David Copperfield – A whaling tragedy

Bowhead whalers from the United States erected their first buildings at Herschel Island, off the Yukon coast, in 1891.

Because it had a sheltered harbour, the site soon became an important whaling centre in the Beaufort Sea. Wintering there allowed whalers an early start on the spring whaling.

At its peak, as many as 12 ships wintered there, with a population of outsiders of about 600, far outnumbering the Inuit population. Some of the captains took Inuit women to live with them aboard ship; other officers lived ashore with native women.

An Anglican missionary, Isaac Stringer, opened a mission at Fort McPherson in the summer of 1892. In 1893, he began, in the summers, to visit the Inuit in the Mackenzie Delta and Herschel Island. In 1897, after a visit to Ontario during which he married, Stringer and his wife took up residence at Herschel Island, remaining there for four years.

One of the few Inuit from the eastern Mackenzie Delta who lived at Herschel Island was a widow named Annie. She had previously lived and worked in the 1880s at different Hudson’s Bay Co. posts along the Mackenzie River.

With her during those years were her children, including a young son David. As a young adult he was with her at Herschel Island, working for one of the ships.

They lived on shore near the harbour in a tiny shack measuring only seven feet by four-and-a-half feet, lined with canvas and barrel staves. Despite its small size, Rev. Stringer found the dwelling, warmed by a sheet iron stove, to be comfortable.

Because David had been to school and spoke English, he sometimes worked for Stringer, translating for him and assisting in his religious services.

Whalers seldom bothered to learn Inuit names, preferring to give them nicknames instead. And so David, the son of Annie, became known as David Copperfield.

But unlike the fictional David Copperfield in the novel by Charles Dickens, who struggles to find happiness in a sometimes challenging world and eventually falls in love and lives happily with his wife and children, the Inuk David Copperfield found no such happy ending.

In fact, death is a recurrent theme in the short and tragic life of David Copperfield.

In April 1895, Stringer recorded in his diary: “Capt. Coffin … told me that Annie’s little boy was dead and that he was making a coffin for it. I called at house where child was and found it still alive though unconscious. A Husky [i.e. Inuit] doctor was yelling at it as if trying to awaken it. Annie had sold it to this man and his wife for two guns, two sacks flour, and a kettle. I asked them why they did not get medicine from Capt. Coffin … But they said the coffin was ordered and it was no use.”

The child died.

One spring, while Stringer was preparing to leave on a trip, he arranged for a local woman, Oonine, to help his wife with the housework and to bathe their new baby. Annie, who had often worked in their house was “consumed by jealousy.”

She told Isaac’s wife Sadie Stringer that Oonine was unfit to look after the baby. Sadie wrote in her own diary:

“Annie reminded us that she had once worked at a Hudson’s Bay Company post, an experience that … made her far more qualified than Oonine. Why, she sobbed, had we overlooked her skills? Humiliated at being bested by someone far her junior, she threatened to hang herself.

“As it turned out, my health remained excellent, so there was no occasion for Oonine to wash the baby. Annie never committed suicide. From time to time, I made a point of asking her to help with chores around the house, and that pleased her a great deal.”

David Copperfield appears often in Stringer’s diaries. Unfortunately, Stringer’s entries record facts, but seldom display any feeling or emotion:

1893, April 17: “In Annie’s house. Her son David in. Had talk with him.”

1893, May 9: “Capt. Norwood … told the mate to allow David Copperfield to go with me whenever I wished.”

1893, May 15: “Over to David’s house and gave him a reading lesson.”

1895, May 7: “Had prayers with Huskies. Attendance 70. Tent crowded. David interpreted. Spoke concerning liquor, drinking.”

David Copperfield was unlucky in love. As a young man in the late 1880s, he had had a series of unfortunate affairs, one of which involved a Cree or Dene girl in the Great Slave Lake region.

Stringer wrote on April 20, 1895, “Went for walk with David who came in last night. He is to be married in the spring.”

The following year, Stringer wrote, “Some trouble with girl whom David wanted as wife but who did not want to go.”

Early in 1898, David had trouble with one of the whalers.

“It seems that David and Mr. Santos [a whaler] had been threatening each other the night before and for some time,” wrote Stringer.

The dispute was over a woman whom David was in love with but who had gone to live with Santos aboard ship. The next morning, “Capt. Hegarty ordered David off the island.”

David’s mother had gone to get Stringer to come and talk with David. But Stringer was ill and didn’t want the Inuit to know of his condition because “the natives might superstitiously think it was because of Ilek coming into the house before her five days were up after the birth of her child.”

So Mrs. Stringer did not tell Annie that Stringer was sick, and she returned home, where David told her to go to another house for a while. Then “he lay down on his bunk and shot himself, the bullet piercing his heart.”

Annie returned to the mission house, crying that David had shot himself.

Stringer wrote: “The captains and several officers and natives came in to see me and I was tired out by talking. Did not sleep well at night. I was nervous and upset.”

Stringer was racked by guilt. If Sadie had got him up to console Annie when she first came to the mission house, and if he had gone then to see David, might he have prevented his death?

David was buried the next day.

[I acknowledge the research of Walter Vanast on Inuit of the western Canadian Arctic. His work is available online.]

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.