Padloping Remembered Part 2″

Last week, I began telling the history of Padloping Island. I continue with more on the U. S. weather station there in World War Two.

The station had a motion picture projector but only five movies to last the year. Every Friday night was movie night and the Inuit were invited. They usually arrived prepared to trade with the soldiers.

Jim Poole, a young American soldier there in 1945, recalled, "We'd trade, shoot a few games of pool and listen to records before the movies."

Trading in a cashless society took some novel turns. The Inuit would name the prices they wanted for their trade goods and the soldiers would use a Hudson's Bay Company pricing list to establish values. Matches took the place of money. A polar bear skin was worth five dollars. The soldier would give the Inuk five matches, then the Inuk would trade the matches for flour or sugar or tobacco.

Iqaalik (a man who, in 1967, would move my family and me from Broughton Island to Padloping in his Peterhead boat) was the community leader, according to Jim Poole.

"He came up every Friday and beat all of us at pool. He was our official guide for trips and was one heck of a nice guy," wrote Poole. "He only spoke a little English, but he understood it better than we understood his language." The soldiers constructed a wooden house for Iqaalik.

Jim Poole ran the weather station. Every four hours, temperatures and other readings were taken, and weather balloons launched. Information was transmitted by Morse code to Frobisher Bay. Put together with information from other stations, predictions were made as to whether planes in support of the war effort would be able to fly across the North Atlantic.

The war ended without the small detachment on Padloping Island even knowing about it. Radio signals were bad. Finally, in January 1946, they received a radiogram telling them that they had done a great job, that the war was over, and that they should take inventory, close the station and wait for a plane to land on the ice to pick them up.

They complied with their instructions, and waited. And waited. And waited. For three months. Finally a DC3 landed on the ice strip they had prepared, and they left.

In 1953 the Royal Canadian Navy took over the abandoned post. Canadian personnel flew from the RCAF airfield at Rockcliffe to Goose Bay, then by United States Air Force plane to Argentia, Newfoundland, where they boarded a United States Naval ship, the Oberon, for transport to Padloping.

They arrived on Sept. 8, and spent the next few weeks moving hundreds of drums of fuel oil and 20 tons of supplies from the beach to the fuel storage dump and warehouses. On Sept. 10 they officially took over the station from the Americans. A general cleanup took place and the buildings were painted. A report noted that "recreational supplies are limited – a billiard table and playing cards, plus a goodly supply of reading material."

The weather station was known as VFU8. Weather data was sent through a network of stations to the Department of Transport's central weather office in Montreal. At an isolated post, fire was always a concern, and on Oct. 25 fire broke out and destroyed a quantity of supplies, which had to be replenished with an airdrop.

Providing regular fresh water was the other overriding challenge facing the station. "The job of obtaining water is the most undesirable of all," a report began, "as fresh water is drawn from a lake a considerable distance from this station. A large diesel tractor hauling a 500 gallon tank is used. Water is required about every three days and is looked after much the same as in a ship, it being a very valuable asset which must be used sparingly…"

Station personnel held a dance once a month for the Inuit in an unused Quonset hut. One of the Inuit women, an accomplished concertina player, provided the music. "Each dance lasts about 20 minutes and is accompanied by a great deal of hand-clapping, the music being much the same regardless of the type of dance," a report noted.

The base had an amateur radio station, the men's only daily means of communication with the outside world. They also communicated with the doctor 160 miles away in Pangnirtung for medical advice.

The Canadian station operated for only three years, and was abandoned in 1956.

In that year and the year following, some Inuit families left Padloping to help build the DEW Line station at Broughton Island. But some remained. In the absence of any white residents, the community was once again a traditional hunting camp, a status that it had never really given up. The only difference was that there was no white establishment to provide casual labour or an outlet for handicraft and fur sales.

In 1961 the government built a nursing station, but it was never staffed. The following year a one-room school was built. In its short history, it had only four teachers: George Jones (1962-3), Vivian Julian (1963-5), Karl Kristensen (1965-67), and Kenn Harper (1967-68.)

Next week I will tell about the closure of Padloping.

(To be continued next week)

Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.