Fur Trader's Photographs: A.A. Chesterfield in the District of Ungava, 1901-4 9780773561311

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Chesterfield's itinerary, 1895-1908 This itinerary, showing the places and dates for the period including his employment with the Hudson's Bay Company, is from a page inserted at the beginning of his Bible

W,LL,AM C.JAMES A Fur Trader's photographs A.A. Chesterfield in the District of Ungava, 1901-4

McGill-Queen's University Press

Kingston and Montreal

TO MY WIFE ANN

We are surrounded % the blessings of the Great Mystery

© McGill-Queen's University Press 1985 ISBN 0-7735-0593-8 Legal deposit 4th quarter 1985 Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec Printed in Canada This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Publication has also been assisted by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council under their block grant programs. Graphic Design: Peter Dom RCA, FGDC Typesetting: Typesetting Systems Inc. Printing: Brown & Martin

C A N A D I A N C A T A L O G U I N G IN P U B L I C A T I O N DATA James, William C. A fur trader's photographs ISBN 0-7735-0593-8 1. Chesterfield, A.A., 1877-1959. 2. Indians of North America - Quebec (Province) - New Quebec. 3. Hudson's Bay Company. 4. New Quebec (Quebec) History, I. Chesterfield, A.A., 1877-1959. II. Title. FC2944.4J351985 971.4'17 C85-098988-4 F1054.N5135 1985

Contents Map

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Preface

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Acknowledgments xiii Introduction

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I The Post and the Mission 11 II Inuit at Great Whale River 31 III Cree at Fort George and Great Whale River 51 IV Portraits of Inuit and Cree 71 V White Men and Native Ways 87 Conclusion 103 Notes 111

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Preface Today machine-made copies and computer-stored data make possible the preservation of records and information of all kinds - most of it, perhaps, scarcely worth preserving. Someone has suggested that the longing for immortality leads the minor bureaucrat and junior executive to send off or file away multiple copies of the most mundane correspondence. But although much material of questionable worth is kept, things of value, now perhaps more than ever, can easily be laid aside, forgotten, or even irretrievably lost. In a sense this book preserves some things of value that were found, but that might have been lost. The story of my "discovery" of A.A. Chesterfield's photographs is really a story of their recovery from near-oblivion. My role was not that of the person whose diligence in searching for a lost object is rewarded, but was more like that of the fortunate soul who has a mysterious and precious gift fall into his lap. At first he is too slow-witted to realize its worth; later it turns out to be the kind of thing he may have been searching for unknowingly. Jung speaks of "synchronicity," that is, meaningful coincidences, chance happenings, and correspondences. In the summer of 1974 I moved down the hall to my present office on the fourth floor of Theological Hall, one

of the oldest buildings on the Queen's University campus in Kingston, Ontario, For three years in the 1960SI had been a student in the Theological College (in the same building), and before that an undergraduate in the university. In 1973, after several years away at graduate school, I returned to Queen's to teach in the Department of Religion. It was in my new office, while sorting through the papers and books left by a variety of predecessors, that I found an old photograph album on one of the shelves. The album contained twenty-eight photographs, each about 6 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches in size, and each with a handwritten caption, The photographer was nowhere identified, except by means of a typewritten card (full of false dues, as things turned out), which read: "Photography by a missionary on the coasts of Labrador & Hudson Bay 1902-1906," That album, with its impressive photographs of Inuit and Cree people, was taken home, where my admiration of it was shared by my wife. Then it was put on a bookshelf in our living-room - as I imagine someone else had done previously. The album may have been taken out on a few occasions to show to a friend or visitor. We hunted up the locations cited in the captions on a map and searched back issues of the Beaver, the Hudson's Bay

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Company magazine, in which my wife thought she had previously seen one of the photographs. In fact, we discovered one of the album pictures, showing three men in a crooked canoe, in an issue of the Beaver that we had in the house, illustrating an article on "James Clouston's Journey Across the Labrador Peninsula in 1820." Although five of the photographs accompanying that article in the summer 1966 Beaver later turned out to be by Chesterfield, none bore any attribution in the magazine. Otherwise, the album reposed in its new home for five more years relatively undisturbed. This rather casual treatment may be explained by our assumption that the album in our possession simply contained copies of well-known and widely published material the picture so easily found in the Beaver suggested such a conclusion. The impetus for a rigorous investigation of the material came when I showed our anonymous album of photographs to David Maclellan, editor of the Canadian Geographic. He offered to help try to identify the photographer with a view to publishing a selection of photographs from the album in the magazine. By May 1980 some answers had begun to emerge. Helen Burgess, editor of the Beaver, found a photograph of a Cree man with a stone pipe (similar to one accompanying the 1966 article) published in the March 1942 issue of the Beaver, where it was attributed to A.A. Chesterfield. Since the Beaver had no information on Chesterfield, the Canadian Geographic turned to the Public Archives of Canada. The PAC reported that an A.A. Chesterfield had been a photographer in Montreal between 1900 and 1930 and had had a business partner by the name of McLaren. But the news that brought the search full circle, and at the same time launched me on this particular scholarly adventure, was the information that there was a Chesterfield Collection, consisting of approximately three hundred black-and-white photographs, at Queen's University Archives. As soon as possible I spoke to Anne MacDermaid, the university archivist, and went to look at the collection in the Douglas Library. Could the photographer whose album I had found in my office be the one whose work was in the university's archives? When the boxes were brought to me in the archives, it was not only obvious that it was indeed the same photographer, but some of the prints in the album had been made from glass negatives now in the archives. The album I had found was probably an estray from the collection, especially since Mrs MacDermaid related that the Chesterfield material had been brought to the archives from the base-

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ment vault of Queen's Theological College in the early 1970S. The existence of the collection, then, helped to explain the album, as well as providing a context for it through a broad range of similar photographs. What we were not able to determine for several more months was how and when the material came to the Theological College in the first place. And still unknown was the identity of A.A. Chesterfield and what he was doing in the Hudson Bay region at the turn of the century. Nothing had turned up to confirm the statement that he was a missionary, a possibility that would have explained why the photographs were deposited in Theological Hall. The Chesterfield Collection represented a significant body of material which, according to Anne MacDermaid, had lain unresearched and with no one taking any particular interest in it. By this time I had browsed through dozens of books on Canadian photography, native peoples, the fur trade, Hudson Bay, and the Canadian north generally. My conviction grew that Chesterfield was virtually unknown; I could find no mention of him anywhere, nor any further reproductions of his photographs. By now it was apparent not only that his photographs were unique in terms of content, but that they were of a quality almost without parallel in that region and Tera. I decided to pursue this project in earnest. From the beginning two roads beckoned: one towards the study of the photographs themselves, and the other towards the study of the photographer. While I was investigating the photographs (I had had a collection of contact prints made from the glass negatives and lantern slides), I was trying at the same time to find some clues about the life of the man who had made them. By the end of the summer of 1980, after visits to Montreal, Moose Factory, and Winnipeg, some progress had been made on both fronts. By the time I reached the Hudson's Bay Company Archives TTTTv

a missionary. The HBC archives not only confirmed that fact, but provided correspondence books, post journals, and ledgers kept by Chesterfield himself when he was a fur trader at Fort George and Great Whale River. At about this time, the issue of the Canadian Geographic appeared with an article publishing eighteen of the twenty-eight album photographs, recounting the story of their discovery, and asking readers for assistance in obtaining further information. Given the magazine's circulation (over 90,000), prospects were good that we would hear from someone who knew

something about Chesterfield and his work. Again, the results exceeded even our high hopes, for in September 1980 word came that Mrs Chesterfield, the photographer's widow, was living in Huntingdon, Quebec, southwest of Montreal. Her nephew in Ottawa, Donald E. MacNair, had phoned the Canadian Geographic after someone in Huntingdon had drawn Mrs Chesterfield's attention to the article. When Chesterfield's name had ceased to appear in the Montreal city directory after 1938-9 (where he had been listed more or less continuously for over twenty years), it seemed reasonable to conclude that he had died about that time. Now the news was that he had married in 1939 and bought a house in southeastern Ontario, where he lived in semi-retirement until his death in 1959. Again I had the feeling that things had come full circle, that what I had been looking for had turned up close to hand. Unknown to me, the orbit of my life had previously approached that of Chesterfield. For now I learned that when I was a high school student at Albert College in Belleville, Ontario, A.A. Chesterfield was living barely five miles away, across the Bay of Quinte in Rednersville. Not only that, but one of his friends and neighbours down the road towards Carrying Place was H.B. Simpson, my history teacher. And I found out later that a fellow student from Albert College in those days had recently acquired the Chesterfields' house. At this time I was living at the other end of Prince Edward County from Rednersville. Research that had already taken me to Montreal and Winnipeg could now be pursued in part closer to home - at Belleville's Corby Public Library, Picton's Registry Office, and among Chesterfield's neighbours and acquaintances in Rednersville and Belleville. Through phone calls and visits to Mrs Chesterfield, some of the puzzles about her husband and his work were cleared up. Although she had not known him when he was a young man - his employment with the Hudson's Bay Company was some thirty years before they met - she was helpful in giving a picture of his later years. One of the mysteries which she explained immediately was how and when the photographs came to Queen's Theological College. In 1960, the year after her husband died, Mrs Chesterfield sold the house in Rednersville and was preparing to move back to Huntingdon, Quebec. When she mentioned to her clergyman, a local United Church minister by the name of T.F. Townsend, that she did not know what to do with her husband's boxes of glass negatives, lantern slides, photographs,

