Can a Man Be Mistaken for a Seal?

The covering report from the Churchill police detachment to the officer commanding the Royal North West Mounted Police was brief. Superintendent Moodie was forwarding to headquarters the report of an unfortunate killing that had happened at Fullerton detachment, near Repulse Bay, late in the spring of 1909.

Attached to his report was a report by a young constable, Charles R. MacMillan, stationed at Fullerton. His report began with the terse statement that he had to report "the following painful occurrence."

He then wrote that on the evening of June 22, he and two other constables were looking out over the sea ice with a telescope and saw a large seal on the ice, apparently about two miles off shore. MacMillan decided that he would like to get a shot at it.

"I walked to within 600 yards or so of the object, and then lay down on the ice to crawl nearer without alarming the animal," he wrote. "I crawled towards it for about 200 yards or more, and then was stopped by a large pool of water. I was afraid to stand up and wade through it, for fear of alarming the seal, and did not like to risk a shot at the distance, as from my position face down close to the ice, the object did not show up very well."

He reported that during all this time the seal had moved a little, but had not changed its position either backward or forward.

Finally the young constable took a shot and the object disappeared. MacMillan then described his horror at what he saw when he ran toward the "seal" he had shot: "On standing up I saw it, and immediately ran towards it. I ran for some yards when I suddenly stopped, horrified, and I saw it was a man lying face up. I compelled myself to go up to him, and found he was dead. He was an Iwillik [an Inuit from the Aivilik group] called Charlie."

MacMillan had shot Charlie with one clean shot through the neck.

Earlier that afternoon, Constable Walker and Corporal Joyce had taken a walk on the ice to the floe edge. On their return they had passed quite close to a large seal on the ice. Back at the police barracks they had scanned the sea ice with a telescope and thought they saw the same seal in roughly the same place. This was the seal that MacMillan had set off in search of.

After his fatal shot, MacMillan raced back to the post and reported to Joyce, his superior, what he had done. Joyce, accompanied by Constable MacDiarmid and an Inuit assistant named Joe, went immediately to examine the fresh corpse lying on the ice. Joyce reported, "The body was lying face up in a low place on the ice, a loaded rifle was on the ice near the body, and a piece of bear's skin, such as is used by natives for crawling seals, was under the hips." Poor Charlie had perhaps been stalking the same large seal that the police had seen earlier.

Another native employed at the Fullerton post, whom the whalers had given the nickname "Bye and Bye" helped Charlie's grieving wife and stepmother to bury the body. Four reports were written. MacMillan himself wrote, "The natives say the man was fast asleep, and that this same kind of accident has happened with them."

Joyce corroborated this, writing that the Inuit said the man had probably fallen fast asleep on the ice.

Superintendent Moodie's brief report concluded, "I may say from my own experience that it is a very easy thing to mistake a native crawling for, or lying in wait for seal for the actual animal itself."

And there the matter was left. No further investigation was made. It was an accidental death, the result of a tragic error by an inexperienced officer.

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.