Book explores the Inuit knowledge that helped find Franklin expedition ships

Inuit interaction with the Franklin expedition is the thread that runs through The Land Was Always Used: An Inuit Oral History of the Franklin Expedition, but it's the life of the Inuit in Qikiqtaq (King William Island) that is the heartbeat of the story.

“(The Inuit) used everything: the ocean, the air, the land. Our life was so interconnected with our environment, and we didn't come along just because we heard that there were strange men stumbling across (King William) island,” said Edna Ekhivalak Elias. She conducted interviews for the book with Inuit in Gjoa Haven on King William Island, now part of Nunavut. Gjoa Haven is the community closest to the Franklin shipwrecks.

“It was just populated by sparse groups of Inuit families, small groups, as it was across the Arctic. They were using the land just to survive. They were showing sovereignty,” said Elias.

British polar explorer Sir John Franklin brought two ships, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, in 1847 to the Canadian Arctic to explore and map the Northwest Passage. All 129 men on the Franklin expedition died. It was the worst disaster for the Royal Navy in its long history of polar exploration.

In the time that followed Franklin’s disappearance, more than 30 expeditions travelled to the Arctic in search of the lost men and ships. Their interactions with Inuit are recounted in The Land Was Always Used. Inuit oral history played a role in the ships eventually being found in 2014 and 2016.

Elias worked with Connie Wren-Gunn, director of content and interpretive products at Know History Inc., to produce the community history in a visually spectacular coffee table book.

Woven in with vivid photographs, including many by award-winning photographer Michelle Valberg, are stories from Elders and knowledge holders that were passed down through generations of the sightings and interactions with the men of the Franklin expedition.

More than that, the book highlights historical and contemporary information on Inuit hunting, travelling, fishing, adapting to the climate and simply living off the land and the sea.

Wren-Gunn, who wrote the content and edited together the quotes, says the book both acknowledges the work undertaken by late local historian Louie Kamookak and the importance of telling this piece of history from an Inuit point of view.

“(Kamookak) was sort of the foremost historian of the Inuit experience of the Franklin expedition and, once those ships were found, he really wanted those stories to be told in a cohesive way and for Inuit to feel vindicated because they had spent so many years, generations, saying ‘We know where those ships are. We know what happened to those men’,” said Wren-Gunn.

For 30 years, Kamookak gathered information from Elders and knowledge holders, however, his work is not included in The Land Was Always Used. Kamookak passed away shortly before the project began and his family denied access to his collections, says Wren-Gunn, “and we didn’t press them. We wanted them to feel like they can share that information when they're ready to.”

Elias, who is also a former commissioner of Nunavut, conducted new interviews in Gjoa Haven. But those who held information were hesitant to discuss what they knew, she says.

“Indigenous people get surveyed and interviewed a lot and they don't see any results, so there was apprehension and some doubts too,” said Elias. “We needed to build that trust and relationship, to bring them at ease, and tell them that we were there to do that work for the book that they would love to see in their community.”

Elias says it was also beneficial that she knew three-quarters of the Inuit in Gjoa Haven, was related to probably half, and also spoke the same Inuk dialect.

Before the book was printed, Elders and knowledge holders had the opportunity to revisit and approve the information they provided. They were also given USB sticks that held their stories.

Wren-Gunn points out that the research went back to the community with the Nattilik Heritage Society, which operates a museum in Gjoa Haven, owning it.

Elias feels that the oral history she was told compliments what Kamookak learned.

“I have no idea really what Louie collected, but I'm sure he collected a lot of the same stories and perhaps much more than we did, because at the time when Louie started his work there were many more Elders alive. Those are the stories that we missed out on,” said Elias.

In 2008, when Parks Canada began its search for the two ships, Kamookak provided information as to where the ships would likely be found. Inuit oral tradition said the two ships appeared on the northwest side of King William Island. One was crushed in ice and the other drifted further south.

Inuit knowledge of Franklin’s voyage played a role in finding the wrecks of HMS Erebus in 2014 in Wilmot and Crampton Bay and of HMS Terror in 2016 in Terror Bay.

“I think it's in the strength of those stories and how the integrity and the details of those stories pretty much remained unchanged,” said Elias. Despite being passed down through generations, the stories were “retold with that detail and accuracy and not exaggerating…they were told with passion, with respect of their Elders.”

The Land Was Always Used, says Wren-Gunn, is for people to understand that “this is not a place where life didn't happen.”

“The fact is that (Inuit) were there when Franklin's men were there. And that's not changed. And the people who are there today still use that land, they still use all the traditional hunting routes and they fish and they seal and they hunt caribou in the same way their ancestors did, in the same place as their ancestors did,” she said.

What would Louie Kamookak think of The Land Was Always Used?

“I would hope that he would be proud of the book and (that) we've captured the essence of his work and, knowing Louie and the character that he was,” said Elias with a laugh, “he would say he could have done a little better.”

The Land Was Always Used: An Inuit Oral History of the Franklin Expedition was a six-year project commissioned by Parks Canada, which published it along with Nattilik Heritage Society. The book is available in English/Inuktitut and French/Inuktitut. The book can be purchased directly from the website thelandwasalwaysused.ca/ All proceeds from the sale of the book go back to the Nattilik Heritage Society and the community of Gjoa Haven.

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.