and some papers, he offered to take them to Queen's and deposit them there for her. Because the university archives had not yet been established, Townsend brought the material to the Theological College and left it with Dr W.E.L. Smith (who five years later was to become one of my professors). This story of my discovery of the photographs and search for A.A. Chesterfield may help to explain something about the method and shape of this book. First, when I came to these photographs (or when they came to me), I had no information about the people and their land beyond that conveyed by the photographs themselves. My research, then, has been primarily to elucidate the subjects and activities portrayed. In writing this book I have tried to put the photographs first, making them the primary source, and to have the text follow the photographs. The result is rather different than it would have been had the photographs been used to illustrate a text, where their use would be secondary to that of the printed word. My task has been to order and assemble these photographs and to add information, commentary, and interpretation to them. But anyone viewing these images must go beyond my words and attempt to imagine that reality which is more than illustrated, though not proved, by these visual images. Susan Sontag puts it well: "The ultimate wisdom of the photographic image is to say: 'There is the surface. Now think - or rather feel, intuit what is beyond it, what the reality must be like if it looks this way.'" Some thirty-five years after Chesterfield's tour of duty in the District of Ungava two scientists from Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum visited the same region. They attempted to take pictures one night inside an Inuit tent, and discovered that the colours and textures which so charmed them were destroyed by their flash. One of the men, Arthur C. Twomey, ventured that "the reality of the Eskimo world lies almost wholly in its intangibles, things never to be found on a naked film," a conclusion that has some application to Chesterfield's photography too. The second influence on the shape of the book has been the biographical approach. The early stages of my work were largely governed by the effort to find out who the photographer was. Even after I knew his name I wanted to find out more about the kind of man he was. His photographs conveyed, so it seemed to me, a sense of presence - not only of the subjects, but also of the image maker on the other side of the lens. Perhaps because of my training in religion and literature, it seemed natural to me to interpret

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photographs as I did other aesthetic objects, that is, as a personal statement or vision of the nature of things. In fact, so little was available of Chesterfield's external life that perhaps I spent too much time in the early stages endeavouring to infer the persona of the "implied photographer" whose work I had before me. The legacy of those efforts has kept me conscious of the nature of photography as personal expression as well as factual record. Someone pointed out that one of the photographs of a Cree man in the exhibition of Chesterfield's portraits appeared to have an image of the photographer reflected in a metal button on the man's coat. Whether that is the case or not, in one way or another Chesterfield's presence is evident in his work. Completing that circle of discovery (or recovery) has also meant an

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effort to return those images of eighty years ago to the descendants of the subjects and to the place they were made. So much has been taken out of Canada's north by strangers from the south or from across the ocean, furs as well as photographs, that some attempt at an act of restoration is appropriate. This book and the exhibition of Chesterfield's portraits are part of that attempt; in addition, copies of the photographs have been deposited with the Cree and Inuit living along the east coasts of James and Hudson bays, for use in their schools, museums, and cultural centres. The hope is that these photographs by a fur trader will help the native peoples of northern Quebec to remember their past. Perhaps through Chesterfield's portraits the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec will be enabled to know better what kind of men and women their ancestors were.

Acknowledgments Numerous debts are incurred in any project such as this. In naming some, one runs the danger of forgetting others who have helped in various ways. Mrs A.A. Chesterfield, who died before the publication of this book, deserves my fullest expression of gratitude. She willingly shared her husband's photographs and manuscripts, as well as her recollections of him and his work. She would want me to remind readers that the responsibility for any errors of interpretation or fact that have found their way between these covers is mine, not hers. Her nephew, Donald E. MacNair of Ottawa, and his son Bruce provided generous assistance. Others who graciously responded to my queries were the late Judge J.C. Anderson, Robert and Anne Fulton, Marc Hammond, the Reverend Maurice McLeod, Mrs Philip Morrall, Sheila Myles, Uldene Post, Bernard Redner, the late Bert Simpson and his wife Gladys, and Garth Taylor. The Cree and Inuit of Great Whale River, Quebec, provided background and stories relating to many of Chesterfield's photographs; the Reverend Andrew and Rebekah Wetmore provided hospitality and arranged my visits and interpreters during my time at Great Whale. People associated with various institutions were helpful, principally Anne

MacDermaid and Helen Cobb of the Queen's University Archives, but also staff at the Hudson's Bay Company Archives and at Hudson's Bay House in Winnipeg and at the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa. At Queen's University, special thanks are due to George Innes of Media IV in the Department of Geography for the preparation of the photographs, to Robert Swain and Dorothy Farr of the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, and to Peter Dorn of the Graphic Design Unit, Each of these people displayed not only professional expertise but a special kind of enthusiasm for, and interest in, this work. The Board of Management of Queen's Theological College granted my application for a sabbatical leave, allowing me the time necessary to work on this project. The typing was done by Dorothy Schweder and Eileen Fleming. Financial assistance for travel and research came from the Queen's Theological College, the Queen's University Advisory Research Committee, and the Ontario Arts Council. Less tangible, but essential beyond any ability of mine to record it, has been the support accorded to all my endeavours by my wife, Ann, to whom this book is dedicated.

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A Fur Trader's Photographs

Introduction Albert Alexander Chesterfield (1877-1959) spent most of his working life in Montreal as a commercial photographer. For twenty-five years, from about 1910 until the mid-193os, he did free-lance advertising and publicity work, documented the news and sports events of the day, and did commissions for both the CPR and CNR. A fire in his Montreal studio destroyed his photographic equipment, as well as the negatives for the photographs of that period, and caused Chesterfield to abandon photography. For a time he turned to journalism and then, in 1939, he married and moved to a farmhouse in eastern Ontario where he and his wife lived until his death in 1959. Today the bulk of his surviving work is in the Chesterfield Collection of the Queen's University Archives (aside from a few photographs found with the work of other photographers in albums in the Library of Hudson's Bay House in Winnipeg). Most of the Chesterfield Collection consists of photographs taken when he was in his mid-twenties, before he became a professional photographer. The images in this book, with the exception of some additional photographs from the Hudson's Bay Company, are from the Chesterfield Collection at Queen's University. They represent a selection of the most

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significant from the several hundred items found there. And, they all come from a three-year period, 1901 to 1904, when Chesterfield was employed by the Hudson's Bay Company as a clerk at Moose Factory, Fort George, and Great Whale River, three HBC posts on the shores of James Bay and Hudson Bay. As such they represent the work of an amateur photographer, employed as a fur trader, who had only recently taken up the hobby. An account of Chesterfield's early life might help to put those years in the Ungava District into perspective. Bert Chesterfield was bom in the town of Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, midway between London and Hastings. His father, Albert Chesterfield, an organist and teacher of music, was the son of a merchant. His mother, Mary McCloud Chesterfield, was the daughter of William Bulman, a steward and butler who lived in Tunbridge Wells. The only surviving photograph from Chesterfield's boyhood in England, taken by a photographer in Tunbridge Wells, shows Bert when he was about a year old being held on his mother's lap. Agriculture was the most important activity in the county of Kent before the First World War. From Kent came half of England's apples, two-thirds

A.A. Chesterfield as a k%, photographed with his mother in Thnbridye Wdis, Kent of its pears, and three-quarters of its cherries. By 1878 Kent produced twothirds of the country's hops. In the midst of such agricultural bounty, Tunbridge Wells was an important market town. But the last quarter of the nineteenth century was an era known in the region as the "Great Depression," when imported produce resulted in a drop in prices, and several bad winters severely affected crops. The town was even more renowned as a resort, In the early seventeenth century, spa water was discovered in several spots in southeast England. When Queen Henrietta Maria, mother of the future Charles II, visited the well near Tonbridge in 1630, the popularity of the place as a spa was assured. Fine houses and hotels were built and Tunbridge Wells acquired a reputation of superior gentility. In fact, "Royal" Tunbridge Wells, as it was called, became Kent's richest town, A pillared promenade known as the Pantiles (torn down in the 1960S for redevelopment) was built to enclose the well. When in time fashion preferred seaside resorts to inland spas, Tunbridge Wells made an easy transition to a residential area because it was only about twenty-five miles to London's edge by rail or road.1 Though it is uncertain how much of Bert Chesterfield's early life was spent

in this place, Tunbridge Wells exposed him to a mixture of gentility, culture, and a holiday and recreational atmosphere, as well as to pastoral farmland, large expanses of woods, and rocky outcrops of sandstone. His parents were both residents of the Parish of St James in Tunbridge Wells at the time of their marriage in 1874, And they lived at 69 Camden Road when Bert was born on 8 September 1877. But, when he was baptized on 10 October in St James Church, his father's residence was given as Perth. There is no record of the Chesterfields being in Tunbridge Wells at the time of the 1881 census. By 1892, the most fateful year of Bert Chesterfield's young life, his parents had moved to London,2 One hundred years ago, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the world. In 1882 the German physician Robert Koch reported to a meeting in Berlin that tuberculosis - also called consumption, the "white plague," and phthisis - was responsible for more than one-third of the deaths of men and women in their productive middle years.3 On 8 March 1892 Mary McCloud Chesterfield died at her home at i Harvist Road, Highbury, Islington, London, at the age of 38; the cause of death was given as "exhaustion phthisis'' On 14 September 1892, at Islington Infirmary, her husband, Albert Chester-

