Inuit recommended Pond Inlet site to HBC

In regards to “One culture’s justice is another’s crime” (Dec. 20) I believe that the facts may not be accurate and the truth may have been reversed in the following comment: “That was where he built Pond Inlet’s first RCMP detachment, and where the Hudson’s Bay Company established a trading post soon after.”

I believe that HBC would say otherwise. From my recollection of interviews with the elders throughout the years, I have always been told that the HBC had established a post before the RCMP (as per Beaver Magazine and others). The elders also have mentioned that it was because of the recommendations of Inuit, due to the Pond Inlet area being the most sheltered area, that they recommended to HBC and others that the community be established here in Pond Inlet vs. the traditional sites that whalers and others such as the Gold Syndicate and Robert Janes had chosen.

I may be totally out to lunch on this but, I was always under the impression that when Sgt. Joy came to Pond Inlet to investigate the murder, he had no place to stay and therefore boarded in with the HBC that winter. The court was held at a warehouse of Hudson’s Bay Co. If I recall correctly, after Sgt. Joy did the investigation and recovered the remains he came back to the HBC post in Pond Inlet as the RCMP did not have their own establishment.

This may be insignificant but should it be true, Inuit were the ones that recommended Pond Inlet to the non-Inuit who had little knowledge of sheltered areas and who often established sites that were the most accessible to whaling ships such as Button Point (Sannirut), Mount Herodier (Igarjuaq) and others.

Appitaq Enuaraq
Pond Inlet