull. Captain Woodman has argued that Too-loo-ark is Captain Crozier who had taken over command of the expedition.  The death of Too-loo-ark is therefore seen as the death of Crozier when Fitzjames became leader of the diminished expedition.  This interpretation requires Terror to be worked round King William Island. Roobol (2019) suggests that only the remanned Erebus was worked around the island and Terror was abandoned lying on her side with bodies aboard from the winter of 1847-48 before the 1848 retreat.

There is a problem with Kok-lee-arng-nun’s testimony of the joint caribou hunt.  Kok-lee-arng-nun is described as an old man in 1866 when Hall met him, but he was a boy when the ships crew joined with the Inuit for a successful caribou hunt.  If he was aged around 50 to 60 years in 1866, than as a boy of around 15 years, he would be recalling events of some 35 to 45 years earlier or around 1821 to 1831 – well before the Franklin expedition. This was the time of the visit of Sir John Ross and his nephew Sir James Clark Ross on the 1829 to 1833 Victory expedition. The yacht Krusenstern sank but was raised and left on shore. However neither of the Rosses were bald, Sir John Ross was not a happy laughing man and his nephew Sir James Clark Ross was not on speaking terms with him. There were only a few deaths on the Ross expedition. The Inuit did not see the Ross party retreat north to Fury beach nor their eventual rescue by a whaling ship in Baffin Bay. They did find the abandoned ships that provided the local Inuit with a great wealth of wood and metal for many decades. The simplest conclusion the Inuit might have drawn on finding Victory abandoned, might be that the crews had died.

For the present the best explanation is that suggested by Potter (2016) that the Kok-lee-arng-nun testimony is of mixed origins, being a mix of memories of perhaps the Ross and Franklin expeditions. This does leave the door open for a meeting of Inuit with the Franklin expedition before the 1848 retreat. Kok-lee-arng-nun was old, blind and partly crippled when he met Hall and shortly afterwards he requested his son to hang him and his wife to end their suffering.  This was the custom in those days of precarious life, and this was duly carried out.

QUESTION: Did the first encounter take place in 1847 before the death of Sir John or was it on the west side of King William Island in 1849 or 1850?