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field, died at age 40; again, the cause of death was phthisis. In little more than six months, both of Bert Chesterfield's parents had died of tuberculosis and at age 15 he was an orphan. Bert was sent by his grandmother to live with her brother, James Dinwitty Bulman, in Sweetsburg, Quebec. He arrived at Halifax on the steamship Parisian on Christmas Day, 1892. A brother and a sister remained behind in England. The Bulmans had four children of their own and also raised a grandson after the death of a daughter-in-law. For the next few years their large house on Sweetsburg's Main Street, across from the hospital, was home to the orphaned teenager in a new country. Bert finished school while living with his aunt and uncle and did well, even attracting the attention of a doctor working with gifted children. His uncle wanted him to go to McGill to study architecture; instead, in 1895, Bert became an apprentice clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company and was sent to Rigolet on the Labrador coast, Bert seems to have felt that he had been dependent upon his relatives long enough. Though they were willing to see him through university, he was not willing to accept their aid.4 In the Rigolet post journal, the entry for n July 1895 reads: "About 8 pm the 'Erik' returned with the 'Eugenie' in tow having picked her up at Sadie Island. A Mr. Chesterfield came by her. Apprentice clerk - for this post."5 For the next five years Bert was to be based, without holidays or major interruption, at this, the company's largest post on the Atlantic seaboard, in the Esquimaux Bay District of Labrador (also comprising the posts at Northwest River, Davis Inlet, Nachvach, and Cartwright). Under the supervision of the district manager, James A. Wilson, he was to acquire the myriad skills of a company clerk - bookkeeping and accounting, managing a post and conducting trade in oil, fish, and furs, ordering supplies, engaging in necessary maintenance of post buildings, travelling up and down the Hamilton Inlet by dog team and boat, meeting and dealing with both native and European inhabitants of the area, and in all of this attempting to further the trade and make a profit for the company. All of these tasks were performed according to the highly developed procedures of the Hudson's Bay Company, a nineteenth-century bureaucracy, with its elaborate system of reporting, accounting, and record-keeping. Bert responded well to the work and the setting, displaying an aptitude for the scrupulous attention to detail that the job demanded.

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Life at Rigolet was busy and varied at the end of the last century, its activities centring on trapping, fishing, sealing, and trade. The journal of the post records frequent comings and goings of various boats and ships (both steam and sail) - the company vessels on their annual trips to England or Quebec, fishing and merchant ships on their way north up the coast or to St John's, and the hospital ships of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen (later the Grenfell Mission). Situated on Hamilton Inlet, the largest indentation on the Labrador coast (it stretches ninety miles westward, is navigable for even the largest ships, and drains three large rivers), Rigolet consisted of about six white painted company buildings, connected by a boardwalk with a white railing, and overlooking large wharves. Nearby were other houses and shacks. Other than HBC employees, the litde port was inhabited by "liveyeres" (permanent rather than seasonal residents), natives (both Indian and Inuit), and the inevitable dogs. Even at this time the chief fame attaching to Rigolet seemed to be that it had been the home of the young Donald Smith (later Lord Strathcona) when he, like Bert Chesterfield, had been an apprentice clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company. It was in the obscurity of Labrador that this financier, philanthropist, and politician, who for twenty-five years was governor of the Hudson's Bay Company, began his career. Forty years later the caption to a photograph of Rigolet published in the HBC's Reaver noted this fact as if it were die first diing that people must be told about the place. A writer almost contemporary with Chesterfield's period at Rigolet also noted its connection with Strathcona and then went on to say:

Everything around Rigolettc is "as neat as wax." The office or "counting house" as it was known in ancient days, is of tht conservative English type; and the store is large and wellequtypcd; and the "fur-room" is a place where one is disposed to become envious, as the array of foxes, otters and martens is large. The home of the factor is a commodious and well appointed one, furnished with (tetter taste than many of our city mansions, The personnel of the establishment is urbanity itself; and the only evident dark spot in the landscape is the extreme servility of the "liveyeres" and others who constitute the population of the kcality.6 Given these surroundings, the importance of Rigolet as a centre for trade, and die example of the great man who had had his beginnings there, Chester-

field must have felt his prospects were good. Even in those days, though many of the old models were breaking down, the company put a great deal of stock in the instructive examples provided by those who had served many years, who had earned responsibility and performed their duties diligently, and who, while managing to come to terms with the loneliness of life in such remote places, had still gained respect and the reward that comes from doing a job well. Such success though was not easily come by, at least under James Wilson, the district manager, who seems to have been unusually strict and perhaps even harsh in his assessments of the clerks. In 1899 Wilson would report that one of the apprentice clerks was "not at all suited for the service, being too much imbued with the associations of a city and home life." Of this same unfortunate chap Wilson said: "he wd. be of no use as an office hand, being forgetful, untidy, careless, and generally incorrect; he is gentlemanly, willing, and anxious to please, but has no practical knowledge, and is not quick to learn."7 One wonders about the course of this young man's subsequent career with the company. During these years when Chesterfield was making the transition from adolescence to manhood, Wilson praised his cleverness, his eagerness to leam, and his helpfulness about the post. Still, the largest parts of Wilson's reports in 1896,1897, and 1898 are given to commenting upon Bert's lack of popularity, a judgment which appears with minor variations in all three years. He did not get along with his colleagues: "neither is he on the same friendly intimate terms with the clerks in the district, as is the case among themselves." Further Wilson reported that "his manner in his contact with the people is over-bearing," referring presumably to those with whom he would come in contact in the store. The same report describes Chesterfield as having a "supercilious, forbidding manner towards everyone generally" and as being "by no means popular."8 The final report, written a year before Chesterfield's departure from Rigolet, is much more positive in its assessment: "[He] has improved gready this outfit, is more popular with everyone and altogether has changed for the better."9 Other material documenting his time at Rigolet between 1895 and 1900 is scant. The superficial record provided by the few photographs that remain is at odds with Wilson's evaluation. One photograph shows a group standing out of doors in winter. Though their bodies attempt informality, their faces are serious and unsmiling. The caption, "All of Rigolet 'Society'

"All ofRtyokt 'Society' during winter" The caption is Chesterfield's; the photograph was taken when he was an apprentice clerk in Labrador, 1895-1900

during winter," is almost as self-conscious as the subjects are, though its humour is straightforward enough to hit the mark. Against the background of coniferous forest, and with a disinterested dog in the foreground, the seven figures stand on a snowy, gently sloping ground. Three of the five women are obviously close in age to the two young men (late teens or early twenties). Each of these women is dressed alike in a short coat (two carry a muff) and woollen tarn, and, with their hair pulled back, the remarkably similar plumpness of each moon-shaped face is emphasized. Of the two older women, one stands apart from the rest of the group, looks austerely at the camera, and seems least happy of them all to be there. The two young men, heads slightly tilted and perhaps more deliberately casual than the women, dressed similarly in woollen worsted trousers and jackets (not matching), each wearing a tie and a peaked cap, confront the camera less directly than do the women. One of the men, standing third from the right and least visible of all seven figures, is likely Bert Chesterfield. Not only is there an obvious similarity with other photographs of the era of him, with his modest handlebar mustache, but he carries in his left hand what seems to be the black box of a camera,

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about six by eight inches in size. Apparently he was given a camera by a relative when he went to work for the Hudson's Bay Company, and a reasonable supposition would be that his earliest attempts at photography date from this period. Taken as a group, all the surviving photographs of the Rigolet period are similar in that only whites and never natives are depicted. There are no shots of activities about the post. Some are humourous in subject: scenes from an impromptu skit or pantomime, a man holding a pipe-smoking seal on his lap, and three superimposed negatives to depict an apparition appearing to a seated gentleman. Others display men and women at leisure. They are a boy's (or at best, a young man's) snapshots - jocular, carefree, lacking seriousness. There is nothing to suggest anything beyond the most casual kind of photographic interest, nor is there anything worth showing anyone but close friends and relatives. No attempt is made to document a way of life or peoples that are different from what could be found back home in Canada, all the photos being of an unremarkable snapshot variety. By way of contrast, when Chesterfield was to find himself at Great Whale River a few years later, there was there no "society" of white contemporaries to be photographed (in fact, white people almost never appear in the photos of the 1901-4 period), and now the human subjects of his photographic art (for such it has by then become) are the Cree and Inuit with whom he lived and worked. The photographs of the Ungava District, when compared with those of the Labrador coast from a scant few years earlier, document Bert Chesterfield's maturity, both photographically and in terms of his assuming adult responsibilities and a more serious outlook. If the fame of Donald Smith had attached itself to Rigolet as the place of that great man's beginnings, there was another figure of the Labrador coast at least as prominent, whose effect on Chesterfield was more direct and longer lasting. Almost from the time of his arrival at Rigolet, Chesterfield began what was to be a lifelong acquaintance with Dr Wilfred Grenfell. For nearly half a century "the Doctor of Labrador" poured his boundless energy and ego into his work. He was, as Pierre Berton suggests, a genuinely charismatic figure. Further, argues Berton, Grenfell was "the perfect schoolboy hero": "Missionary to the dispossessed; surgeon to the abandoned; adventurer in a foreign clime; saint and healer, evangelist and teacher''10 He was a compelling teacher, he knew all the important people of the day,

