This book is a biography of two British Columbian ships that performed legendary service in the Canadian Arctic. The St. Roch , now on permanent display at the Vancouver Maritime Museum, is the better known of the two, although North Star of Herschel Island is still sailing and still adding to her legend. Historian Bruce Macdonald—who, along with his wife, owns North Star of Herschel Island —has meticulously researched the origins and service logs of each ship and created a book that will enthrall old Arctic hands, maritime history buffs and anyone who appreciates well-written Canadian history. Under the command of Captain Henry Larsen, the sturdy RCMP vessel St. Roch spent years showing the Canadian flag in the Arctic, performing many duties including delivering medical supplies and taking census information in addition to enforcing the law in the North. St. Roch is world renowned for achieving many firsts, including being the first vessel through the Northwest Passage west to east, the first vessel to navigate the passage in both directions and the first vessel to circumnavigate North America. Inspired by St. Roch, renowned trapper and Inuit leader Fred Carpenter designed the elegant North Star, the ultimate ice vessel used to transport furs and people to and from remote Banks Island. Together, the two iconic ships have helped to solidify Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic and have become symbols of unity among Northern communities. In Sisters of the Ice , Macdonald documents in vivid detail the adventurous histories of these two vessels, as well as the history of the Northern communities in which they gained renown. Detailing daring escapes from dangerous ice conditions to thrilling sea voyages to raucous whaling towns, Macdonald reveals the perilous and often lawless climate in which these vessels operated and the ties of Canadian identity that they helped forge.
Оглавление
R. Bruce Macdonald. Sisters of the Ice
Praise for Sisters of the Ice
Praise for R. Bruce Macdonald’s previous book, North Star of Herschel Island
Sisters. of the Ice
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Chapter 1. Herschel Island
Chapter 2. The Police Arrive
Chapter 3. Sovereignty
Chapter 4. The Eastern Arctic
Chapter 5. C.T. Pedersen
Chapter 6. Christian Klengenberg
Chapter 7. Henry Larsen
Chapter 8. St. Roch
Chapter 9. North Star of Herschel Island
Chapter 10. Fur Trade
Chapter 11. Arctic Navigation
Chapter 12. Northwest Passage
Chapter 13. St. Roch Returns from the East
Chapter 14. North Star of Herschel Island and Sovereignty
Chapter 15. A New Owner
Chapter 16. We Enter
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Other Works Consulted
Notes
Index
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“Sisters of the Ice is a lesser known indigenous success story that shaped Canada’s Arctic history through ingenuity, generosity and the power of perseverance.”
—Bourton Scott, founder of the Emerald Sea Protection Society
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Epidemics did not only reduce the population. They were also responsible for the loss of oral traditions and other cultural knowledge.12 “Into the vacuum created by the demise of the Mackenzie people flowed Inuit from as far west as Alaska’s Seward Peninsula, and even Yuit and Chukchi from Siberia. Traders and trappers came from the stratum—the dregs of San Francisco’s slums and a Count Bulow, a remote cousin of the chancellor of the German Reich—settled in the region and ‘went native.’”13
The people trading with the Inuit soon offered more than just the basics that the whalers had first offered. The great variety of trade goods is perhaps best indicated by Russell’s … observation in 1894 of a group of Inuit on the mainland just south of Herschel Island: One of the men wore a new sombrero with a very broad brim. Others had miscellaneous odds and ends combined with their native costumes, with the effect on the beholder of having discarded a portion of their apparel and substituted an incongruous textile fabric to mark the loss. Several wore tight-fitting, red flannel drawers over their deerskin trousers.14
