Ipiirvik

Ipiirvik (ca.1873)

Ipiirvik (also Ebierbing , Joe Ebierbing or Eskimo Joe ; * approx. 1836 in Qimmiqsut , Nunavut ; † after 1880 ) was an Eskimo hunter and interpreter who took part in five US and one British Arctic expeditions. He became well known in the second half of the 19th century and, with his wife Tookoolito, was one of the most widely traveled Inuit of his time.

Life

Origin and trip to England

Tookoolito, Hall and Ipiirvik

Ipiirvik in an exhibition in the 1870s

Ipiirvik was born around 1836 on Qimmiqsut (Nimigen Island), an island in the Cumberland Sound off the coast of Baffin Island . He was known as Joe among the whalers who regularly visited Cumberland Sound. When the English wine merchant and ship owner John Bowlby, who was planning to build a whaling station, met him in 1853, he was already married to Tookoolito (Hannah), who was two years his junior. Bowlby was impressed by the young people and invited them to accompany him to England with a child named Akulukjuk. There he brought her into the family of his ship's doctor, William Gedney, in Hull . The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the Franklin expedition had sparked a keen interest in the Arctic among the British public. At least 20 British expeditions had set out to clarify the fate of Franklin . Bowlby took advantage of this interest by exhibiting the Inuit on various occasions in Hull and London . It was quite common in the mid-19th century to display members of indigenous peoples in public. The only 1.55 m tall Ipiirvik is described as an "intelligent, calm man" and as "a close observer of everything that happens". On February 3, 1854, the three Inuit were received by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Windsor Castle . Robert Bowser, the treasurer of the Hull Zoological Gardens , to which the Inuit had just been rented, received the not insignificant sum of 25 pounds for his mediation. Tookoolito and Ipiirvik were spared the fate of many Inuit who were brought to Europe voluntarily or forcibly and who often died of infectious diseases within a short time . After two years in England, during which they had acquired a knowledge of the English language, they were - converted to Christianity - brought back to their homeland. Here Ipiirvik resumed his life as a hunter. Sporadically he worked for whalers.

Expeditions with Charles Francis Hall

Ipiirvik's life changed radically when he met Charles Francis Hall . The editor of a small newspaper in Cincinnati came in 1860 with Captain Sidney Budington (1823-1888) on his whaling ship George Henry on the Cumberland Sound. Hall had read Elisha Kent Kane's book on the Advance expedition , was passionate about the Arctic, and hoped to solve Franklin's fate. Hall hired Ipiirvik and Tookoolito as guides and translators. They remained closely associated with him until Hall's death in 1871. Most of his later successes Hall owed to their friendship. In the Arctic, he relied on the Inuit techniques without attempting to learn them and, for example, driving a team of dogs himself. With the help of the Inuit, whose legends described historical events with astonishing accuracy, he managed to find the place where Martin Frobisher believed to have found gold in the 16th century. Accompanied by Ipiirvik, Tookoolito and their son Tarralikitaq, Hall returned to the United States in 1862 . As in England, the Inuit were put on public display. At Barnum's American Museum they were on display for seven hours a day, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and again in the evening from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Entry cost 25 cents. Her appearance during his lectures helped Hall earn money for his next expedition. The hardships and the unfamiliar climate, but especially their inadequate immunity against numerous infectious diseases rampant outside the Arctic, hit the three Inuit hard. Budington, who opposed her exploitation by Hall, wanted to bring her back north on his next trip out of concern for her health, which led to a dispute with Hall. Tarralikitaq died in New York on February 28, 1863 and was buried in Groton, Connecticut, near the Budington family property.

A year later Ipiirvik and Tookoolito Hall accompanied on his renewed search for traces of the Franklin expedition. It lasted five years and led from northwest Hudson Bay to King William Island . Hall found some skeletons and graves of members of the Franklin expedition and was able to exchange a spoon with Franklin's initials with the Inuit there. With the help of Ipiirvik and Tookoolito, he interviewed the local Inuit and wrote down their reports. Ipiirvik became a father again, because Tookoolito had another child, a boy, who soon died. In 1868 they adopted the two-year-old Isigaittuq in Iglulik , who was called "Punna" in Hall's spelling (from "Panik", the Inuktitut word for daughter) and was later known in the USA as Sylvia Grinnell Ebierbing. Upon her return to the United States and Ipiirvik Tookoolito settled in 1869 near Groton down where it for 300 US dollars bought a spacious two-story house. While Ipiirvik was a carpenter, Tookoolito sewed clothes and made souvenirs that she sold on site. But as early as 1871 they took part in Hall's next expedition, which was to lead to the North Pole on the schooner Polaris and which turned out tragically. Upon returning from a grueling sled ride, Hall collapsed and believed he had been poisoned. No one except Tookoolito was allowed to approach him. After a few days, Hall died. During a storm in the fall of 1872, part of the crew was separated from the ship and drifted south on a shrinking ice floe for months. It was only thanks to the experience and ingenuity of the Inuit - in addition to Ipiirvik, Tookoolito and their adopted daughter, the Greenlander Hans Hendrik and his family on the clod - that none of the 19 people died. But hunger was omnipresent. Eventually they were rescued by the seal hunter Tigress and deposited in St. John's , Newfoundland , where the Inuit were received as heroes. Like the other members of the expedition, Ipiirvik was brought to Washington and questioned about the mysterious circumstances in which Hall had died. In 1873 Ipiirvik took part on board the Tigress in the rescue expedition for the remaining members of the Polaris expedition.