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and he was worshipped by thousands. Even though Grenfell had not, by 1895, reached anything like the peak of his fame, it is impossible to overestimate the impact he had on the HBC apprentice clerk at Rigolet, a young orphan, far from home and relatives, who had not yet reached his eighteenth birthday. On Monday, 29 July 1895, the Eugenie, the ship on which Chesterfield arrived, departed from Rigolet in the early morning to return to Quebec. At 1:30 p.m. that day, as the post journal records, "the Deep Sea Mission steam Yacht 'Sir Donald' arrived. Dr. Grenfell and Mr. Wakeham on board."11 Sixty years later, in an article subtitled "My Most Unforgettable Character," Chesterfield was to recall his first view of Dr Grenfell that day, with his "lithe, athletic figure" and "sunburned features of a mariner," rowing the ship's dinghy ashore.12 The missionary doctor, who reminded the young apprentice of a Viking, sparked his imagination and challenged his young ideals. Chesterfield wrote that within an hour of stepping ashore Grenfell "was at work in the Men's bunkhouse, operating on an injured foot while I held the kerosene lamp which furnished the light."13 The following Sunday, according to the post journal, "Dr. Grenfell held two services, one in the forenoon and the other in the evening which were largely attended,"14 Over the next few years there are regular entries indicating Grenfell's arrivals and departures. On at least one occasion Chesterfield went with him on a visit to Northwest River for a few days, and his later article suggests that he travelled with him numerous times during his five years as an apprentice clerk at the Rigolet post. Chesterfield describes one aspect of that acquaintance in terms reminiscent of the classic relationship of disciple to mentor: "in the quietness of chartroom conversations when cruising between ports he revealed much of his boyhood and student days which developed his philosophy of life, when some passing incident reminded him of earlier days."15 Even from the perspective of half a century later, there is ample evidence of the lasting and powerful impact Grenfell had upon the young man. Neighbours who knew Chesterfield only slightly in the last few years before his death might not have known that he had been a photographer, but they knew he had travelled with Dr Grenfell. Two episodes suggest the nature and effect of Grenfell's influence. Because Wilson, the district manager, wanted to go on leave, Chesterfield stayed on at Rigolet for a few months in the summer of 1900 after his contract as

an apprentice had expired. During this time he was in temporary charge of the Rigolet post. Grenfell persuaded Chesterfield to let him take about three thousand board feet of lumber belonging to the government, on the promise that he would "make it right" with the authorities in St John's.16 Chesterfield became concerned that Grenfell would forget to pay for the lumber; he seems also to have realized that it might already have been sold, for he delayed notifying anyone of his action. After Chesterfield's departure from the post Wilson found it necessary to write another letter and endeavour to clear the business up. Although the incident is minor, it shows how Chesterfield, under the sway of Grenfell's influence and presence, acted improperly and perhaps uncharacteristically. The second episode is connected with Chesterfield's departure from Rigolet. On Thursday, 27 September 1900, the schooner N.W. W/iite left Rigolet at three in the morning with Bert on board: "Mr. Chesterfield returning home to Canada." At one o'clock in the afternoon a small boat returned to Rigolet with Chesterfield and three of the crew, the schooner having gone aground near Pompey's Island, The SS Erik, also in at the time preparing for her trip to London, made ready to go to the assistance of the White. On the next day, Friday, the Strathcona arrived at Rigolet with Grenfell on board (or perhaps more aptly, as the post journal puts it, "in charge"). On Saturday the Stmtficona visited nearby and on Sunday the Erik returned to Rigolet, "having left the W/tite in a position to sail off the reef," But apparently the W/tite did not return to Rigolet, nor did Chesterfield go to her, for the entry for Tuesday, 2 October - a "dear bright day with very little wind" - reads: "The 'Strathcona' left here about noon, Mr. Chesterfield went with her."17 During the next two months Bert travelled the Labrador coast on the Stratdcona with Grenfell. Some of the episodes which occurred during this voyage have made their way into Grenfell's books (the discovery of a ship, her hull pierced from within and then abandoned for the insurance, which the Stratdcona attempted to tow to St John's as evidence is one example). It is interesting that on this occasion Bert let his life be governed by circumstance, for he had had no intention of travelling with Dr Grenfell after the expiration of his contract. In fact, he was already on his way back home when the schooner ran aground. The appearance of Dr Grenfell in the midst of the efforts to refloat the W/tite changed Chesterfield's plans, and he decided to delay his return home and travel with the doctor.

Most of Chesterfield's personal reflections on Grenfell, as they appear in his article, probably stem from this close association of a few months. Though he claims to have kept in touch with him in later years - "We always met when our paths crossed" - it is this voyage that seems to have been his closest contact with the man. Perhaps the interlude became magnified with time's passing, but later neighbours and friends reported that after his contract expired, Bert "left the Hudson's Bay Company and went with Dr Grenfell," the suggestion being that he had become fed up with the company's materialism or mistreatment of the native people or profit objectives, and that in reaction, Bert decided to throw his lot in with Grenfell and serve his fellow man. Indeed, the piece on Grenfell is framed in such a way as to contrast Grenfell's altruism and defiance of conventional standards, and his freedom from the profit motive, with the world of the market place and its search for money and goods and financial gain. And, Chesterfield suggests, it was this very opposition to the accepted ways of conducting life's business in the world of the market place that led directly to the subsequent clashes between Grenfell and authorities with vested interests. Grenfell represented to Chesterfield a man who achieved a kind of freedom, enabling him to defy imprisoning and life-destroying conventions, and to live a principled and dedicated life. It must have seemed an attractive alternative to this twenty-three-year-old clerk, and it must have been with a feeling of release and relief that he found himself in the company of this great man and, for a time at least, free of the obligations of an HBC apprentice. However they were to be realized, at this point Chesterfield undoubtedly had various possibilities in mind for his future life. For the time being he had decided not to renew his contract with the company, and for the first time in his adult life he found himself without commitments, his adolescence behind him and the future open to him. Beyond eventually returning to Quebec, he may not have had anything definite in mind. Chesterfield arrived at the home of his aunt and uncle in Sweetsburg on 5 December 1900, in time for Christmas. His return must have caused quite a stir among friends and relatives. In one surviving letter written on Boxing Day, a young woman who seems to have been a family friend wrote to Bert's aunt: "I am sure you must be very glad to have Mr Chesterfield home again, and he must be equally glad to be home. He must have been thoroughly tired of the long journey. Yes, of course he is very altered in ap-

7

pearance since you saw him last." He did not, however, stay long at Sweetsburg. His "itinerary," on a page inserted at the beginning of his Bible (see frontispiece), indicates his extensive travels from 1895 to 1908. On 8 February 1901 Chesterfield was at Manchester, presumably New Hampshire, and on 16 February he was in Boston. He evidently had decided to sign on again with the HBC since a letter from Winnipeg to the London office of the company, written 29 March 1901, indicates that Chesterfield had re-engaged for a further three years, and that he had "gone to visit friends in England." In fact it was not until n May that he sailed from Montreal, arriving in London ten days later. In the few weeks he had in England before sailing for Hudson Bay he visited, for the first time since he had come to Canada as a fifteen-year-old orphan nine years before, relatives, friends, and places from his childhood. Chesterfield was to report to the London office before i June and he was to be given passage on the annual ship to Moose Factory.18 Earlier that winter, W.K. Broughton, the manager of the James Bay District, had written to Commissioner C.C. Chipman at Winnipeg on 5 February to request that Donald Gillies's temporary appointment in charge of the Eastmain District (comprising the posts at Fort George and Great Whale River) be made permanent. Broughton concluded the letter:

If Mr. Gillies is appointed to the. charge of E.M. District, it will be absolutely necessary to send in a Clerk for the charge of G.W.R. as it is not possible for one officer to meet the Indians and Esquimaux personally and close the trade at both Posts in the District in proper time to enable the Returns to be shipped by the annual ship to England, and it is stated that neither Esquimaux or Indians are satisfied with the temporary arrangement of G.W.R. and it is feared they might leave the Post if some change is not made.19 By June Broughton wrote to Chipman again, this time acknowledging receipt of a letter with Chesterfield's contract enclosed. On 17 August the ship Lady Head arrived at Moose Factory from England, and the post journal records that Chesterfield had arrived with her. By 11 September George McKenzie, who succeeded Broughton as district manager, was able to write to David Louttit, the labourer in charge of Great Whale River post, that he would have to depend upon Gillies at Fort George for guidance in the management of the post and for help with the accounts. He added: "Probably in

8

the spring I will be able to send you help from here." On 14 August McKenzie had written to Gillies in much the same vein, directing him to supervise Great Whale River. On that occasion, just three days before the arrival of the Lady Uead with Chesterfield on board, he had been less optimistic about the prospect of help for the post at Great Whale: "I intended sending up [?] a young clerk as a help but cannot spare one this year."20 Clearly Chesterfield seemed to be the clerk intended for Great Whale River post, though whether the delay in sending him there was because he was needed at Moose, or because he would in any event have had to undergo some general orientation to the trade of the district before being put in charge of a remote post on Hudson Bay, or because McKenzie and others felt it necessary to evaluate his suitability for the task is uncertain. But "The Report on Fur Trade for the Year Ending 3ist May 1901," written in the fall, concluded with the note that "The Officer in charge of James Bay District is under instructions to send the Mr. Chesterfield, who came out with the 'Lady Head,' to Whale River by the first opportunity if he is found fit for the charge."21 By 4 February 1902 the decision had been made to send Chesterfield to Great Whale River, for on that date McKenzie both provided Bert with a letter commissioning him to the task and then wrote to David Louttit at Great Whale: "I am sending Mr, Chesterfield to you to look after your accounts & render you what help he can... You will find Mr. Chesterfield a fine young man & I wish you to show him every kindness as I am sure you will." The plan was to have Chesterfield spend a month or so at Fort George and then, towards the end of March, travel the remaining 180 miles to Great Whale River, "to take charge of accounts there for Mr. David Louttit & render him all assistance in your power both in trading & in the general management of the Post."22 Chesterfield was also told that if Gillies's application for a temporary leave of absence was granted that summer, he would be taking charge of Fort George for a time. At most Bert Chesterfield knew only a few months in advance that he was to be posted to the James Bay District, and not until some time after his arrival at Moose Factory did he know that he was destined for Great Whale River. Did he have any expectations about what he would find there? He might have been shown James Cotter's photographs of the Eastmain coast, later to be published in the Beaver by his son Stewart. Notman, the famous Montreal photographer, reportedly said that Cotter's was the finest

