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Capt. Cleveland Anthology: Coplalook
From the book:
Copland, Alfred Dudley. Coplalook: Chief trader, Hudson's Bay Company 1923-39. Winnipeg: Watson & Dwyer Publishing, 1985. ISBN: 0920486428
On pp. 28-30, relating HBC trader Dudley Copland's 1924 mission to establish a trading post at Coral Harbour on Southampton Island:
"By the time we were ready to set out for Southampton Island, the local supply schooner M. S. Fort Chesterfield had arrived from her winter quarters. Her captain, George Cleveland, was a colourful individual who had been shanghaied from a New England seaport for service aboard a whaling ship. During his first arctic winter he had deserted the whalers and joined a group of Inuit who were travelling inland to hunt. He had lived with them for many years and was known to them as Shirquackti, the harpooner. During his time in the Arctic, Shirquackti had a purely Inuit relationship with his interpreter, Keedluk. He shared Keedluk's wife, Tooteecheak, who gave birth to two daughters who closely resembled their white father. George Cleveland was instructed to load our outfit and sail for Southampton Island. There we would select a site for the new post. The Inuit had recommended the general area of Coral Harbour, the location most central to all the winter camps.
"Although Cleveland accepted the title of captain he was not a qualified master; but he had been a sailor for many years and could handle a schooner, which was more important to us than a certificate of qualification. He had one fault as a navigator, however. He did not know his whereabouts unless he could see land at all times. This was clearly impossible, since we were going well off shore to reach Southampton Island.
...
"With the exception of the engineer of the Fort Chesterfield, H. E. Weller, the remainder of the crew were Inuit. Pupik, the mate, was a good sailor, although he looked rather odd wearing a seaman's jersey and a tweed cap on long stringy black hair that fell to his waist. In addition there were one or two deck hands and an Inuit boy as cook.
On pp. 50-52, relating Copland's 1925 appointment to the HBC post at Repulse Bay:
"My first impressions of the Company post at Repulse Bay were far from exciting. The dwelling house was drab and painted throughout in blue, a most depressing colour for the dark winter days on the Arctic Circle. The combined store and warehouse was a tar-papered relic that had been taken apart, moved to another location and joined together again. Its interior was even more dismal than that of the dwelling house; the windows were the old-fashioned kind with four small panes of glass that admitted very little light. At the entrance to the store there was an open dry toilet for public use. With a thoughtful touch, someone had stored the post's supply of baled oakum near by.
"There was another small building that had also been used as staff quarters. From this I sensed the reluctance of the previous staff to live together under one roof. This I could understand, since the manager before Jimmy Thom had been Captain George Cleveland, Cleveland had lived apart from other white men for most of his life - beginning with his first year in the Arctic when he took off with some Inuit families who were travelling inland to hunt. In his later years he was cantankerous and unwell.
"We had heard news of Captain Cleveland at Chesterfield Inlet. After delivering our supplies to Southampton Island and finishing his work the previous fall, he had taken the Fort Chesterfield into winter quarters at Baker Lake. During the winter he became ill and his friends, both Inuit and white, took him south by dog-team to the end of the Hudson Bay Railway, a distance of over a thousand miles. Shortly after being admitted to the hospital in Winnipeg, the old veteran died in September 1925. He was one of the last remaining links in the Arctic with the days of the New England whalers."