Late years

Back in Groton, Ipiirvik and Tookoolito resumed their previous activities. Panic attended school, but remained marked by the rigors of the ice drift. At the beginning of 1875 she fell ill with pneumonia . She died on March 18, 1875. Ipiirvik was hired by Allen Young (1827-1915) and traveled back to London to cross the Northwest Passage on the Pandora . The attempt failed and in the autumn of 1875 Ipiirvik was back in Groton. The American journalist Januarius MacGahan , who wrote a book about the trip, devoted an entire chapter to Ipiirvik. He describes him as one of the "most interesting and pleasant characters he has ever met".

On December 31, 1876, Tookoolito died at the age of 38 and was buried in Starr Cemetery in Groton. Ipiirvik joined Frederick Schwatka's expedition to King William Island in 1878 . Schwatka made use of the Inuit techniques and covered enormous distances in dog sleds. Although he did not find the documents he had hoped for, he did find numerous items from the Franklin expedition and the graves of some of the participants. With Ipiirvik's help, he was able to collect a great deal of oral evidence from the local Inuit about the Franklin expedition. Ipiirvik found a new woman among the Inuit, who was called Nupshark in Schwatka's spelling, in which William H. Gilders was called Neepshark, and she did not return to the USA.

Honors

Ipiirvik and Tookoolito were declared "Persons of National Historical Interest" by the Canadian government in 1981 for their help in exploring the Arctic. A memorial stone in front of the Iqaluit museum commemorates her. Two geographic objects are named after Ipiirvik - Ebierbing Bay, a bay on the Davis Strait at the southeastern tip of Baffin Island, and Joe Ø Island in the Kennedy Channel , which belongs to Greenland .

literature

• Chauncey Loomis: Ebierbing (approx. 1837 - approx. 1881) . In: Arctic . Volume 39, No. 2, 1986, pp. 109-194 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Judith Charles: The Penny Papers: Imagining Margaret Penny (PDF; 425 kB). Master Thesis, Athabasca University, Athabasca, Alberta 2006, p. 24 (English).
2. ^ Richard Cull: A Description of Three Esquimaux from Kinnooksook, Hogarth Sound, Cumberland Strait . In: Journal of the Ethnological Society of London . Volume 4, 1856, pp. 215-225 (English).
3. ↑ characteristic Harper: Tookoolito and Ebierbing visit the Queen . In: Nunatsiaq News on July 10, 2020, accessed on May 31, 2021.
4. ↑ Kenn Harper: Ebierbing, Hannah (Tookoolito) and Joe . In: Mark Nuttall (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Arctic . tape 1 . Routledge, New York and London 2003, ISBN 1-57958-436-5 , pp. 520-522 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
5. ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 283 (English, limited preview in Google Book search).
6. ^ Fergus Fleming : Ninety degrees north. Der Traum vom Pol , Piper, 2004, ISBN 3-492-24205-7 , p. 123.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Kenn Harper: The Short Life and Sad Death of Tarralikitaq . In: Nunatsiaq News on February 29, 2008, accessed on March 19, 2021.
8. ↑ Kenn Harper: Review of Sheila Nickerson's book Midnight to the North , accessed March 19, 2021.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Kenn Harper: March 18, 1875 - The death of a daughter . In: Nunatsiaq News on March 17, 2006, accessed on March 19, 2021.
10. ↑ Jean Malaurie : Myth of the North Pole. 200 years of expedition history . National Geographic Germany, 2003, ISBN 3-936559-20-1 , p. 150.
11. ^ CH Davis: Narrative of the North Polar Expedition, US Ship Polaris, Captain Charles Francis Hall Commanding . Government Printing Office, Washington 1876, p. 584 .
12. ↑ JA MacGahan: Under the Northern Lights: The Cruise of the Pandora , Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, London 1876, pp. 137 ff. (English).
13. ^ Frederick Schwatka: The Search for Franklin . Nelson & Sons, Edinburgh / New York 1882, p. 24 (English).
14. ^ William H. Glider: Schwatkas Search: Sledging in the Arctic in Quest of the Franklin Records . Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1881, p. 58 (English).
15. ↑ Ipirvik and Taqulittuq (Ebierbing and Tookoolito) National Historic Person . Designations of National Historic Signifigance, Parks Canada, accessed March 19, 2021.
16. ↑ Kenn Harper: Hannah and Joe on the Map . In: Nunatsiaq News on June 27, 2008, accessed on March 19, 2021.