photographic work he had ever seen by an amateur. Chesterfield might have had some knowledge of the Ungava District through conversations with Stewart Cotter who was stationed at Northwest River when Chesterfield was at Rigolet. One of James Cotter's photographs was taken at Northwest River in 1897, raising the possibility of Chesterfield having met him, and of a direct personal influence. Or he may have known that he was following in the footsteps of such HBC men as Cotter, Horetzky, and Ross, all of whom had been amateur photographers while posted to James Bay some forty years before.23 But once again his fate, so far as his own destination was concerned, lay in the hands of others. Many factors made this isolated posting even more lonely for Bert Chesterfield. He was still a relatively young man, about to turn twenty-four when he arrived at Moose in August 1901. Perhaps as a neophyte apprentice clerk in 1895 he had been better prepared to accept the hardships of imposed isolation than he was in 1901. Even by comparison with Rigolet and Moose Factory, Great Whale was an extraordinarily secluded and remote place, for here there was no "society" of the kind photographed at Rigolet, no fellow clerks, no young women of his age and background, and no superior officers of the company to supervise his work, and perhaps to act as surrogate father. It was, as one HBC official commented, an area "which has few attractions for most men." Whatever loneliness he was naturally prone to would have been augmented by these circumstances, and heightened by his recent return to civilization and his childhood home. Perhaps inspired and stirred by Dr GrenfelTs example of service and challenged by his level of activity, Bert may also have found himself less satisfied with his own lot, and his role as an HBC employee, than he might otherwise have been. Whereas at Rigolet ships had come and gone with some frequency and various traders regularly appeared, in the James Bay District the annual supply ship from England proceeded directly to Moose Factory (or, in later years,

to Charlton Island), the supply depot for the posts around the Bay. The Mink, an HBC brigantine, then distributed goods to various posts, re-equipping them with the goods necessary for the year's trading. A York boat might appear occasionally, an expedition of surveyors or prospectors would pass through, or the Anglican missionary might come up from Fort George, but otherwise the sole visitors to the Great Whale River post consisted of the Indians who came out from the interior, and the Inuit who arrived by kayak or sled from the Belcher Islands (about sixty miles offshore), or down the coast from the region of the Richmond Gulf, Port Harrison, or beyond. If it is true that his return home heightened the loneliness Chesterfield felt in his new and isolated posting, that interlude between his two periods of service with the Hudson's Bay Company probably also was the occasion for him to further his understanding of photography and to acquire new equipment and supplies. Once returned to the scene of his adolescent upbringing he may have realized more fully the uniqueness of the Labrador coast, and wished that he had captured more of it in photographs. Perhaps, too, as he saw photographs around him, or met and spoke with photographers, he decided that when he returned to the north he would seriously put himself to the task of making photographic images. With what Wilson typified as his eagerness and quickness to leam, Chesterfield determined to equip himself with whatever knowledge, materials, and techniques he needed to record life at his new posting by means of photographs. Mrs Chesterfield relates that while her husband was in the north, the two hobbies he had available to keep him occupied were practising penmanship and making photographs. Whatever happened in that interlude between his two periods of service, it is safe to say that when Chesterfield re-engaged with the HBC he had some specific ideas in mind about how to make the best use of his time, and his maturing competence in photography was part of the project.

9

I

The Post and the Mission In an article written in 1939 Chesterfield nostalgically recalled the time of his arrival at Moose Factory in 1901. He had just come to the James Bay District of the Hudson's Bay Company on the annual supply ship as a newly appointed clerk. From the vantage point of half a lifetime later, Chesterfield was conscious of the momentous changes that had taken place since those years. At the turn of the century this "fur trade dominion larger than France and Spain combined" was administered by a half-dozen officers of the Hudson's Bay Company at a few posts spread along the coasts of James Bay and Hudson Bay, one or two hundred miles apart. Chesterfield gives perhaps an idealized picture of the few brief years early in this century before the arrival of the railroad, radio, and airplanes in the north: "There were no police, Indian agents, or government officials of any description in this furland. But there was scarcely any crime. Men respected the rights and property of others."1 Native life in northern Canada, Chesterfield claimed, had not yet deteriorated because the HBC still remained unopposed. Even the missionaries were dependent upon the Hudson's Bay Company since their "churches and parsonages were built on land actually owned by the

Company."2 Chesterfield's statement that "the missionaries gladly accepted rule by the traders" is difficult to credit, as is his portrayal of "the friendly spirit existing between the two leading white men at each post [which] impressed the natives favourably."* And, while ostensibly opposing paternalistic attitudes, his own views of native peoples (typical of that earlier era) appear contradictory and are lamentable by today's standards: "it is Indian nature to seek guidance from a superior being, especially if spoken to in their idiomatic speech, and both traders and missionaries learned the native languages. This appealed to Indian vanity."4 In Chesterfield's view the end of the "primitively happy state" for the native people around Hudson Bay began when the Revillon Freres successfully challenged the domination of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1906. Once competition occurred in the fur trade, prices were driven up, trapping intensified, greed and betrayal became common, and the native peoples began "to congregate near the growing assortment of posts."5 The result was that the Indians and Inuit became more dependent upon the white man's food and goods, their mobility was destroyed because they became increasingly encumbered with possessions, and they became more susceptible to

11

diseases. In short, Chesterfield overlooks the gradual processes of mutual adaptation and change, and instead depicts a relatively swift transition on the part of the native people "from healthy savage freedom to unhealthy civilized servitude." While clearly opposed to the development of the Canadian north, and dismayed by the cost of the apparatus of personnel and services to support the growth of what he calls "civilized" life there, Chesterfield in 1939 favoured too uncritically the monopolistic regime of which he had been a part. Even though he admitted that many of its practices were intended to maintain healthy profits from the fur trade, he none the less provides too rosy a picture of the Hudson's Bay Company when he writes: "The principal aim of this fur trade government was to keep the Indians in a state of nomadism. To keep them from drifting into community living conditions near the posts. This end was achieved by setting a low barter value on furs and only supplying the natives with things useful to their wandering life."6 While there may be several reasons for this oversimplified and somewhat distorted account, perhaps a major factor is that these words were written on the eve of the Second World War, at a time when Chesterfield himself had forsaken the "civilized" life of Montreal to move to rural Ontario where he tried to live self-sufficiently on a few acres of land. After three decades of city life as a professional photographer he was, in some measure, returning to the land, not to the fur trade or the north to be sure, but to an agricultural rather than an urban existence. As Chesterfield comments in his essay, at the beginning of this century "the only permanent buildings in the territory" around the shores of James and Hudson bays "were at eight trading posts operated by the Company, three of which were subposts supervised by halfbreed traders."7From the base these structures provided the representatives of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Church of England's Church Missionary Society carried out the economic and spiritual aims of their respective white institutions. Chesterfield's photographs of the post buildings and churches at Great Whale River, Fort George, and Moose Factory reveal something of the lives of the people who lived and worked in them, both white and native. From Chesterfield's point of view these buildings may be seen as introducing in a rudimentary and desirable form the values of Western civilization to these remote and unsettled regions; from another they already stand for cultural domina-

12

tion and the intrusion of foreign institutions into the lives of native people. Inevitably the small settlements around the Hudson's Bay Company posts and Anglican missions were another stage in the introduction of town life and the wage economy that would increasingly challenge the small-scale hunting culture of the Indians and the Inuit. And fur traders and missionaries were but the advance guard of what would become a host of police, teachers, nurses, social workers, and civil servants. The photographs of the post and the mission suggest, too, the effect that the fur trade and evangelization had upon the Indians and Inuit, A growing contingent of "homeguard" Indians and Inuit was necessary to maintain the company's presence at the posts. Some of the HBC's native employees had another role, serving the church as catechists or teachers (David Louttit and Nero Fleming at Great Whale are examples). At Moose Factory the native labourers and their families were joined at the post by other Indians to such an extent that at about this time the company found it necessary to remove some of them from the vicinity of the post. HBC personnel must have been on the lookout for increasing post dependency, for Chesterfield warned his superior in a letter that some Belcher Islands Inuit were considering moving to Charlton Island where the HBC had established a supply depot. He seems to have assumed that they would be attracted there by the prospect of an easier life and suggested intervention: "The statement that they will be sent away from there if any more of them go there from here will bring about that end if it is desired."8 Although frequently the fur trader and missionary provided assistance to each other - Chesterfield and William G. Walton, the Anglican clergyman stationed at Fort George, often travelled together by dogsled or boat - the goals of the HBC and the church did not always coincide. The fur trader wanted the native people to spend as much of their time as possible away from the posts, procuring furs. The missionary's work was made easier by regular and continued contact with the Indians and Inuit at the post settlement, where they could be taught to read, instructed in Christianity, and gathered for worship. An incident at Fort George during a measles epidemic in the fall of 1902 illustrates such a conflict. Measles had been introduced to Fort George by three sick members of the crew of the supply boat from Moose Factory. Chesterfield was anxious that the Indians return quickly to their camps with their winter's supplies from the post because continued

contact with others in the little settlement meant greater danger of infection by measles. And, of course, a sick hunter could bring in no furs. Walton continued to hold his worship services, which brought together large numbers of people, some contagious, until on 5 October Chesterfield wrote in the post journal: "The reverend gentleman closed his church today - by the bye, he should have done it two weeks ago and I suppose would be highly indignant if told so."9 Walton's published correspondence in a Church Missionary Society newsletter about missionary activities in northern Canada reveals that he was not insensitive to the suffering of the native people during the measles epidemic. He reported their misery with compassion: "Nearly 200 have died, and there is mourning in every tent along the coast."10 He described his efforts to assist these bereaved families or those who were starving as a result both of disease and the scarcity of game. Because the search for food had to continue in spite of sickness, some children remained behind untended: "We are told that 70 miles to the north it is a very pitiful sight, in two or three tents, to see the motherless children almost quite naked, and quite helpless to get anything for themselves."11 For his part the missionary had little interest in helping the HBC to preserve its fur trade monopoly. In the summer of 1903 advance parties of men from the Revillon Freres, a Paris fur house, appeared in the region, awaiting an overdue ship that was to provision new posts to be set up in opposition to the Hudson's Bay Company. When their supplies became scarce, the post manager at Fort George, Donald Gillies, was willing to provide these "opposition" men with necessities in return for the furs they had been collecting from the Indians, not cash. Walton had given the Revillon Freres men a bag of flour and then tried to buy two more from the post. When Gillies refused to sell, Walton threatened to report him to the district manager at Moose Factory (a threat which does not seem to have alarmed Gillies greatly). Within a few years the Revillon Freres had successfully established posts in opposition to the HBC at Fort George, Moosonee, and Albany. Not only the HBC, but also the Anglican Church lost its dominance as the Roman Catholic Church established missions in the wake of the French traders. Thus

