Missionary to the Inuit Part 1

In 1875 Bishop John Horden wrote from Moose Factory to the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in England asking them to send a missionary to Canada to work with the Inuit of Hudson Bay.

Edmund James Peck, an unordained seaman, accepted the challenge, underwent brief training, and departed for Hudson Bay in June 1876.

Peck had been born in Rusholme, England on April 15, 1850, but was raised from the age of seven in Ireland, where he developed an antipathy towards Catholicism. By age 13, he was an orphan, and joined the British Navy soon after, serving for eight years.

Horden sent him to Little Whale River where he ­ministered to both Cree and Inuit. Peck set himself an ­arduous program for learning the languages of both, believing that "the first work of every missionary is to acquire the ­language of the people as well as gain their confidence."

He concentrated, however, on Inuktitut and claimed to have collected between 80 and 100 words per day. Modern-day language students might find it an outrageous claim, but it was possible in an isolated post with none of the distractions that plague today's learners.

Part of Peck's mandate from the CMS was to produce written religious material, and he approached this task eagerly, using the syllabic system of writing created by James Evans in 1840 for the Cree and modified for Inuktitut by CMS missionaries Horden and Rev. E. A. Watkins.

Peck was the first missionary in Hudson and James bays to work almost exclusively with Inuit. He promoted the use of syllabics, transcribed Moravian church material from the Labrador coast into the new script, and taught reading and writing skills to the Inuit.

His first Inuktitut publication, Portions of the Holy Scripture, for the use of the Esquimaux on the northern and eastern shores of Hudson's Bay, was printed in the Syllabic orthography by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1878.

Peck took furlough in England in 1884 after eight uninterrupted years in the field. He returned with a bride the following year, and the next year relocated his mission two hundred miles south to Fort George.

The Pecks had three children there, but Mrs. Peck was often sick and depressed, and in 1892 the family returned to England. In 1894 the SPCK published Peck's second major work in Inuktitut, Portions of the Book of Common Prayer, together with hymns, addresses, etc., for the use of the Eskimo of Hudson's Bay.

In England Peck immediately began making plans to establish a mission in Baffin Island. His wife's health was ­sufficiently poor, he reasoned, that she would never be able to accompany him again to the Arctic, and therefore he should leave already-established missions to other married men and go instead to isolated and undeveloped areas where he felt no woman should go.

So in 1894, with the assistance of Crawford Noble, the Scottish owner of whaling stations in Cumberland Sound, Peck established a mission at Blacklead Island. The whalers provided Peck and his assistant, J.C. Parker, spartan living quarters in a two-room shack, each room 10 feet square.

The Inuit to whom Peck would minister lived nearby in a camp of skin tents and ramshackle wooden huts. Their ­population numbered 171.

Peck found little difference between the dialect that he had mastered in Hudson Bay and that of Cumberland Sound, and he began immediately to preach the gospel and teach the children. He maintained a disciplined routine of teaching, studying and preaching. He faced opposition to his ministry from the Inuit shamans, whom he regarded as sly tricksters against whom he spoke out openly and strongly. The missionary persevered and eventually all the Inuit of Cumberland Sound were converted to at least a nominal acceptance of Christianity. His first Inuk convert, a woman named Atanngaujaq, was baptized on May 7, 1901.

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.