Word of mouth: Ukkusiksalik a rich trove of Inuit oral history

Author David Pelly talks about his new book Ukkusiksalik at the Unikkaarvik Visitor’s Centre in Iqaluit April 12. The book is a collection of oral histories that Pelly obtained from Kivalliq Inuit elders on the history of the Ukkusiksalik around Wager Bay. (PHOTO BY THOMAS ROHNER)

After spending the first 20 years of her life at a remote Hudson Bay Co. outpost camp at the mouth of Wager Bay on the northwest coast of Hudson Bay, Inuit elder Tuinnaq Bruce, born in 1925, returned to the camp with author David Pelly in 1996.

“You can imagine how that stirred stories,” Pelly told about 50 Iqalungmiut who gathered April 12 for his book launch at the Unikkaarvik Visitor’s Centre.

Pelly’s book, titled Ukkusiksalik, the Inuktitut term for the area around Wager Bay, collects the oral tradition of Kivalliq Inuit on that region.

The area is rich in oral history, Pelly said, because it was known by Inuit for centuries as a place where food could be had, even in tough times.

“By definition, it’s a storied land,” Pelly said.

Sponsored in part by Parks Canada, which announced in 2014 the official creation of Ukkusiksalik National Park, Pelly said his book aims to be a vehicle for Inuit oral tradition and not a history filtered through a Qallunaat lens.

“This, I hope, is an Inuit history. The odd Qallunaaq wanders through it, but where he comes from or what he’s doing doesn’t really matter to the people there, except to the extent that he has some effect on their life while he’s there,” Pelly said.

Bruce, for example, who Pelly said passed away since their meeting in 1996, demonstrated through her storytelling the “unbelievable power” of Inuit oral tradition.

Pelly read a quote from Bruce from his book: “Ships used to get lost up north. And people wanted to go look for them. I’m not really familiar with the people they were searching for on those lost ships or what route they took and all that. You probably know their names,” Bruce told Pelly in 1996.

Bruce is describing the Inuit oral tradition of an expedition led by American explorer Frederik Schwatka from 1878 to 1880 in search of Franklin’s infamous wrecked voyage, Pelly said.

“She didn’t know the names — why should she?” Pelly said.

“What she did know was all the detail of that overland travel by Schwatka in search of Franklin. She knew all the names of the Inuit accompanying Schwatka… the camps they visited, where they found food caches… She knew what happened when they got to the coast, where they searched and what they found,” Pelly said.

In fact, Bruce’s detailed account of Schwatka’s expedition illuminates Schwatka’s own account “tremendously,” Pelly said, well beyond what the explorer himself chronicled.

“We wouldn’t have that knowledge if it hadn’t been passed down through three generations of Inuit story tellers. It’s an illustration of the unbelievable power of oral history.”

Bruce is only one of about 20 elders Pelly said he interviewed over countless hours, days and weeks in the 1990s.

But because Bruce often provided such depth of detail, and because Pelly said he didn’t want to give the entire contents of his book away, Pelly spoke about Bruce at his book launch much more than any other elder interviewed.

Pelly said he conducted interviews for his book the “old fashioned way,” which involved multiple visits with each elder to make sure elders agreed with what Pelly recorded and understood from their stories.

None of the elders interviewed in the book expressed any concern over ownership of the oral tradition they possessed, Pelly said, and gave their time and stories generously.

“For them, I think it was a gift of love: for future generations, and to bridge a gap between generations.”

The first half of the book holds the first-person accounts of those interviewed, said Pelly, while in the second half the author weaves collected stories together that are connected by common elements.

Together, the two parts of the book show that the spirits of the people who travelled through and lived in the area remain a fundamental part of the landscape, their stories woven into time and place, Pelly said.

“The elders, the knowledge-holders, I think understood the value of old stories as reflections of where they’d come from, and who they were.”

Pelly said he was scheduled to hold a book signing at Iqaluit’s Arctic Venture on April 13, starting at 4:30 p.m.

Ukkusiksalik, which is available in hardcover and in digital copy, can be bought in Iqaluit at Arctic Ventures or by visiting the publisher’s website.

The publisher, Dundurn in Toronto, has plans to translate the book into Inuktitut, Pelly said, but right now only English language copies are available.