Chesterfield's stay in the Ungava territory coincided with the end of an era that had prevailed during most of the nineteenth century. Only for a few years after the turn of the century did the Hudson's Bay Company and the Anglican Church remain the sole white institutions on the East Main coast. Following the First World War this part of the Canadian north was to see fur traders and missionaries joined in increasing numbers by police, geologists and surveyors, and government representatives of all kinds. The Hudson's Bay Company report for outfit 1900 (that is, for the year ended 31 May 1901) drew attention to the outstanding success of the postts at Fort George and Great Whale River: "This District (Eastmain) shows the greatest improvement compared with Outfit 1899 of any in the Fur Trade, the Returns being increased 87%, while the Net Gain for the Outfit is fully 100% on the Capital."12 Donald Gillies, the post manager at Fort George, was looking after both posts, but because of the increase in trade instructions were given to send Chesterfield to Great Whale River if he was considered suitable for that posting. Bert Chesterfield arrived at Moose Factory in August 1901. After a period of orientation there, and a month or so at Fort George under Gillies, he went to the Great Whale River post in early March 1902. What he found there, in terms of the activities revolving around the presence of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Church of England mission, is represented in his photographs of the buildings erected for these two organizations. The prominence given by Chesterfield's photographs to white institutions not only suggests the strong visual impression permanent wood-frame structures made in the northern landscape, but also reminds us how unavoidably all of Chesterfield's camera work depicts the point of view of a white man. As a Hudson's Bay Company clerk as well as an amateur photographer, he wanted to preserve a record of these places where he was to live and to work. Such buildings may have been a reminder for a lonely and homesick young man of the order and stability of what he termed "civilized life"; he probably also felt pride in these institutions whose values he himself embodied and represented.

13

2

1

1

Hudson's Baj{ Company buildings at Moose Factory, Fall 1901 On the far left is the house of the officer in charge; to its right is the staff house, built in the period 1823-6 and turned over to the Ontario Heritage Foundation in 1978. The large building behind the ship is the factory and general store; situated in front of it is the doctor's house. Partially visible on the right is the boat shop. The ship, in dry dock for the winter, is the brigantine Mw£.13

14

2 2

St Thomas Church in Moose Factory, igoi St Thomas Church on Moose Factory Island still looks much the same today. Holes were drilled in the church floor, then fitted with plugs that could be removed during periodic flooding of the river in spring breakup, an expedient that prevented the building from floating away.

3

"Dinner in the factor's mess room on New Year's Day" Chesterfield's caption for this photograph is from his article, "New Year's in the Far North," published in the Montreal Daily Star in 1910. The article describes the northern custom of breaking the monotony of winter with a period of holiday revelry from Christmas Eve until 6 January. The high point of the holiday occurred on New Year's Day when, as Chesterfield wrote, "the servants and engages, dressed in the best the store will furnish, proceed to the factor's house in order to wish him a Happy New Year. The greeting, and future prosperity, is the toast which is given with the drinking of one glass of wine. In replying the factor formally invites them all to dinner."14

The composition and size of the gathering about the table, as well as the furnishings in the room, suggest Moose Factory as the likely location rather than Great Whale River or Fort George. Chesterfield was at Moose on New Year's Day 1902; he left there for his posting at Fort George and Great Whale in February. The meal itself is also described by Chesterfield: Ai one, dinner is served in the mess-room. Tabks have (teen laid to accommodate all who are engaged at the fort, from storeman to chore boy. The tables fairly groan with the weight of venison, wild geese, and plum puddings, and the factor's guests are those who will do full justice to the fare. It is the greatest meal of the year at a fur trade post, and the host sees that all thoroughly enjoy themselves ^

3

t5

4

i6

5

4

"To the. music of drum and fiddk tnt trappers and engages dana two weds away" This photograph and caption also appeared with "New Year's in the Far North." The fact that the musicians are Inuit suggests that this picture was taken at Great Whale River; music and dancing were regular features of the holiday festivities at nearly every post.

5

6

Rupert's House The post at Rupert's House was approximately mid-way between Moose Factory and Fort George. The church at this post was situated in the midst of the other buildings. Close inspection of this particular photograph reveals a Cree teepee, cut poles leaning together to be dried for firewood, and several haystacks.

factor's house, at Fort George While not as spacious as the chief officer's house at Moose Factory, the house of the post manager at Fort George was large. For many years this dwelling was the home of Donald Gillies and his family, and when Gillies returned to Scotland for a brief furlough in 1902 Chesterfield acted as manager at Fort George. An HBC employee would have found Fort George less isolated and primitive than Great Whale River. The little settlement on the island at the mouth of Big River had livestock, gardens, fences and board sidewalks. William Walton, who served the Anglican Church on the East Main coast for decades, lived at Fort

George with his family, as did the manager of the rival fur trade concern, the Revillon Freres, after they were established here in the early 19005. In the 19705 La Grande Riviere (Big River) became the centre of the gigantic hydroelectric development by the Soci6t6 d'energie de la baie James. Dams built to harness the river altered its flow and made necessary the relocation of the community at Fort George. The new townsite of Chisasibi, a few miles away on the mainland, was inaugurated in the summer of 1981.

17

7

8

7

Great Wfiale River Post, looking upriver from Hudson Bay In the early 19005 Great Whale River was the most northerly post on the east coast of Hudson Bay, and one of a half-dozen posts situated along the coastline of James and Hudson bays. HBC posts were usually built at the mouth of a river, often on an island (as at Fort George and Moose Factory). The post buildings at Great Whale were located on a sandy promontory about a mile upriver from Hudson Bay. In the mid-nineteenth century Great Whale River was used sporadically in the summer months as a white whale fishery, an operation abandoned after 1870. By the time of Chesterfield's arrival, the post had assumed a new role, since the fur trade was being extended north and efforts were being made to involve the Inuit as well as the Cree.

18

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Each spring the Cree came down the river in their crooked canoes, bearing the results of a winter's hunting and trapping. The Inuit came too, late in the winter. Sometimes they travelled by dogsled for months and hundreds of miles; sometimes they came across the treacherous ice bridge from the Belcher Islands, approximately seventy miles offshore in Hudson Bay. Many of the Cree camped near the post during the summer months. After trading, working at the post, visiting, fishing, and renewing acquaintances, they left in September for another season of hunting or trapping, again ranging hundreds of miles from the post. The Inuit began their return journey in April or May, while there was still snow for their sleds. In contrast to the white buildings at other HBC posts, those at Great Whale River were red in colour from the mixture of seal oil and ochre with which they were painted every second year.

Great Whale River post, looking north from the river ice in 1902 In the foreground close to the river bank is the oil house. Built for processing Beluga whales during the mid-nineteenth century, it was later used for cutting up and rendering seals. Attached at the left end may be seen the dog house. Both buildings were principally used by Inuit. A visitor in 1909 reported that harpoons and kayaks were stored in the rafters of the oil house. Immediately to the right and at an angle to the shore is the largest building in the post complex, the store, trading room, and warehouse. At the extreme right is the officers' house where the post manager, the clerk, and their families stayed. At the left of the photograph are the barrel shed (where oil was stored in barrels until picked up by the supply

ship) and the men's house which provided accommodation for some of the native men who worked at the post. The small building on the brow of the hill in the centre of the photograph is probably the carpenter's shop and forge. The Anglican mission church may be faintly seen slightly to the left of and behind this little shop.

