Jimmy Bell – An Arctic trader

Young Jimmy Bell stood 5’10” tall and weighed about 170 pounds when he joined the Hudson’s Bay Co. as a 19-year-old recruit in 1925.

Two decades later his weight had more than doubled, by some reports reaching 350 pounds. The Inuit, whom he knew and loved, and who knew and loved him, called him Quinijuq – the fat man.

Bell was born in Cromdale, Scotland, the eldest son in a large family. He walked three miles to school and back each day during eight years of primary school and followed that with three years of higher education.

Then Bell worked as a bookkeeper for a local garage for three years until he emigrated to Canada as a young fur trader, following in the footsteps of so many young Scots before him. 

Montreal, the city where he first set foot in Canada, was always dear to him. Much later, he decided that he would eventually retire there, but it was never to be.

That summer of 1925 he travelled on the Hudson’s Bay Company supply ship to Lake Harbour (now Kimmirut) where he was apprentice clerk for three years, before moving on to Frobisher Bay for two years in the same position.

After a year’s furlough, Bell was posted for one year as manager at Payne Bay in northern Quebec, a post he described as the poorest-looking he had seen. He followed that with two years each again in Frobisher Bay and Lake Harbour. 

After another year of furlough, Bell returned to Lake Harbour for another five years, before spending short periods at the Winnipeg Depot and Cross Lake, Man. Then he spent four years, from 1942 to 1946, as manager in Arctic Bay.

After a short holiday, Bell returned for a fourth tour of duty at Lake Harbour, only a year this time, before transferring to Cape Dorset for his final year in the Arctic and his final year of life.

Bell loved Arctic Bay, the company’s most northerly post. He was a sociable man, a good cook and a gracious host. Visitors were always welcome, whether they be other traders, missionaries, policemen, or Inuit. He liked to eat, drink, play bridge, and tell stories.

Yet one sketch of his life says, “Those he liked thought he was wonderful. Those who didn’t found him dour and reserved.”

Bell had an enormous appetite and it was said that he could eat eight to 10 pounds of seal meat at one sitting. There was a Department of Transport weather station in Arctic Bay and Bell got in the habit of visiting for Sunday supper, bringing “his huge bulk and fund of stories.”

All post managers were required to keep a daily journal and a monthly summary of their journals. For some, it was a sparse record of the comings and goings of the Inuit to the post to trade, usually with remarks on the weather. But Bell’s journals were more than that.

Rather than just a bare record of trading activities, he took time to write in detail about the visits of the Inuit and observances of nature. They were carefully written and showed a love of language.

In May of 1944 he wrote, “The first snow-birds of the season were observed on the 10th, which is almost three weeks later than their first appearance last year. These hardy little birds must still find the Arctic nights rather chilly.” 

Bell showed the same care when writing about the Inuit.

That same month, when Tonga died at Cape Cunningham, he wrote, “He was the oldest native in the territory and we believe the last of the ‘Angakoks’… [H]e was the last strong link with paganism. We think, however, that the old man’s brand of pagan religion was just as good as that taught by the Missionaries; at least Tonga was less deceitful than some of his brethren who have seen the ‘light.’”  

Such detail in a journal is all the more remarkable when one realizes that probably no one other than his district manager in Winnipeg would read his words at the time. 

Bell’s Hudson’s Bay Company service record describes him as a “good reliable type,” and a “first class Eskimo trader.” One report called him a “permanent Arctic man,” but noted ominously that he was “dangerously obese.” 

Bell loved his drink. He spent Christmas Day 1933 at Frobisher Bay working, and wrote, “Christmas Day was spent in the store, where 83 foxes were traded. At night I celebrated Xmas by having a fire in the guardroom [sitting room] and having a better meal than usual. I also put up with the torture of a collar and tie, and toasted the health of absent friends in lime juice; not that it was necessary to do so, as I have three kinds of strong drink on the post, but there is no pleasure in drinking alone, although in company I can hold my own.” 

At Arctic Bay, he and his clerk hosted the staff of the Met station, as the weather station was called, for New Year’s dinner in 1944.

“We had a first class meal,” Bell wrote, “which consisted of… mushroom soup, roast pork with apple sauce, carrots, peas, mashed potatoes, ice cream with strawberries, coffee and cake. Prior to the meal by way of appetizers the usual toasts were drunk in beer and ‘Nelson’s Blood.’”

Nelson’s Blood was a euphemism for Lamb’s Navy rum. He also liked another cocktail of rum and port, a “smooth tasting concoction” that he called “thunder and lightning.” 

Bell also tended to the illnesses of the Inuit, pulling teeth and even amputating frozen fingers.

Elsie Gillis, who spent a year in Arctic Bay as the wife of a weather observer, wrote of Bell, “When they [the Inuit] were in trouble, they came to him for help and he gave generously of his time, his skill, his food. Or whatever was needed to meet the emergency.”  

My next column will tell about how Bell became the ghost of Arctic Bay.

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.