Perspective: 57 years of Silence

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2009 (6063 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ARVIAT — In August of 1949, a young girl fell ill while camping with her family inland from this small, windswept hamlet on the west shore of Hudson Bay.
  She, her parents and 15-year-old brother were following the migration of the caribou, as did most Inuit of the day.

Ubluriak, 12, was the light of her mother Nipalukunii’s life: Ubluriak means "star" in Inuktitut.

Within days, Ubluriak would fall from the sky.

She was in an RCAF Canso amphibious aircraft flying with other polio-stricken Inuit from the missionary hospital in Chesterfield Inlet to Winnipeg’s King George Hospital. All 20 people on board — seven RCAF crewmen, four federal employees from a weather station in Clyde River at Baffin Island, a physiotherapist and Winnipeg newsman Jack Aveson — perished.

Word of the deaths came quick for some. Others would not know until they returned from their summer hunting camps months later. They were told only that the plane had crashed between Churchill and Winnipeg, everyone had died and were burned beyond recognition.

It was precious little information and, as it turned out, it was wrong.

Family are only now discovering the true story of the crash.

There was no cataclysmic fire. There was dismemberment of bodies and the recovery was gruesome work. But bodies were recovered and some were shipped, in fact, from one end of Canada to the next for proper burial.

For almost 60 years, however, the Inuit families never knew where their loved ones were buried. Two years ago, the first of the relatives, having learned the Inuit were put into a mass, unmarked grave in Norway House, made the journey south.

That information was uncovered when a Baker Lake man began searching a few years ago on the Internet for traces of the disappeared Inuit who set off from Chesterfield Inlet on Aug. 21, 1949 with 13 kabloona — white people.

Martin Kreelak’s discovery of a burial location sparked renewed interest among the people of the Eastern Arctic. Most surviving relatives were not yet born when polio ravaged the communities, which relied on the experience of elders and skills of the hunters and seamstresses to keep them alive in a harsh climate.

In 1948, polio began sweeping through the Arctic coastal communities, but it wasn’t until early 1949 that the full brunt of the nasty strain was felt. In February, a brilliant young doctor, Joseph Moody, imposed a quarantine from Arviat to just south of the Arctic Circle at Wager Bay — 50,000 square miles.

It cut off 2,000 people from most outside contact. The sick were ordered or went willingly to Chesterfield Inlet.

In the 1940s, the Inuit were still very much of the land — day school did not come to Chesterfield Inlet until 1955 — and had little continuing contact with white people, mainly the nuns, priests and RCMP who lived in the Arctic.

At Chesterfield Inlet, there was a small collection of buildings, a church, residences for the Oblate missionaries, St. Theresa hospital run by the Grey Nuns, an RCMP post, trading post and a post office. The community’s Inuktitut name Igululigaarjuk means place of few igloos. Few Inuit lived there in support of the white people.

 

Annie Ollie, a translator with the Nunavut government, remembers her father, John Uppahuak, speaking of the day Ubluriak was ordered to Chesterfield Inlet, north of Arviat.

Ollie says her grandparents, Nipalukunii and Thomas Pameok, believed their daughter was getting better and did not want Ubluriak sent away.

"She didn’t want to go," Ollie says. "She was holding onto my father, she was forced to go onto the plane."

On Aug. 21, the young star was loaded onto the Canso with the other patients and a physiotherapist who worked at St. Theresa.

It was a sad scene. Records made by nuns and Oblate priests at the Chesterfield mission note that the Inuit "accept to go because of (Beattie) going along. They all cry."

"The evacuation of… paralyzed Eskimos was a pitiful sight," Moody wrote in his 1955 chronicles of the north, Arctic Doctor. "Who, one wondered, would take care of their families now?"

Moody, too, said the "Eskimos" went because of Beattie. Beattie had answered a federal government appeal in April for a physiotherapist to help rehabilitate paralyzed people at St. Theresa Hospital. She was returning home to Brockville to be married.

The evacuation was a "tragic end to the great epidemic, it drove home more than anything else could have the fact that an entire section of the Eskimo race had been crippled," Moody wrote.

It would be a mourning without end.

The RCAF Canso hit bad weather and radio contact in Winnipeg was lost. The next day, 13 rescue planes took off but the search was hampered by storms.

Two days later, at 9:35 a.m. on Aug. 23, according to the Free Press, pieces of the plane were sighted by search crews, about 500 feet from a tiny "pothole" lake east of Bigstone Lake near St. Theresa Point. All on board the "mercy mission" perished, including Ubluriak and at least five other Inuit — elderly Hilarie Arnaluktituaq, her son-in-law John Agajaaluk, granddaughters Agnes Kappi, Elizabeth Annaqtusi and a young mother named Alma Angmalik.

Among the dead were the seven RCAF crew, Beattie, the four federal weather station employees heading out on furlough, and Canadian Press reporter Jack Aveson, renowned for tales of the North he so loved.

