Taissumani, June 11

Minik with his dogs, on the Croker Land Expedition.

One of the realities a writer must face, especially if working on a lengthy project involving years of research, is knowing that shortly after his work is published, he will find some new information, something that possibly could have made his book more interesting.

And so it was when I first published my story of the life of Minik in 1986. My research had been thorough and had taken years. Finally the book was published. And then I found a delightful story that I could have used.

The story was called “Thin Ice” and was written by Elmer Ekblaw, a geologist and botanist on Donald B. MacMillan’s Crocker Land Expedition from 1913 to 1917.

Minik worked for that expedition as an interpreter and guide, beginning only four years after he had returned from 12 years growing up in New York City. He had had to relearn his native language and the hunting skills of his people. That he found employment with MacMillan’s expedition is testimony to how thorough his re-education was.

Ekblaw was returning from a hunting trip with Minik and Sechmann Rosbach, a Greenlander who had grown up driving dogs on the treacherous ice in Disko Bay, much farther to the south.

They had left North Star Bay (site of the present Thule Air Base) for a hunting trip to Cape Parry, where the early open water promised seal, walrus and narwhal.

Now a storm was approaching from the southwest and the men were about fifteen miles away from shore. A telltale pennant of cloud rising above North Star Bay foretold the storm in a way that no experienced hunter could mistake. The moment Minik saw it, he yelled to the other two men to waste no time in leaving.

“We untied our dogs and hitched them to the sledges,” wrote Ekblaw. “We left our tent, our sleeping-bags, our heap of walrus meat… and raced away as fast as our well-fed dogs could carry us.”

They raced for North Star Bay for an hour before the crisis arose. Ekblaw recounted the sudden danger they faced:

“Spread black and threatening before us, a dark lead of new, thin ice stretched across the whole sound. How wide it was, we could not see in the haze of wind-driven snow. How thin it was, we could readily see, as our killing-irons broke through it of their own weight. How far it extended, we could only guess.”

“Our chances were slim in any direction,” Ekblaw wrote.

“No use. The ice is too young and thin. We can’t make it,” said Minik.

Sechmann disagreed. “But it’s our only chance,” he protested. “The storm is coming fast… We have to try it; we have no other way. We can only hope that the lead isn’t wide and the ice will hold.”

Minik acquiesced to the opinion of the older Sechmann. Ekblaw tells the rest of the adventure:

“As Sechmann drew his dogs back from the lead for a good running start, Minik moved along the lead a half hundred yards and I drew back a little further than Sechmann had done… for, as Sechmann explained, we must not strike the ice at the same time or near together.

“As Sechmann’s dogs struck out across the thin ice, they spread wide apart in the line. Low and swift, with feet wide-spread, they ran… Beneath the runners of his sledge, the yielding ice bent down. It rose in a wave-like fold before and behind.

“As Minik’s sledge struck the dark band, I saw that, while the rounded front part of the runners was holding up on the ice as the dogs sped along, the sharp square corners at the back were cutting through and little jets of water were spraying up on either side of the runner.

“Ekblaw, the last to make the dash, hoped his sled would hold him for he outweighed both Minik and Sechmann by a good fifty pounds. “But my runners were shod a quarter-inch wider and, thought the ice bent deep under the sledge, this extra width carried my greater weight.

“With my heart in my mouth, scarcely daring to breathe, I sat rigid, watching the water spraying out from the sides of both runners. If a dog had stumbled, or bumped into another, to slow the sledge a moment, we would have dropped through. But not a dog faltered. Never did my team make such speed. The first moments were the most perilous. The young ice was thin, but it was also smooth as glass and we gathered momentum as we raced on. The lead proved to be over half a mile wide.

“As he struck the solid ice, Sechmann gave a wild yell of relief. Minik gave another as he achieved it a moment later. But, until I had taken a breath or two, I could not even whisper. To them, it was an old, oft-repeated adventure. To me — well, I vowed it was my last hazard over such thin ice!”

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.