On May 19, 1845 two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, set sail from Greenhithe, England under the command of Captain Sir John Franklin. The purpose of their expedition was to investigate and survey one of the last parts of the Canadian Arctic that had yet to be documented. This was one of the last necessary elements in discovering the Northwest Passage.
It was long believed that a navigable route could be found through the Canadian Arctic archipelago that would link Europe and Asia. This had the potential of reducing the time necessary to travel between say England and China and boost trade between the two regions. The Franklin Expedition travelled first to Disko Bay in the Whalefish Islands off the coast of Greenland where it picked up additional provisions, dispatched letters home and discharged five sailors back to England. The remaining 129 men then set forth towards King William Island.
It has been difficult to completely piece together the subsequent events that sealed the fates of the Erebus and the Terror. It is believed that around September of 1846 the two ships became trapped in the ice of the coast of King William Island. The ships were quite technologically advanced for the times and were by the standards of the day well suited to Arctic exploration. Each had a steam engine from a railway locomotive fitted to enable them to motor through the waters at 4 knots. They also had bows reinforced with heavy beams and plates of iron to push through ice. Nevertheless, the choice of route lead them to an area which we now know remains choked with ice throughout the summer. They were unable to sail again.
As an aside, had they travelled around the other side of the island as did the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen fifty years later Franklin may have been the first to seal through the Northwest Passage.
Of course back in England it was not known that the expedition had become stuck and it would not be until 1848 that search parties would be sent out. Unfortunately, the first few searches found no evidence of the final resting place of the two ships. Finally a sledge expedition to King William Island found a cairn that contained two messages. The first dated May 28 1847 reported that Erebus and Terror had wintered in the ice off the northwest coast of King William Island and had wintered earlier at Beechey Island. The second, dated April 25, 1848 reported that the surging crews had finally abandoned the ships and set of by land to find rescue. It also need that Captain Franklin had died the previous June.
Subsequently despite many efforts searches failed to find the final resting place of the two ships. Several of the searches including two expeditions between 1860 and 1869 by Charles Francis Hall relied on information provided by local Inuits regarding sighting of qallunaat (“white people”) and were able to find camps, graves, and relics on the southern coast of King William Island. The stories told to Hall included information that Inuit hunters had boarded two abandoned ships (1850), had seen up to 40 white people sledging their way south (1850), and had seen 4 people walking south (1851).
Flash forward more than one hundred years and a young Inuit boy from the community of Gjoa Haven(named after Roald Amundsen’s vessel the Gjoa) is taken to a gravesite of a fur trader known as Siberian Mike who reportedly had committed suicide. The boy though notices that there is a bullet wound in the top of the fur traders skull which would rule out death at his own hand. That boy, Louie Kamookak, would go on to study history and anthropology and leave the legacy of being Canada’s leading Inuit oral historian. He would play a vital role in the discovery of HMS Erebus in 2014 and two years later in 2016 the finding of HMS Terror.
Kamookak’s revelation was that oral history suffered quite naturally from inaccuracy, particularly after more than one hundred years had passed and the original witnesses had long since passed away. He believed though by gathering the information from many sources and analyzing it along with known facts he would be able to create a narrative that would explain exactly what had happened.
Over three decades of patient research he interviewed many elders. By listening to their stories he was able to piece together a cohesive storyline. He also studied the accounts of Knud Rasmussen, an ethnographer of Danish and Greenlandic ethnicity, who had travelled through the area in the 1920s on the Fifth Thule Expedition, and talked to Inuit about all aspects of their traditions. Rasmussen became one of Louie’s heroes for the simple reason that he listened to Inuit and wrote down what he learned from them.
By melding together the folklore and the available evidence Kamookak helped Parks Canada divers locate the Erebus right where Inuit had always said it would be found. The Terror, was also found where Inuit had expected it to be.
Unfortunately Louie Kamookak died of cancer on March 22, 2018 at the age of 58. In addition to being remembered as being instrumental in helping us complete the start of the Franklin expedition’s fate Kamookakshould be remembered for his role in demonstrating the power of oral history and its importance in shaping the culture of Canada.
Oral history has now become an important element in determining the inherent rights of Canada’s indigenous people including rights of Aboriginal title. In Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R.the court identified the unique nature of Aboriginal title and that, amongst other characteristics, the source of the claim to a given area of land arises from (1) occupation of Canada by Aboriginal peoples prior to the Royal Proclamation of 1763: under common law principles, the physical fact of occupation is proof of possession in law; and (2) the relationship between common law and pre-existing systems of Aboriginal law.
What is important about this case is that it affirmed that oral history evidence was admissible. Subsequently, in the groundbreaking case of Xeni Gwet’in First Nations (William) v. British Columbia, 2014 SCC 44 oral history was admitted to support the notion that Aboriginal title is not restricted to small, intensively used sites, but extends to all the territory that a First Nation regularly and exclusively used when Crown asserted sovereignty. This is an important case because it was the first to absolutely affirm Aboriginal title.
Any naysayers who doubt the veracity of relying on oral history as evidence in law to advance a land claim should consider the work of Louie Kamookak. He demonstrated the power of oral history in solving a great mystery. Moreover, his work shows us that we have much more to learn about Canada’s people and our sui generis collective history.