Edward Maurice - The Last of the Gentlemen Adventurers - Coming of Age in the Arctic

The supplies lay scattered about over the flat at the top of the bank, where it was wise to tread carefully. There were cases of all shapes and sizes, bales, cartons, lumber for two small houses to be built for the company’s Eskimo employees. Supplies labelled for the Oxford University Arctic Exploration Society. Barrels of oil and gasoline, kegs of molasses. Lengths of steel for sledge runners. A bath loomed up in front of me and I very nearly fell in it. Sacks of coal and flour. Crates of cheese, drums of potatoes, kegs of oatmeal, bags of sugar. Innuit men and women struggled up the bank with vast loads, children with smaller burdens. White men bustled backwards and forwards importantly, missionaries appeared and disappeared, and sometimes even policemen. Always of course the dogs, snuffling round the cases and using them as lampposts.

Suddenly, it was finished, just as it had seemed unending. One of the mates came up the bank shouting that as he had brought the last load, he would accept a drink if anyone were to offer him one, and he went into the house where the last-minute conferences were in progress. The captain decided, however, to get away at once. Although darkness had fallen, the tide was with him, so he blew three blasts on his siren to summon all those who wished to sail. Everybody except Geordie, who had lost interest in the whole thing and was now fast asleep, rushed down to the boats.

We were not allowed to linger on the Nascopie . I said goodbye to my friends, including my cabin mate, who was beaming all over his face at having pulled my leg. The ship’s engines were turning over and as soon as all the post staff were back in the boat up went the gangway. The little ship swung round toward the gulf and swished past us in a swirl of foam as we aimed for the shore. A group on the deck of the Nascopie broke into a spirited rendering of ‘Will ye no come back again?’ A stern, authoritarian voice from the bridge shouted, ‘Not at this time of night.’ Last-minute witticisms were bawled backwards and forwards across the water until the captain turned about so that his vessel was stern on to us, blew another blast on his siren and with gathering speed vanished into the darkness.

Alan Scott, the other apprentice at Pangnirtung, had arrived the previous year and had obviously not expected that there would be an addition to the staff. I explained that the district manager had had no option but to leave me here before the ship headed south, but it was too late to go into all the details, so we made the boat secure, climbed the bank to the house and went thankfully to bed.

It was broad daylight when I awoke next morning, but the house was quiet, so I took the opportunity to have a look at my room. It was small and square with a plasterboard ceiling held in place with rough wooden slats. The boards had not been painted but the walls had been done, though some time ago by the look of them, for they were now a dingy sort of white. There was one window looking out over the fiord mouth. Apart from the bed, there was one piece of furniture in the room, some kind of multi-purpose unit. The top did duty as a stand for a washbowl, underneath were two drawers to house my clothes and there was a shelf for anything else at the bottom. The unit appeared to have been home-made, but did not seem to have been constructed to any plan so much as from the random inspiration of the maker, and it was tilted slightly forward, as though the front legs were slightly shorter than the rear ones. There was no other furniture, no chair or wardrobe, and nothing on the walls. The room had a musty, damp odour rather like that of an unused, unheated spare room we had had at home. The whole effect was dreary in the extreme and I could see that it was going to be necessary to do some brightening up before the start of the long winter.

A patch of colour in the doorway suddenly caught my eye. It was Geordie Gall’s bright striped shirt. He had drifted up from somewhere and was leaning against the jamb, clutching a bottle in his hand. He gazed at me in silence for a little while with a puzzled expression, as if wondering what to say to me now that he was here. It occurred to me that his shirt, although quite cheerful, did not really suit him. Embarrassed by the silence, I said, ‘Good morning.’

Geordie levered himself away from his support and waved his free arm in a broad gesture round the room.

‘Not the Grand Hotel, is it?’ he said, slurring his words. ‘Roof leaks like hell. Doesn’t rain in the winter though. Spring’s the time when the snow melts on top. You’ll have to get some oars then.’

He put the bottle to his lips and took a long swig, gazing sadly up at the offending ceiling as he did so. Belatedly he began to chuckle, perhaps at the thought of me sculling round the bedroom. Then a fly buzzed in near his face and he tried to knock it away with his hand but the effort caused him to lose balance. As he staggered backwards, he jerked the bottle in his other hand, so that some of the liquor slopped on to the floor. He forgot about me, looking angrily down at the pool on the linoleum.

‘Damn flies, what the hell are they buzzing about here for?’ he muttered to himself as he lurched out of the room.

I did not quite know what to make of the incident at the time, but afterwards realized that Geordie had really just come to introduce himself and welcome me to Pangnirtung. He was a Scotsman who had drifted over to Newfoundland and not having any real trade had moved from one job to another. Then, when the Hudson’s Bay Company opened up the posts in the northern islands, he joined the company and had been managing posts on Baffin Island ever since. He was normally a good-natured man with a liking for order in the post routine and good organizing ability. The Eskimos respected him, but his periodic bouts on the bottle meant that he was never likely to advance further in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s employment.

Geordie had no hair on the top of his head and the Eskimos, who liked to be able to call everybody by a name which distinguished them personally, christened him ‘Shiny Top’.

Shortly after my first visitor had gone, Alan Scott came in to say it was time to get up. He too was a Scotsman, coming from up Peterhead way, where he had been working on farms. He was a few years older than me and being a practical young man had picked up the ropes quickly. This was very fortunate for me as he went to considerable trouble to pass on the lessons he had learned during his first year as a northerner. Alan must have had great patience because I did not at that time readily assimilate knowledge of a practical nature, but he succeeded in teaching me the basic essentials of Arctic life and this stood me in good stead for all my years in the Arctic.

On my way to fetch water from the kitchen I studied the house. It was more or less a square, bungalow type of building with the two apprentices’ bedrooms at the far corner being separated by the office between them. From the office, a passageway led down the centre of the house, on one side of which was the manager’s bedroom, while on the other was an enclosed space which served as a combined store and bathroom, though to take a bath was a most complicated procedure. The guardroom was situated across the house at the end of the passageway. This name for the sitting room came from the frontier days, when the personnel of the post had to be ready to defend themselves, keeping their weapons at hand in case of attack. Fortunately there was no danger of attack at Pangnirtung. The ceiling and the walls of the guardroom were painted white with green slats, so the room was not quite so dull as the bedrooms. In one corner there was a large pot-bellied heating stove and from the other wall a door led into the kitchen.

An Eskimo girl by the name of Ooloo had a room at the end of the kitchen. She was supposed to be a sort of housekeeper and did the chores but only had the slightest knowledge of cooking. In fact she was what would nowadays be accepted as Geordie’s common-law wife. They had a baby son but were a most unlikely pair. They could not speak each other’s language beyond a word or two and perhaps this was just as well, for I found later when she got cross Ooloo could deliver a stream of abuse and insults which would have left Geordie in no doubt as to his shortcomings.