Hannah Siksik

Hannah Siksik

(c.1900s - 1945)
of Repulse Bay and Baker Lake.
Wife of Louis Tapatai.
Daughter of Tabitia Taututtiaq and Qillaq.
Biological child of George Cleveland.

Also known as: Siksik Hanna.

In the book Copalook, Siksik was referred to as “the second daughter of Tooteecheak and Captain George Cleveland who shared Tooteecheak with her Inuit husband Keedluk.”

Siksik married Louis Tapatai, whose name came from the whaler nickname “Starboard Eye”. He was living in Baker Lake when he died in 1981. He was probably the same as artist Louis/Louie Tapatai/Tapati of Baker Lake (Qamani' tuaq), born 1905. (Disc Number E3255.)

Hannah Siksik had one child, fathered by Felix Conrad of Germany, and adopted a second, both of whom she raised with Tapatai.

Siksik Hannah c. 1927

Felix Conrad was described by author Archie Hunter as “a Nova Scotian from Lunenburg.” He arrived in Repulse Bay the mid-1920s on the ship Jean Revillon under the employ of the French company Revillon Freres, which had decided to establish posts at Repulse Bay and Baker Lake to compete with the HBC. Archie Hunter describes him: “Felix was a tall, thin, gentle chap who was already going bald in his early twenties. At one time he had sailed with Angus Walters, skipper of the Bluenose and his father was skipper and owner of the Haligonian, another well-known Nova Scotia schooner. Most of what I know about sailing I picked up from Felix.” By 1939 Conrad was the HBC manager at the Baffin post in Coral Harbour. (*Two photos of Felix Conrad appear in Archie Hunter’s 1983 book, Northern Traders: Caribou Hair in the Stew.)

Hannah Siksik died in 1945.

 

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