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Clothes-lint behind men's house, Great Whale River Among the accidents of life... there is one that rarely fails in any extended view which shows us the details of streets and buildings. There may be neither man nor beast nor vehicle to be seen. You may be looking down on a place in such a way that none of the ordinary marks of its being actually inhabited show themselves. But in the rawest Western settkment and the oldest East-

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trn city, in iht midst of the. shanties at Pike's Peak and stretching across the court-yards as you look into them from above the clay-plastered roofs of Damascus, wherever man lives with any of the decencies of civilization, you will find the clothesline ... How it brings tfe people who sleep under that roof before us to see their sheets drying on that fence! And how real it makes the men in that house to look at their shirts Hanging, arms down, from yonder line!16 Oliver Wendell Holmes 10

Officers' fiouse at Great Whale River An epidemic of measles in the fall of 1902 caused hundreds of deaths up and down the East Main coast. In August Chesterfield had gone to Fort George, 180 miles south of Great Whale, to take temporary charge of that post. David Louttit resumed management at the Great Whale post, assisted by Lewis Maver, the apprentice clerk. On 9 October Louttit's

daughter Maria died of the measles; by the fifteenth Louttit, his wife and other family members were sick. Maver, who had been keeping the post journal since the beginning of Louttit's illness, described the fire that occurred on the night of 20 October: 1 am very sorry to say that the officers' house was completely burned down last nig/it. It started in the kitchen [the wing to the rig/it in the photo] d I happened to wake up d I thought I fieard some wood cradling. I jumped out of my bed d opened the mess-room door and I met a volume of smolce coming out of the kitchen. I at once called up to David that there was a fire in the kitchen d as he came down I ran up to the men's house and called Harold d Samuel. They came down at once... Harold d I went round to the back and got the ladder there d took it round to the Front window where we got Mrs. Louttit d 2 little girls d a servant, out of the room d took tttem up to the men's house. David got his hand burned slightly.17

Less than a week later Louttit, already i a badly weakened condition with the measles, died, probably as a result of his exertions the night of the fire. Chesterfield, at Fort George, only learned of the fire in early December. His report the following summer to George McKenzie, the district manager, was critical of the way the situation had been handled: "David Louttit was not in a fit state mentally to give orders for as much as a week before the fire happened."18 The men, he thought, ought to have endeavoured to save the house instead of moving goods from the store to the safety of the oil house. At a later date Maver rebutted Chesterfield's letter in the margin of the post's Correspondence Book. The wind on the night of the fire, he pointed out, was blowing towards the store. If the men had not kept the grass wet with water from the river, Maver claimed, the store might have been lost as well. He objected indignantly to

Chesterfield's view that "had there been someone here to keep them in their senses I am certain that the house would have been saved." Chesterfield concluded that the fire "was caused by an Indian lad who was trying to look after the sick family, going into the kitchen to get his boots which he had left there; [then?] striking a match in order to find them and although he says he stayed in the dark and put the boots on and saw no light one must conclude that it was that match being thrown down that started the fire." On 8 December 1902 Chesterfield concluded a letter with a comment on the comfort of the house itself: "With regard to the house burning down, of course it is very inconvenient but don't worry too much about it for at best it was a cold, draughty & half tumble down affair even tho' it did look rather solid - It was more than it felt on a windy day, eh!"19

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The post as seen from the south bank of Great Whale River, 1903 This photograph has been greatly enlarged and represents only about oneeighth of the total area of the original glass negative. The photograph is unique in several ways. It shows the entire layout of the post buildings in their relation to the mission church (not usually visible in other photographs). The situation of the post on the peninsula, with the river in the foreground and Hudson Bay in the background, is evident. And this is the only photograph showing the post after the burning of the officers' house. The date must be 1903, since that house, which was in the open area to the right of the store, has not yet been replaced.

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The store, provision shed, and trading room at Great Whale River The store and trading room was the principal locus of the native peoples' contact with the HBC fur trader and clerks. Here furs were evaluated and exchanged for goods. Various supplies of food and clothing were available - bacon, biscuits, oatmeal, salt, and sugar, as well as shirts, dresses, coats, and combs. Items of hardware were kept, such as axes, augers, stovepipe, files, guns, traps,

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hinges, sieves, and kettles. One could also get a bottle of Perry Davis's painkiller, a pack of playing cards, an eightday clock, a telescope, a steel harpoon, or canvas for a tent or canoe. Because the erosion of the river bank was seriously undermining the building, it was finally torn down in 1965. The pilings in the photograph suggest that even at the turn of the century erosion was a problem. The native people recall that the store was not heated - notice that there is no chimney visible in this picture.

Furs foiwg brought to the post at Great Whale River

Three Inuit hunters wait with their furs while the trader, who appears to be Chesterfield, opens the store.

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"Eskimos in trading room. G.W.R., Hudson's Bay 1904" Chesterfield's caption makes explicit the location, which might have been inferred from the items hanging in the background, the sign on the wall, and the array of boxes and sacks. The strong shadows suggest that an open door provided the light for a relatively infrequent interior photograph.

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Inuit in church, Great Whale River, c. 1902 An Inuit congregation is here seen in the Anglican mission church. Except for the fact that the signs and some of the pews have been removed, this interior remains today much as it was when photographed eighty years ago - although it now houses museum displays, rather than people. The vertical pine boards, the old pews, and the white panelled door with its fine old handmade latch are still all as pictured here. Today, in the new church building immediately to the south, Inuit men sit on the right (facing the front of the church) and the women on the left. While some maintain that this was a "Victorian" custom imposed on the native people by the first missionaries, this photo suggests that in earlier days the practice was different. The alternative explanation for the present arrangement - that it reflects traditional

seating for a meeting within an igloo is perhaps more likely. It might therefore indicate that the mission has been gradually indigenized as the people have integrated some of their own traditional customs with their practice of Christian worship, A large woodstove apparently had no great effect on the temperature of this uninsulated, metal-clad structure when it was 40° or 50° below outside and the wind was blowing. The diminutive William Walton (reportedly only four and a half feet tall) is said to have frozen his ears, hands, and feet while preaching. 16

"Eskimo summer camp. Hudson's Bay" Three cultures are depicted in this view looking east across the plain at Great Whale River. In the foreground, close to the two Inuit men working on the kayak frame, is a tupiq., the gabled tent used by the Inuit in summer. In the background are three Cree teepees. The Inuit and

Cree parts of the present town of Great Whale River are in these same general locations. At the extreme right is the church, the only nineteenth-century building surviving today at Great Whale. It was brought out from England to Little Whale River in 1879,and moved to this site in 1891. HBC personnel naturally assumed that it was the desire for trade that prompted the Inuit to travel for many months and upwards of eight hundred miles to reach the post at Great Whale River by spring. Informal histories of the church in the region assume, just as readily, that it was the eagerness of the Inuit to be present at the church for Easter communion. Yet another perspective might suggest that such a journey fit the nomadic lifestyle of the natives, and that they adapted the institutions represented by the post and the mission to the rhythms of their life.20

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Inuit men with kayaks at the oil house, Great Whale River Six years after this photograph was made, two travellers visiting Great Whale River commented upon a feature of the oil house not evident from the picture:

Inuit hunters arrive at the oil house A group of Inuit men have brought seal carcasses to the oil house, where the blubber will be cut up and rendered into oil.

A/iter this a visit was paid to the oil house, one of the many buildings of the Post that is likely to be of interest to an outsider. It is a large frame structure, which, due to the odour diffused therefrom, might easily be found by any one not possessing the sense of sight. The animal oil obtained from the blubber has a very offensive odour, before refining, to those not accustomed to it.21

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Seal being taken inside for processing A husky dog partially obscures a seal carcass being dragged into the oil house.

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Inside the oil douse One division of Inuit labour is portrayed here as a group of women and boys skin and cut up the seals. An entry in the post journal, 2 June 1904, may record this scene. "Seven women and boys cutting blubber in oil house."22 An account written a few years later describes the interior of the structure: One end of the building was occupied by two large cauldrons, about which was built a brick furnace. T/ie whole was surmounted by a huge chimney and ventilator, through which the smoke and fumes from the boiling fat could pass. In the other end was a large table of planks upon which the slabs of blubber were laid to be cut into small pieces. Around the room were huge scales for weighing the blubber, the Eskimos being paid after this reckoning. Upon the rafters above were reposing many kyaks, harpoons, and other paraphernalia which their nomad owners did not require at the time, and with which they would not be encumbered.^ 21 (page 27)

Outside the oil house The same group stands outside the oil house. Each woman is carrying the moon-shaped Inuit knife, or ulu, and is wearing a flour sack as an apron.

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22 Barrels of oil on the dock at Great W/iale River in preparation for shipping In August the brigantine Mink or, after 1903, the steamer Inenew transported the annual returns from Great Whale River to the depot at Charlton Island in James Bay. From there these commodities would be transferred to the ship returning to England. Furs and skins, bags of partridge and goose feathers, and casks of oil made up the annual returns. This photograph has been provided courtesy of the Hudson's Bay Company.

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Cree with a beluga whale at Great Vfhak 'River The presence of the beluga, or white whale, was a principal reason for establishing the post at Great Whale River and building the oil house there. (It was from this mammal that both Little Whale River and Great Whale River took their names. In fact, for a time Little Whale River was known as White Whale River.) In the summer these small whales, ten to fifteen feet in length, came to the river estuaries to feed and could readily be captured by placing a net across the river's mouth. In time the beluga became scarcer, as well as warier. In 1860,2300 whales were taken at Little

Whale River and Great Whale; a decade later whaling was abandoned at both places. After the beginning of the twentieth century the capture of a white whale was a much less frequent occurrence than it once had been. A rare entry in the Great Whale River post journal for these years records that on 22 July 1903 "Indians killed a porpoise."24 (Porpoise is the popular designation for a beluga whale.) This event may be recorded pictorially here.

