Finding Franklin by Potter Russell A.;

Author:Potter, Russell A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MQUP
Published: 2016-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Schwatka’s plan took advantage of the small size of his party, requiring only a modest amount of equipment beyond what could be obtained once they arrived; he planned to travel by dog-drawn sledge, Eskimo-style. This also meant that he, like Hall, required no vessel, taking passage on a whaling ship, in this case the Eothen, of which Barry was now appointed master. The party arrived at a point near Depot Island – roughly halfway between Cumberland Sound and Repulse Bay – in August 1878. Schwatka’s first order of business, with Joe Ebierbing’s help, was to locate the witnesses who had described this cache of papers to Barry and Potter, and so they set about interviewing every Inuk who came to their camp to trade, along with those hunting nearby.

Unfortunately, neither of the two original Netsilik witnesses could be found, and (according to Schwatka at least) none of the local Inuit knew anything about these men or their spoons. There were only two other Netsilik present: one was an aged paralytic known to the whalers as “Monkey,” whose speech impediment rendered him scarcely intelligible even to other Inuit, and the other was “Natchilli Joe” (so called to distinguish him from Joe Ebierbing), who was far too young to have any personal recollection of Franklin encounters. Eventually, however, they met a third man, Nu-tar-ge-ark, about fifty years of age, who proved to be a fountain of information. And, although Schwatka neglects to mention it, he was – according to Gilder – the very man who had brought the spoon from King William Island, of which he gave a detailed account:

His father, many years ago, opened a cairn on the northern shore of Washington Bay, in King William Land, and took from it a tin box containing a piece of paper with some writing on it. Not far from this same spot were the ruins of a cairn which had been built by white men and torn down by Inuits. The cairn had been built upon a large flat stone, which had the appearance of having been dragged to its present location from a stony point near by. The cairn itself was found to be empty, but it was generally believed by the Inuits that there was something buried beneath this stone. It was very heavy, and as they had only been there in parties of two or three at a time, they had never been able to overturn the stone, though they had repeatedly tried. Nu-tar-ge-ark also said he had brought a spoon with him from King William Land, which corresponded in description with the one Barry took to the United States. He said it was given to him by some of his tribe, and that it had come from one of the boat places, or where skeletons had been found on King William Land or Adelaide Peninsula, he could not remember exactly where. He had not given the spoon to Captain Barry, but to the wife of Sinuksook, an Iwillik Esquimau, who afterward gave it to a Captain Potter.

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