Initial news reports cited eight "Eskimos" on board, then seven. Moody’s book noted there were eight Inuit. No names of the Inuit were reported publicly by the RCAF nor the media, despite the fact they were recorded in Chesterfield.

I have spoken to relatives of six Inuit. That number reflects the 1949 records of the Oblate fathers and the Grey nuns at Chesterfield.

In the immediate aftermath, the families of the 13 non-Inuit received telegrams informing them of their loss. The non-Inuit bodies were transported to Winnipeg, where some were met by family from across Canada. Newspapers reported their names, ages, hometowns and positions. The remains were sent to funeral homes in Winnipeg and prepared for transport to hometowns for burial. Canadian Forces personnel attended some of those services. At least one family received personal items recovered at the site, with a letter from Dr. Cameron Corrigan, coroner at Norway House, 130 kilometres west of the crash site.

"There were no personal effects which could be salvaged; however, I did find the enclosed packet of letters which I thought you might wish to have. You have my sincerest sympathy, Yours truly, Cameron Corrigan," read an Aug. 29 letter sent to the wife of Cecil McKenzie, a radio operator at the weather station at Clyde River on Baffin Island.

The experience of the Inuit was starkly different.

Shortly after the crash, a float plane left Norway House with some local residents to help recover bodies at the crash site. The Inuit remains, discernible by darker skin, were individually wrapped in canvas tarp, brought to the reserve and buried immediately in a mass, unmarked grave in a single wooden box.

Some families in Chesterfield learned immediately the plane had crashed, others who had left loved ones at the hospital or who had returned to summer camps to hunt caribou, say they learned weeks or months later. Many, today, say they were never told what happened to the remains.

Some accepted the fact silently, did not question the reports that bodies had been burned. Ubluriak’s family, however, constructed an alternative narrative of the tragedy:

"They always thought she was abducted, or had family somewhere and maybe she was enjoying life," recalls Annie Ollie. "There was no proof given to them. No clothes or anything."

Martin Kreelak, a Nunavut filmmaker whose grandmother Arnaluktituaq died in the crash, searched for details on the Internet and spread the word around the North the burial had taken place at Norway House.

Annie Ollie says when she was told in 2007 of the grave, she was shocked. "I myself believed that she was alive somewhere and had children or something because that’s what my dad used to say."

Ollie and fellow Arviat resident Dorothy Gibbons, whose mother Lisa lost her eldest sister in the crash, visited Norway House in December 2007. They met people who remembered the day the float plane and its grim cargo docked on the Nelson River.

Ollie and Gibbons were led to the spot — a depression in the land at the old cemetery near the river — where their family members were laid.

"In those days when a plane came in our area we all would go down to see who was getting on or getting off," Frances Queskekapow, 72, says in a telephone interview. "I was 10."

Queskekapow recalls it was a beautiful late summer day, kids were running about in short sleeves when the plane taxied to the dock and unloaded canvas tarps. Her uncle Thomas York was an assistant to the doctor and helped with the recovery of the bodies, she says.

Agnes Adams, who visited the site last year with her cousin and two uncles, says she was told at Norway House that those collecting remains were told to pick up the coloured body parts.

"It was starting to decay and there was a strong smell," Queskekapow says. "They were put on a cart pulled by a small tractor."

A short service was conducted at the cemetery. The bodies were laid so their faces were looking east, a tradition at Norway House where people believe the dead should see the sun rise each day.

"There was a big box underneath the bottom of the hole, one big box and they were laid… in there with canvas intact," Queskekapow says.

Prayers were recited.

Ollie says knowing the bodies were handled respectfully helps to ease the pain.

"She (Ubluriak) is near a riverbank and it’s peaceful and near small trees. So she’s welcome there."

But, standing by the resting place of the girl the family believed was living happily in southern Manitoba was hard.

"I was so hurt. My grandparents’ hurt came to me. My father’s hurt came to me. They thought she was living. I felt like throwing up."

Ollie and Gibbons carried home the accounts of the burial.

It was the beginning of a discovery for those who had suffered in silence for 57 years.

They are finding they were misinformed in 1949, told by priests that the bodies had burned and were unrecognizable.

That reflects the first news reports of the crash carried back by search planes, but it was untrue and that was known within days of the crash.

Searchers who later got into the site surmised the pilot had shut off the engines, realizing a crash was imminent. There was no evidence of a substantial fire. The amphibious aircraft was in pieces, but not burned.

Some were identified and transported home.

It just didn’t happen for the "Eskimos."

When Ollie visited the gravesite she believed she was looking upon a mass grave of 20 deceased. Told that the white bodies were flown to their hometowns, she is struck silent.

"I thought they were in the burial site in Norway House," she manages through her tears. "Maybe it’s time for my aunt to come home."

