Taissumani, June 3

The flag of Nunavut has been flying over a school in Germany for the past week, to mark the 100th anniversary of the death of a man in Baffin Island whose passing would have gone unremarked in Canada were it not for this column.

The flag flies over the Bernhard Hantzsch elementary school in Kurort Hartha in Saxony, a school named after a German ornithologist, the first white man to cross Baffin island, who died on the shores of Foxe Basin sometime in late May or early June 1911.

But before telling Hantzsch’s story, I must recount the story of his dramatic arrival on Baffin Island, and that story involves a tragic shipwreck.

In July 1909 the small two-masted schooner, Jantina Agatha, out of Groningen, Holland, left Dundee under the command of Captain Cornelis Dijkstra, carrying provisions for the trading and mission station at Blacklead Island in Arctic Canada.

The cargo consisted of 20 tons of coal and an equal amount of general supplies. Dijkstra, described as “a quiet, almost cool-blooded person,” had a good reputation in the Groningen coastal shipping world, and carried a diploma for high-seas sailing vessels.

Accompanying the crew of five were two passengers, the Reverend E. W. T. Greenshield, who had been on furlough, and the German ornithologist, Bernhard Hantzsch.

Hantzsch had been born in Dresden in 1875, the youngest son of a school teacher. He developed an interest in bird life at an early age. In 1897 he took a position as a teacher, and published his first paper on ornithology the same year.

In later years he travelled to the Balkans and Bulgaria to further his research, and in 1903 made a study trip to Iceland where he identified two sub-species of birds unknown to ornithology. In 1906 he was in Labrador and Killinek (Port Burwell) and subsequently published two papers on Labrador.

The trip aboard the Jantina Agatha was uneventful until the ship hit ice and began taking on water on the night of September 25, still 50 miles from Blacklead Island.

The crew made a valiant attempt to pump, but soon decided that they would have to abandon ship. The captain gave the order to get Hantzsch’s heavy German naval sloop out of the hold.

With six feet of water in the ship, Dijkstra remained calm. The sloop afloat, he ordered his men to load it with the supplies that he and Greenshield selected from the large stock of provisions.

The Jantina Agatha, listing slightly to starboard, still held tons of cargo that would be desperately needed if an overwintering became necessary, but the sloop was quickly full.

A futile effort was made to build a raft on which to carry more supplies. Maps, compasses and rifles were taken from the doomed vessel into the ship’s boats and, at six o’clock on the evening of September 27, Dijkstra remarked almost off-handedly, “I’d say we’d better get off.”

The crew took to the perilous waters of Cumberland Sound in three small boats. They rowed for almost twelve hours before reaching a small island. After a night’s sleep there, Dijkstra, Greenshield and two others rowed on to Blacklead to fetch help.

Blacklead Island was the site of a large Inuit settlement. In its heyday it had been a thriving whaling station and the site of a mission station of the Church Missionary Society. Whaling was in decline, and no white missionary had been at the station since Greenshield had left the previous year. But over 100 Inuit remained there, anticipating the return of the whalers and the missionary that fall.

The four shipwrecked men reached Blacklead safely, and a party of Inuit in two whaleboats left almost immediately to take provisions to the hapless sailors left on the island. They rowed for 18 hours to rescue them. They and the rest of the party returned to Blacklead Island in the early hours of October 1.

The Dutch sailors, German scientist and British preacher were forced to spend an unexpected winter on the island, for no other ships put in at Blacklead that fall.

Next Week – An Uncomfortable Winter at Blacklead Island.

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.