Helen had read extensively in the ethnography, linguistics, and history of the Hudson Bay regionâin Japanese, French, Englishâwhereas I had lacked industry. I quote my zoology professor, Arvin Williams, who said, “You don't lack know-how or IQ, you lack industry.” When I saw Helen's arctic bibliography listed in one of her notebooks, I could only manage a feeble understatement, “You really did your homework, didn't you?” though of course, considering her years in the arctic, she was far beyond being a student.
How
had
I prepared? Only by reading a few nineteenth-century explorers' journals, a few ethnographic monographs (I had one on Inuit kayaks with me in Churchill), and a general history of northern expansion. I had listened to several “instructional” tapes in Inuit, to at least apprentice myself to the sound of the language, if little else. And I'd worked with an Inuit speaker, Mrs. Roy Barnes, the wife of a schoolteacher in Toronto; Mrs. Barnes was an Inuit woman, age fifty-four, who had been born in Rankin Inlet but partly raised in several Caribou Inuit communities. I met with Mrs. Barnes for five hours four days a week for three weeks at my apartment on Ulster Street in Toronto, during which
time she did not speak English at all. She always brought cookies or carrot cake. She had constructed actual lessons, stuck assiduously to her lesson plans, the result of which was that I gained a basic Inuit vocabulary and perhaps tentative confidence in my potential ability to speak it. But after our last lesson, as we shared cookies and coffee, when Mrs. Barnes smiled and said, “You have a good ear for this language,” it seemed less a compliment, or encouragement, than what was left below the line in an old-fashioned vertical arithmetic: subtract all that I wasn't or perhaps would never be, what remained was that I “heard” with some accuracy. “You shouldn't expect too much from just three weeks.”
Hidden in this kind advice, I felt, was a forecast of linguistic doom.
“Plainly stated,” Helen said, “it's a very, very difficult language.”
As for my lack of intellectual preparation, Helen did not mince words. “Unprofessional, really,” she said, wagging a finger like a schoolmarm. On the other hand, it was instructive and even solacing when Helen acknowledged that the actual experiences one has in a place to a great extent displace research. “I've noticed this time and again,” she said. “No matter how much you read, no matter how many people you talk to in advance, so much flies out the window within a few hours. I'm not suggesting you don't consider research part of being a good linguist, or translator. I'm only saying that the minute you step off the airplane much of itâwhat's the right American phrase?âtakes a backseat. For instance,
you can read every study in existence about polar bears, but when you first see oneâ”
“I feel pretty stupid, though, not reading âevery study in existence.'”
“Look at it this way,” Helen said, laughing a little, “no researchâno preconceptions. Blank mind, good mindâas Buddhists might say, or something close to that.”
Given the vast discrepancy, however, between Helen's and my “book knowledge,” as she put it, I was absolutely thrilled to discover that indeed we did have one book in common. When I saw it on her desk I said, no doubt with unbridled glee, “Hey, I own that! I've read that!”
“Oh, I've read it any number of times,” Helen said. “It's remarkable, isn't it?”
The book was
Narrative of a Voyage to Hudson's Bay in His Majesty's Ship
Rosamond
(subtitled
on the cover
, containing some account of THE NORTH-EASTERN COAST OF AMERICA AND THE TRIBES INHABITING THAT REMOTE REGION
), written by Lieutenant Edward Chappell, R.N., and published in London in 1817.
“Where did you find it?” Helen said.
“In a used-book store in Toronto. In a stack of things. You?”
“Less, uh, accidentally.”
“I like the written language, the sound of it, you know. It reads like a novel.”
“That was the language of the time it was written in. Educated, formal, somewhatâwhat? Florid.”
“You meanâ?”
“I mean, even a very ignorant, even a bigoted observation can be obfuscatedâhidden a bitâbecause of the
flair
of the writing. Some terrible stupidities in these old journals, condescensions, toward
Esquimaux
âyou know, the French derivation. The sound of the language, the style, is all intimate and full of astonishment in some of those journals. Part of it might've been historical naivete, but part, I think, tries to convince a king or someone, a reader, of the superiority of the writer's culture. France or England, et cetera. My literature professor said style is suspect; you want it to serve clarity, to serve actual intent.”
“I'm a bit over my head with that, Helen.”
“All I'm referring to is: the old explorers' journals are sometimes written by men of great vision and sympathy and understanding, but sometimes there's an arrogance and narrow, belligerent philosophy that doesn't allow for actual experienceâyou know, what is right there in front of youâto have any effect whatsoever.”
“Did you find this true of Chappell?”
“Not usually, no. And his report is full of wonderful descriptions and events. And some lovely passages; you could almost recite them like a poem.”
I picked up her copy and read from a middle page at whim, which, ironically, had to do with Churchill: “âWhilst we were at
York Fort
, we received information that the factory at
Churchill
had been burnt to the ground, in the month of
November,
1813. The miseries which the people of that place suffered during the remainder of the winter were very great. As there were seventy-three chests of gunpowder in the warehouse at the time the conflagration took place, their
whole attention was occupied in removing away the powder to prevent an explosion; and by the most strenuous exertions they succeeded in this undertaking; but the time lost prevented their being able to save a mouthful of provisions, or a single utensil, from the flames. An old outhouse that had escaped destruction, and a few tents which they erected of reindeer skins, served them as habitations during the remainder of the winter; and, as if Providence had taken especial care to provide for their necessities, partridges abounded to a greater degree than had been known for many years before. Of course, these birds proved a seasonable supply to the sufferers; particularly as the partridges are so very tame, that they suffer themselves to be driven into nets, by which means large quantities are taken at one time.
