Taissumani: May 26, 1968 – The Albert lost off Greenland

KENN HARPER

If one were to ask Inuit elders what were the most famous ships of old in the eastern Arctic, the answers would probably be the Nascopie and the C. D. Howe. But a few generations ago, the answer would have been quite different, and it probably would have been a small vessel from Scotland, the Albert.

Built in 1889 in England as a hospital ship for the Royal National Mission to deep-sea fishermen, and paid for by an anonymous donor – thought to have been Queen Victoria – the Albert was a sailing vessel built of oak. On her bows she carried the words “Heal the Sick” and “Preach the Word,” and around her wheel was lettered the Biblical injunction, “And he saith, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Over the years, she was associated with many of the important names and events in the history of the eastern Arctic.

In 1892 she crossed the Atlantic for the first time, carrying a medical officer, Wilfred Grenfell, who was to become famous for his work as a missionary doctor in Labrador. But after a few years she was replaced and returned to the North Sea.

In 1902 the Dundee Pond’s Bay Company purchased her from the mission, intending to whale and trade in northern Baffin Island. The following year, under the command of the veteran arctic whaler, James Mutch – Jiimi Maatsi, to the Inuit – the Albert put in at Cumberland Sound and picked up William Duval (Sivutiksaq) and a number of Inuit families, and set sail for the High Arctic. They spent their first winter at Erik Harbour, then moved the vessel to a sheltered location just east of present-day Pond Inlet, which they named Albert Harbour. The vessel remained there until 1907, its crew hunting and trading with the Inuit, and sending their products home with other whaling ships.

In 1908, Mutch bought Albert from Mitchell and promptly exchanged her for shares in a new venture, the Albert Whaling Company Limited, based in Peterhead. But in 1911 Mutch left to work for a rival company and a new captain was hired, John Murray. The Inuit knew him too, and remember him as Nakungajuq – the cross-eyed one. In 1912 he took the little vessel to Spitzbergen for whaling early in the season, then to Hudson Bay where she wintered at Repulse Bay.

In 1914 Captain Henry Toke Munn purchased the ship for his firm, the Arctic Gold Exploration Syndicate, despite its name, a fur-trading company. It seems that all the principal people associated with the Albert had Inuktitut names, and Munn was no exception. He was Kapitaikuluk – the dear, little captain. Munn had engines installed in the vessel. The Albert was busy under Munn, braving the ice to first establish and then resupply his posts at Button Point and later Southampton Island. The latter post, under Duval, proved unsuccessful and in 1918, Munn moved Duval and his family back to Cumberland Sound, establishing his last post at Usualuk.

In 1919, Munn bought out his rival, Bernier, hoping to establish a trading monopoly in the Arctic. That same year he abandoned another rival, Robert Janes, in the Arctic, after first informing him that his backer in the south had failed. The late Jimmy Etuk once described for me the fight on the deck of the Albert that he had witnessed, after negotiations for Janes’s passage south had failed. That summer, Munn had hired an Inuit crew member in Cumberland Sound for the voyage farther north. This was the well-known Kanajuq, known to whalers and traders as Mike. He took his young son, Akpalialuk, with him. When the Albert left Pond Inlet, Mike and Akpalialuk ended up in Scotland, and spent the winter in Peterhead.

In 1922 in Cumberland Sound, the Albert rescued the crew of another vessel, the Easonian, after that vessel burned to the waterline at the Kekerten trading station. But that year marked the end of an era for the stalwart little ship. Munn’s hoped-for trading monopoly had not worked out as planned. Instead he sold his interests to the Hudson’s Bay Company for $28,000.

The next year, the Albert sailed from Peterhead under the flag of the HBC. Captain John Taylor, who had captained the Easonian the previous year, was in command. He, too, had an Inuktitut name – Irngutaq (the grandson.) But the ship never made it to the Arctic. In fact, she never left sight of Scotland. Passing through the Moray Firth, the Easonian struck a reef and began to sink. Captain Taylor later admitted that he had had his attention on a golf game being played on shore!

The Albert was repaired and sold to the Thomsens, a shipping family in the Faroe Islands, where she was engaged in carrying cargo and fishing. Over four decades later, late on the night of May 26, 1968, she was caught in a storm in Davis Strait about 120 miles southwest of Cape Desolation, Greenland. She lost her propeller and sprang a leak.

Her call for help was answered by a Norwegian fishing vessel. With difficulty a line was passed to her and all 17 of the crew were removed safely. The next day, the Albert drifted into the ice pack and was lost.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit.

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.