One of the few biographies of an Inuk man from the 19th Century—separated from his family, community, and language—finding his place in history.
Augustine Tataneuck was an Inuk man born near the beginning of the 19th century on the northwestern coast of Hudson Bay. Between 1812 and 1834, his family sent him to Churchill, Manitoba, to live and work among strangers, where he could escape the harsh Arctic climate and earn a living in the burgeoning fur trade. He was perhaps the first Inuk man employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a labourer, and he also worked as an interpreter on John Franklin’s two overland expeditions in search of the northwest passage.
Tataneuck’s life was shaped by the inescapable, harsh environments he lived within, and he was an important, but not widely recognized, player in the struggle for the possession of northwest North America waged by Britain, Russia, and the United States. He left no diaries or letters.
Using the Hudson’s Bay Company’s journals and historical archives, historian Renee Fossett has pieced together a compelling biography of Augustine and the historical times he lived through: climate disasters, lethal disease episodes, and political upheavals on an international scale.
While The Life and Times of Augustine Tataneuck is a captivating portrait of an Inuk man who lived an extraordinary life, it also is an arresting, unique glimpse into the North as it was in the 19th century and into the lives of trappers, translators, and labourers who are seldom written about and often absent in the historical record.
Augustine Tataneuck was an Inuk man born near the beginning of the 19th century on the northwestern coast of Hudson Bay. Between 1812 and 1834, his family sent him to Churchill, Manitoba, to live and work among strangers, where he could escape the harsh Arctic climate and earn a living in the burgeoning fur trade. He was perhaps the first Inuk man employed by the Hudson’s Bay Company as a labourer, and he also worked as an interpreter on John Franklin’s two overland expeditions in search of the northwest passage.
Tataneuck’s life was shaped by the inescapable, harsh environments he lived within, and he was an important, but not widely recognized, player in the struggle for the possession of northwest North America waged by Britain, Russia, and the United States. He left no diaries or letters.
Using the Hudson’s Bay Company’s journals and historical archives, historian Renee Fossett has pieced together a compelling biography of Augustine and the historical times he lived through: climate disasters, lethal disease episodes, and political upheavals on an international scale.
While The Life and Times of Augustine Tataneuck is a captivating portrait of an Inuk man who lived an extraordinary life, it also is an arresting, unique glimpse into the North as it was in the 19th century and into the lives of trappers, translators, and labourers who are seldom written about and often absent in the historical record.
Authors
- Pages
- 504
- Published in
- Canada
Table of Contents
- CONTENTS 7
- LIST OF MAPS 9
- PREFACE 17
- INTRODUCTION TO 23
- AUGUSTINES WORLD 23
- THE INUIT THE COMPANY AND CHURCHILL POST 35
- 1812 35
- THE APPRENTICE 61
- 1813 1820 61
- THE FIRST ARCTIC OVERLAND EXPEDITION 91
- 1819 1822 91
- FIRST JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ARCTIC 101
- 1820 1821 101
- DEATH AND SURVIVAL 121
- 1821 1822 121
- REORGANIZING AND RETRENCHING THE COMPANY 149
- 1822 1824 149
- THE ENGAGED SERVANT 155
- 1822 1824 155
- THE SECOND ARCTIC OVERLAND EXPEDITION 171
- 1824 1825 171
- SECOND JOURNEY TO THE WESTERN ARCTIC 183
- 1824 1826 183
- JOURNEY TO THE POLAR SEA 209
- 1826 1827 209
- AUGUSTINE ULLEBUK AND MOSES 243
- 1827 1830 243
- THE NORTHEAST EXPEDITION 271
- 1830 271
- THE UNGAVA ADVENTURE 279
- 1830 1833 279
- FAITHFUL DISINTERESTED KIND-HEARTED CREATURE 309
- 1833 1834 309
- THE FAMILIES 321
- 1834 1863 321
- EPILOGUE 341
- MEMORIALS 351
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 353
- GLOSSARY 357
- NOTES 361
- INDEX 403
