Wilfrid Caron, a fur trader in northern Baffin

The CGS Arctic left Quebec City on July 9, 1923, under the command of the aging Capt. Joseph Bernier.

The ship was bound for Pond Inlet, carrying a court party for the trial of three Inuit accused of murder. On board was Wilfrid-Clément Caron, 35 years old, who had signed on as third officer. He was slated to be a witness in the upcoming trial.

Caron was from L’Islet, Que., and was the nephew of Bernier’s wife. He had first gone to the Arctic at the age of 22, on Bernier’s sovereignty expedition of 1910-11. They wintered in Arctic Bay, where he got his first taste of life among the Inuit.

In 1912 he returned north, again with Bernier, on the Minnie Maud. This was a private exploration and trading venture. The vessel wintered in Albert Harbour near Pond Inlet, but Caron spent the winter with a large group of Inuit at Sannirut, known to whalers and explorers as Button Point on Bylot Island.

In 1916 Caron took over management of Bernier’s post at Igarjuaq, just east of present-day Pond Inlet, and remained there for the next three years.

The Inuit knew him as Quvviunginnaq — the one who always has a tear in his eye. Back home in L’Islet, he was better known by his nickname Ti-loup, or little wolf.

Although he spoke English poorly, he learned to speak Inuktitut as fluently as a native. He was, in the words of a shipmate, “active but nervous and restless.”

Inuit traditions and customs during the whaling and early trading era were not yet influenced by missionaries. It was not uncommon for capable people to take more than one wife or even more than one husband.

Caron very soon took an Inuk wife. She was Panikpak, and she was also the wife of another man, Uirngut, an excellent hunter, with whom she had three children.

Uirngut was renowned for his dogs, the best in the district, which he bred with great care. He was reputed to be an angakkuq and his helping spirit was the raven. This was a marriage of equals and one of mutual respect.

Panikpak was proud, calm and assertive. Her knowledge and capabilities were respected among her people. Taller than most Inuit women, she was plump but carried herself proudly, usually with her hair braided at the front on both sides and with a back braid rolled up into a bun on top.

She and her children moved in with Caron shortly after he arrived in 1916. Uirngut put no obstacles in the way of the relationship. He accepted her decisions, provided for his children, and taught his boys to hunt.

In 1919, when the ice was breaking up, Panikpak gave birth to Caron’s first child, a son she named Qajaaq (Kyak) after her mother. A daughter and another son soon followed.

Panikpak was no stranger to hard work. Her strong partnership with Quvviunginnaq influenced Inuit to bring their furs to the post he operated for Bernier.

In 1919, Bernier sold his trading interests and Caron became the employee of Henry Toke Munn and his Arctic Gold Exploration Syndicate.

But Caron had been in the district for three years and needed a holiday. Leaving another man in charge, he crossed the Atlantic twice to reach Quebec via Peterhead, Scotland.

In the summer of 1920 he returned, with Munn, to find that a former rival Robert Janes had been killed by Inuit that spring. The following year, with Munn’s departure, Caron took charge of the Button Point post.

In 1922, Caron left Button Point for another winter in Quebec. Munn noted, with no explanation, that he “had a great deal of trouble with poor Caron on the voyage, as he went temporarily insane.”

In fact, a year earlier Caron had hit his head hard on a crate being moved off the boat at Button Point. Over the winter he had experienced problems as a result of that blow. He had probably suffered a serious concussion.

His departure from Albert Harbour was tumultuous. He had wanted to take his son, Kyak, three years old, south with him but Panikpak objected strenuously. Caron left without the boy. He would never see Kyak again. (Kyak would grow up to become a well-known special constable with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.)

That year, Munn sold his syndicate to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had built a post in Pond Inlet the previous year. With Munn gone and Janes dead, the Bay had a monopoly on trade in northern Baffin Island.

The next summer, Caron was anxious to return to Pond Inlet and see again the young son he had left behind. He was returning, though, not as a fur trader but as a witness in a trial.

But at 9:30 p.m. on July 9, shortly after the CGS Arctic had left Quebec City, Caron was knocked overboard.

Expedition commander J. D. Craig wrote: “I was on the bridge when Caron went overboard. The fore sheet was foul of the port sidelight box and in attempting to clear it he overhauled on it, and a puff of wind striking the sail at that instant, he was catapulted into the water.”

When the cry of “man overboard!” was heard, second officer Leonidas Lemieux rushed to the deck, threw a life buoy overboard and began to launch the lifeboat.

Craig’s secretary Desmond O’Connell, a young man of 23, joined the crew. In the stern of the boat, O’Connell was so excited that he had to be restrained by two other volunteers.

A few moments later, crouched in the bow, O’Connell suddenly shouted, “If you can’t find him, I will, I can see him,” and dived overboard before anyone could stop him. He quickly sank from view.

The vessel stopped and searched the darkness of the river for both men for 20 minutes, before giving up and steaming full ahead. Caron’s body was found washed ashore on July 16, O’Connell’s five days later.

When Bernier reached Pond Inlet, he summoned Panikpak aboard to personally give her the sad news of Wilfrid’s death.

Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for more than 50 years. He is the author of “Minik: The New York Eskimo” and “Thou Shalt Do No Murder,” among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.