This month, I went north to Arviat and to Rankin Inlet to take to the families photocopies of the news reports of the day — delivering to them details never before heard. Along with the articles were 177 photos taken at Chesterfield Inlet by Beattie, emailed to the Free Press by her niece, also named Connie.

Homes were opened, a stranger was warmly welcomed with handshakes that meant business, caribou marrow was eaten and hugs shared.

No family was more stricken than that of Hilarie Arnaluktituaq.

In Rankin Inlet, Francis Kaput is growing old, his face heavily lined with the marks of hard labour in a harsh climate, but he remembers the day the Canso took flight in Chesterfield.

Kaput, Arnaluktituaq’s son, says his family had come to Chesterfield that summer to help unload the supply barges that would ply into the bay. With his son Arsène translating, he says his mother and her relatives — son-in-law John Aqajaaluk, grandaughters Agnes Kappi and Elizabeth Annaqtusi were stricken with polio and waited at the hospital for days for the plane to take them out.

He and his brothers argued with their mother, telling her not to go, but she was anxious for her paralysis to be cured.

"They didn’t have any illness or sickness. They just couldn’t walk anymore," Arsène says.

On this day, in Rankin Inlet, it is -40 C, with a windchill that makes it feel like -50-plus. Kaput’s house, small but inviting and filling with young relatives, is warm, too warm even for a soft southerner. On the walls are icons of his faith, a photo of a pope, crucifixes and a portrait of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

At 77, Kaput cannot see well and his ears are failing. As he reads the 1949 articles and discovers the bodies of the non-Inuit were sent home for burial, he is contemplative.

"They were told by the priests right after the crash they couldn’t recognize any of the bodies, so they couldn’t do anything about it (returning the bodies)," Arsène repeats. "They were burnt so badly they couldn’t recognize who those people were and now we’re seeing this — they knew who was on (board). I guess they didn’t know who was on (board) from the North."

Agnes Adams, Francis’ niece, was named for the sister she never met. Agnes Kappi was being raised by her grandmother Arnaluktituaq. Custom adoption was common among Inuit people.

Adams is thrown by the news that the non-Inuit were taken home for burial.

"In those days, I guess Inuit were just taken as — I probably will sound so harsh — like they don’t have feelings."

Kaput said his family was informed immediately by the priest at Chesterfield about the crash. Not all family members learned so quickly.

Some came, dropped off their sick and left to find the caribou.

That was the case with the family of Alma Angmalik, a young woman with a baby who was stricken with a disease that took the legs out from underneath her in the spring of 1949.

Lisa Gibbons says she was about five years old, and her sister Catherine Manik was seven, when Alma, their older sister, got sick.

"During the springtime, she had trouble with her legs and she couldn’t walk. She was carrying a baby (on her back) and she was crawling to fetch water," said the 66-year-old Manik, in Inuktitut translated roughly by her niece Darlene.

They travelled from their camp to Arviat, then known as Eskimo Point, with Alma, where she continued to Chesterfield and the hospital. The family returned to their camp.

Gibbons is a devout woman. She has on her walls a crucifix, a picture of the pope, and, oddly, an old LP of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir pinned by a tack right through the spindle hole.

She takes time out of hacking away at thawing caribou meat to look at the 1949 news reports.

Gibbons says her mother Helen was hard at work at the inland camp when the news reached her. "When someone told her mother about the crash, her mother was cooking caribou. When (Helen) heard the news of her daughter, she got up and started running and then she fell," her daughter Darlene translates.

When Helen and Nicolas Ilungiaq heard of the crash, they accepted the fact they would not see their daughter’s body returned home, Manik said. "When people went out for medical care, when they died their bodies were not shipped North," Darlene translates.

Helen would look skyward every time she heard a plane pass by, Gibbons recalls. "Her mother was informed of the plane crash but every time there was a plane, she would think that Alma would come out of the plane," repeated Darlene. "She would keep thinking about that until the day she died. She was the one who had pain."

The crash reached into many lives.

Frances Queskekapow says her uncle Thomas York, the man who climbed aboard the float plane for the trip to the crash side, spoke little of the recovery work. "You could see the bodies splashed all over," says Frances, recalling what she was told. "You could see the pieces, some in the trees."

York suffered in the days following.

"As soon as he got off the plane he went into the residence of the doctors and started drinking, trying to get the sight out of his mind.

"He had hard times after. He went into a drunk for a while."

The Inuit elders say they are finding a sense of closure now that they are learning the details and, especially, as they have been to the burial site. Gibbons and Manik say having visited Alma’s grave, a heaviness on their hearts is lifting.

Francis Kaput says he has some peace now, but he is also wondering whether someone should be financially compensating the family left behind after the crash. He wants to speak with a lawyer about this.

Still, the many holes in the story continue to haunt others.

Martin Kreelak wants to bring back the bones of his relatives for burial in Chesterfield.

Annie Ollie, contemplating the fact only the Inuit bodies were buried in Norway House, is thinking the same.

catherine.mitchell@freepress.mb.ca