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II

Inuit at Great Whale River The initial major trading contact with the Inuit along the East Main coast was established by the HBC at Fort George in 1840. When a small post was opened at Little Whale River in 1851, an expansion of the Inuit trade was one of the goals. By the 18905, having assumed the trading operations of the Little Whale River post, Great Whale River post had become the centre of the Inuit trade along the east coasts of James and Hudson bays. In the nineteenth century the Inuit had worked at whaling in Hudson Bay, sometimes on behalf of the HBC and sometimes trading the products of their own hunt with the company. The HBC had, furthermore, made use of Inuit skills as seal hunters to obtain sealskins and oil, as well as seal meat for sled dogs. There was also some trade in feathers and down. In addition to the furs of other animals, the demand for the fur of the white (or "Arctic") fox increasingly engaged the Inuit in trapping. Some of the returns were exceedingly high. At Little Whale River in the winter of 1876-7 the five HBC employees trapped over 1200 white foxes. By the end of the season the total on hand at the post, mostly through trade, of course, was over 9000, more than twice the best total for the entire district in any year between 1854 and 1868. An entry in the post journal at Little Whale River, 22 March 1877,

exclaims: "There are more foxes now at this place than ever before. Bully for LW.R."1 Even thirty-five years later that winter was known locally as "the great fox year." The geologist A.P. Low, who periodically visited the north for the Geological Survey of Canada and led a government expedition on the steamship Neptune to Hudson Bay in 1903-4, observed Inuit life in the region. Low estimated that between 400 and 450 Inuit lived along or near the east coast of Hudson Bay. Most of these, the natives of the mainland, were the "Itivimiut," while the remainder were the "Qiqiktarmiut" ("Island People") who lived chiefly on the Belcher Islands, about seventy miles from Great Whale River. Low reckoned that "about eighty families" traded at Great Whale, including a dozen families from the Belchers.2 Lucien Turner, during his stay at Fort Chimo in the early 18805, observed that most of the Inuit of Hudson Bay's east coast traded at Fort George, though "a party of less than a dozen individuals" made an annual journey across to Fort Chimo.3 By the time that Chesterfield arrived, the Great Whale River post had become the principal focus for an annual trading journey by many of the Itivimiut and Qiqiktarmiut.

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Low describes in detail that journey to the post, the central event in the annual cycle of Inuit life. All of the Ungava Inuit spent at least the months of January and February in travel by kamatik, the Inuit sled, making their way in stages along the ice of Hudson Bay, stopping to take seals and foxes as they went, and building igloos as shelter. For some Inuit it was an even longer journey. Chesterfield wrote to the district manager at Moose Factory: "when you consider that even the nearest of the northern Esquimaux build from 40 to 60 igloos, that means that they are travelling that number of days, in order to get here while some of the farthest off ones start as soon as they can travel, i.e. early in November, in order to get here in March."4 During his time at Great Whale, Chesterfield was urging the company to establish a post further north, at Port Harrison, to enable the Inuit to spend more time gathering furs and less time travelling south to Great Whale River. A decade later the HBC did establish posts further north. Perhaps 1904 might be regarded as a typical year. The first arrivals from the north reached Great Whale River on 18 January, and more were reported regularly the next few months. On 14 April a group arrived from the distant Fort Chimo. Many of the Inuit remained in the area, because on i May Chesterfield noted in the post journal that there were "over 80" at the post. By early May the trading season with the Inuit was coming to an end. After a large group was treated to "a snack of venison" (references to "venison" or "deer" mean caribou), HBC employee Harold Udgaarden recorded that on 11 May the last of the Inuit from the Belchers had left the post. That day Chesterfield departed for Fort George, Since Walton had returned to his home at Fort George on 4 May, the Inuit must have mosdy departed. Walton came to Great Whale for a month each spring to meet his Inuit congregation and celebrate Easter communion with them. Just after 1900 there was much concern expressed in HBC records for the area about the possibility of competition from the Revillon Freres. Especially worrisome was the possibility of a rival post being established north of Great Whale, possibly at the Richmond Gulf, to intercept the "northern Esquimaux" as they journeyed south with their furs. In that event Chesterfield had worked out a plan with the district headquarters at Moose Factory to establish the subpost he had recommended at Port Harrison, even further north. A.P, Low in the course of one of his trips had wintered during 1901-2 at Hopewell Harbour in the vicinity of Port Harrison. The Hudson's Bay Company, on hearing of the interest on the part of the Revillon Freres in pur-

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chasing the building Low had erected there, bought it from him for $1,000. But a post manned during the winter that far north, above the treeline, involved the expense and difficulty of supplying it with imported coal for heat. Indeed an Inuk caretaker, left in charge of taking in furs and watching the abandoned premises at the Little Whale post one winter, began dismantling the remaining buildings and using barrel staves for firewood, causing Harold Udgaarden to remark to Chesterfield: "If there had been no caretaker out there, there would have been some buildings there yet."5 Low had himself done some trading during his winter at Port Harrison. He had taken trade goods for the Inuit with him, as well as a copy of the "Esquimaux Tariff" from Great Whale. The HBC personnel did not seem much concerned about Low's activities, perhaps because they were assured that it was a part-time and personal venture unlikely to be continued. A greater fear was that news of his success as a trader would become known in the south and encourage others to try their hand. Chesterfield, in a report to George McKenzie at Moose Factory, wrote: "Had it not been for Mr. A.P. Low the Returns from this Post for Outfit 1901 would have been phenomenal. I cannot say how much fur he has traded from the Esquimaux, but only about half the usual number of them came from the north."6 Even though the Great Whale River post showed the exceptional profit of $28,854 for the year ended 31 May 1902, Chesterfield estimated that the results would have been at least $7,500 better had it not been for Low's trading. The good results of 1901-2 were attributed to a large migration of white foxes that year, one of the high points in the periodic fluctuation of their numbers. Two years later Chesterfield wrote to McKenzie describing their relative scarcity: "The homeguard Esquimaux in the neighbourhood of Richmond Gulf and LWR [Little Whale River] had when heard from lately only caught one fox amongst them - they reported that one could travel all day without seeing a single fox track. We had the usual number of traps set about the place, in fact personally I covered more ground than the man in charge generally did, and although most years quite a number of foxes would be caught, this year there was simply none to catch."7 This dearth is in striking contrast to one of the bounteous years when two Inuit men reportedly caught fifty white foxes in one night from three traps set near their igloo. Each time they heard a trap spring, they retrieved the catch and reset the trap. The photographs Chesterfield made of the Inuit in the vicinity of Great

Whale River between 1902 and 1904 reveal their characteristic dwellings, the igloo and the tupiq, and their modes of transportation, the kamatik and the kayak. He also made a rare (for that time) documentary sequence of photographs of an Inuk hunter waiting for and capturing a seal. These photographs display in marvellous detail the Inuit clothing made of the skins of seal and caribou. In their dress at this time, the Inuit show much less of the impact of the white man's way of life than do the Indians about the post. But that too would change. Already several Inuit men were employed at

the post in various capacities: John Meluctoo was a labourer, Bill Fleming a sled driver, and his brother, Nero Fleming, was the Inuk catechist. There are many features of Inuit life not found in these photographs. There are no photographs of hunting walrus, none showing a stone seal-oil lamp (kullik), and none of the interior of an igloo or tupiq. What is portrayed is Inuit life as seen from the post, still some distance from the usual homes of many of the Inuit to the north or on the Belcher Islands.

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Igloos, snow houses of the Inuit To the left of these two igloos, and slightly behind them, is a kamatik, or Inuit sled. The bundles of skins have been put on poles, out of reach of the dogs.

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AH Inuit family outside, an igloo The entrance to the igloo is below the level of the surrounding snow. Also seen here are a sealskin on a stretcher, and boots and mitts spread to dry on a wooden rack and on top of the igloo.

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The tupiq or wedge-shaped tent of the Inuit The pole frame of this tupiq or Inuit tent is covered by skins. Around the bottom, pieces of corrugated iron are held in place by rocks.

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Inuk woman with three children nat to a tupiq This family's tent is within sight of the post buildings (shown in the background). The nature and extent of their adoption of European clothing suggests the effects of that proximity. Although the two seated children are wearing clothes of skin, the woman's dress is of woven material, and the boy at the left is dressed entirely in clothes from the post.

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Inuk seal hunter In a sequence of five photographs Chesterfield depicted the long and patient wait of an Inuk seal hunter hoping to capture a seal. The hunter has placed a piece of dog fur on the snow block which he has carved with his knife from a nearby bank. He holds his harpoon across his lap, the line coiled and ready. Using a tuft of hair plucked from his caribou parka, the hunter marks the centre of the frosted circle that is the seal's breathing hole. The captions here are taken from an article by Chesterfield - "The Eskimo's Daily Bread," Toronto Star Weekly, 3 November 1928.

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At length even the highly trained hunter, becoming muscle cramped and weary, decides to rest. Slowly, moving as littk as possible, he raises himself. His attention remains concentrated on the spot marked with the tuft of hair, while the change of position is so slight as to be scarcely noticeable. Nevertheless, slight as it is, this change of position is the only movement permitted in this mode of seal-hunting. As the minutes pass without any sign of an approaching seal the hunter's muscks again tire of the fixed stillness, and in order to rest them he reverts to the former attitude. Alternatively in these two positions the change from the one to the other being the only relaxativc movement permissible under the circumstances, the Eskimo hunter frequently waits at a breathing hole for a period of twelve or eighteen hours. Talk with them about seal-hunting and you will hear narrations concerning far more lengthy vigils, even up to thirty-six hours.

At last there comes a seal to breathe. Slowly the hunter grasps the harpoon and straightens up, holding the point of his weapon directly over the mark he placed on the snow. He has heard the noise made by the bubbles in the hole caused by the animal exhaling the air from its lungs a few moments before it comes to the surface. It is the slightest of sounds. Amid the sighing of the wind and the creaking of the ice it would hardly be distinguished by untrained ears.

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Tfie fowfer u>aifi«g to strike is an expert and the moment of consummation of his long vigil has arrived. The patience and endurance he has exercised is about to be rewarded. Wif/i a swift, strong blow he drives the harpoon through the snowy roof and deep into the unsuspecting seal. 32

Witfi the newly killed seal lying on the ice beside the breathinghole it has visited once too often the hunter is happy. He has outwitted the keen instincts of the most timid of animals and his cunning has furnished him with the means to satisfy his hunger. Glad over the possession of sufficient food for the present the hunter gathers his belongings and starts for his igloo, dragging his capture behind him.

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Sleeping