Jimmy Bell – The ghost of Arctic Bay

At Cape Dorset in 1949, Jimmy Bell, the large, fun-loving Hudson’s Bay Co. trader, took ill. His once rotund body began to waste away until he was but a shadow of his former self.

On arriving in Cape Dorset, his young clerk, Peter Murdoch, who had known Jimmy in Lake Harbour, barely recognized him. He described him as “a skinny-looking fellow wearing baggy clothes, his face lined and his eyes a sickly yellow.”  

Officials in Winnipeg knew in February that Jimmy’s health was “not up to its usual robust standard,” but Jimmy attributed it to “too much of his own cooking.”

In May he sent a message to Winnipeg that admitted he required medical attention. Another message followed, in which he said he would go out to Churchill on the supply ship for a check-up. But he kept the extent of his illness from his superiors. He surmised, correctly, that if they knew his true condition, they would evacuate him to the south. 

But Peter Murdoch knew that Jimmy needed attention, much more than he could provide using the post’s medical manual. He thought that Jimmy had stomach cancer. Without Jimmy’s knowledge, Murdoch sent a telegram by radio to Winnipeg informing them of Jimmy’s condition. Too late, Jimmy realized what Murdoch had done and mustered all his strength to roar at Murdoch and express his disapproval. 

Jimmy told Murdoch, “If I have cancer I want to die in the North. I want my spirit to stay in the North. When I die my spirit is going back to Arctic Bay. That’s the place I really love most – Arctic Bay.” 

But Winnipeg had got the message. Headquarters immediately dispatched their Canso aircraft, nicknamed Polar Bear, on the long flight to Cape Dorset.

Jimmy was evacuated to Winnipeg on July 2. He was operated on at Winnipeg General Hospital a few days later, but doctors concluded that there was nothing more they could do for him. His mother and a brother were sent for and reached his bedside on the last day of August. Jimmy Bell died on Sept. 12 and was buried in Brookside Cemetery, in Winnipeg. He was only 43.

The inscription on his pink granite headstone ends with: “Here we leave our loved one sleeping.” 

But Jimmy wasn’t sleeping. He was restless. And, as he had promised, his spirit returned to Arctic Bay — or so it appeared.

Jimmy had a dear friend there. Amarualik was a leader among the Inuit and had worked for the Hudson’s Bay Co. for many years. Jimmy and Amarualik were close, and Jimmy had had a child with Amarualik’s daughter, Kautaq. That girl, Tapisa (now Tapisa Hughes of Arctic Bay) was the youngest of three daughters that Jimmy had with Inuit women.

When he died, the Hudson’s Bay Co. manager’s residence in Arctic Bay became the scene of strange occurrences. Residents and visitors heard footsteps in the storeroom, but there was no one there. Cups rattled in the cupboards and dishes rattled in the sink. But no one present had disturbed them. Doors mysteriously opened. The building was haunted.

Jimmy had returned to Arctic Bay to be near his old friend, Amarualik.

It’s noteworthy that many of Jimmy’s manifestations happened in the kitchen of the residence, because Jimmy, in life, had apparently been obsessed with the neatness of his kitchen. Len Budgell, a lifelong Hudson’s Bay Co. employee, recalled that Jimmy was a bachelor and that “he liked things just so. If you did the dishes at night and hung the tea towel up, and it wasn’t the way Jimmy would have hung it up, in the morning you would find it neatly rearranged to Jimmy’s preference.” 

When the rattling of dishes became too loud, some company managers were known to shout, “Leave the bloody dishes alone, Jimmy.”

That would generally result in a short burst of fierce rattling — Jimmy was clearly displeased — before silence would settle in. 

Soon after Eric Mitchell arrived in Arctic Bay as manager, he experienced a number of “curious, though disturbing incidents.” Footsteps were heard on the creaky floorboards of the attic night after night until one night he shouted, “Quit it!”

One night he awoke to find all the doors of the house wide open. When he told Amarualik about these events, the old Inuk replied nonchalantly, “That’s just Jimmy Bell wandering around. Don’t worry about it; he’s just waiting for me to join him.” 

The disturbances in Arctic Bay were no secret. They became part of Baffin Island lore. Word of the haunted staff house reached Winnipeg where some officials laughed it off.

But one winter in the 1960s, company officials visited Arctic Bay and overnighted at the staff house. They wanted to investigate the reports of Jimmy’s ghost. Footsteps were said to have been heard on the roof, and so, on a windless night, they put a ladder up and spread flour on the roof, then waited. Sure enough, footsteps were heard again on the roof. But a physical check showed the flour undisturbed.

Amarualik passed away on June 28, 1967. The disturbances ceased at that time. Jimmy Bell’s friend had finally joined him, and Jimmy was finally at peace. 

Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for over 50 years. He is the author of Give Me Winter, Give Me Dogs: Knud Rasmussen and the Fifth Thule Expedition, and Thou Shalt Do No Murder, among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.