“âA family in England would be justly esteemed objects of great pity, if they were burnt out of their home in the midst of winter, although many friendly habitations might be humanely open for their reception. What then, comparatively speaking, must have been the situation of the
Churchill
peopleâdriven out by the flames in the middle of a
November
night, on the shores of a frozen ocean, with the thermometer meter 78° below the freezing point, without any shelter save that of a decayed outhouse, no bedding, no cooking utensils, no immediate nourishment, and no final prospect of relief, except from a reliance on the adventitious aid of their fowling-pieces! Such a night must surely be allowed to have had its share of horrors. But heroic strength of mind is the characteristic of the
European
traders to
Hudson's Bay;
and this alone enabled the people of
Churchill
to escape all the evils attendant on such a calamity.'”
Helen nodded and said, “I wonder if those âpeople of Churchill' asked the
Esquimaux
for help.”
“There seems to have been a lot of wood to trade for help, huh?”
“Not if Noah was mayor of Churchill. Isn't that what the head of a town, or town council, was called, âmayor'?”
“It might have been magistrate, I don't know. It could have been mayor.”
“I wonder if the memory of that explosion got handed down to Mark Nuqac's generation.”
“Why don't you read him that section of Chappell's report, Helen?”
“I just might.”
“Tell me his reaction if you do, okay?”
Helen took the book from me, paged through it, and found the passage she was looking for. “You just reminded me of something Lieutenant Chappell wroteâlisten to this; it's where some native people have got aboard the
Rosamond:
âOn board the ship, they were exceedingly curious in viewing everything: but however astonished or delighted they might appear in the first sight of any novelty, yet ten minutes was the utmost limit of their admiration. The pigs, cats, and fowls, attracted their attention in so remarkable a manner, as to indicate a certainty of their not having seen any such animal before.'”
“That sounds familiar!”
Helen improvised, “The giraffes, hippopotamus, gazelles, and lions attracted their attention ⦔
“Yep, it's important to see it from both points of view.
The Esquimaux's
and
Noah's. I mean, in order to maybe understand the stories better.”
Helen again read: “âShortly afterwards, we imagined that we could distinguish the sound of voices through the fog; we immediately beat the drum, to point out our situation; and, in a few minutes, we plainly heard the shouting of the
Esquimaux:
they soon came alongside the ship, with the usual expressions of delight. It is really surprising that this people should venture so far from the land, in such frail barks, through a mass of ice which is enough to daunt an
European,
even in a stout-built ship.'”
“That passage could apply to one of Mark's stories,” Helen said.
Toward the end of our stay in Churchill there was a particular evening and night on which Helen fell into a near-stupor of pain that seemed bereft even of the humor Helen could mine from her own despondency. I felt a definite panic, that the cancer her physicians predicted would give her more timeâmonths, in fact, if not a full yearâhad opted for murder
now.
Her groans, paleness, and grimaces scared me. It felt like an invisible murderer had entered the room.
“Helen, I think we should get you to a hospital, right now,” I said.
“I'm not doing what you think I might be doing.”
“You look pale, Helen. Your hands feel clammy.”
“I've been pale and clammy, as you say, ten thousand times. I ache deeply inside, and I'm having stupid, bad thoughts. Mark would say, âSpirits are using her.' Maybe they
are.” She dozed off for a moment, opened her eyes, and said, “Would you consider reading Lieutenant Chappell's report to me?”
“Of course. Yes.”
“Just until I nod off. I like that phrase, ânod off.'”
This was about eight o'clock or eight-thirty at night. I began to read from the preface, which, in Chappell's day, was called the
Advertisement:
“âTowards the close of the year 1814, a young naval officer, Lieutenant
Chappell,
of His Majesty's ship
Rosamond
,
who had recently returned, for the second time, from an expedition to the
North-eastern
coast of
America
, brought to
Cambridge
a collection of the dresses, weapons, &c. of the
Indians
inhabiting
Hudson's
Bay; requesting that I would represent these curiosities to the Public Library of the University.'”
The notion that Helen's exhaustion and medications, in concert with being read to, would act as a soporific proved falseâor, as Lieutenant Chappell wrote, a
falsehood of some note
âbecause Helen stayed awake through my reading of the
entirety
of Chappell's report,
Advertisement
all the way to page 246, where he ends the narrative proper by writing: “I shall here conclude this Narrative; merely adding, that the
Rosamond
and her convoy again sailed from the
Orkneys
on the 7th of
November
, and arrived safe at the
Nore
on the 17th of the same month; when an inspection having been made of the
Rosamond
's defects, she was reported to be totally unfit for sea, in consequence of the damage she had sustained amongst the ice of
Hudson's Straits
; and she was accordingly put out of commission, and immediately advertised to be sold out of His Majesty's service.”
(I did not read the Appendixes: “Statement of the Variation of the Compass,” “Table of the Voyages of the Company Ships, since the year 1773,” “Thermometrical Observations,” “Dresses, &c. OF THE ESQUIMAUX INDIANS in Hudson's Strait,”A Vocabulary of the LANGUAGE of the CREE or KNISTENEAUX INDIANS,” though the language in those was decidedly evocative.)
It was now about 2 or 3 a.m., I think, though more likely I had lost track of time, which is the best way to read, or listen to someone read. “Thank you, Howard Norman,” Helen said when I set the book down on the bedside table. “You're second only to the CBC announcers. Of course,
they're
not available upon request, are they.”