[LINK] On a 19th century Inuit encounter with the walking dead ... of the Franklin expedition
The National Post's Tristan Hopper reports on how the oral traditions of the Inuit describe their encounter, in the 19th century, with the "walking dead" of the Franklin expedition.
It was easily one of the most unearthly and chilling visions that had ever struck the land that would soon become Canada.
Eight or nine lurching figures: Their eyes vacant, their skin blue, unable to talk and barely alive.
It was sometime before 1850 at a remote Arctic hunting camp near the southwest edge of King William Island, an Arctic island 1,300 km northwest of what is now Iqaluit, Nunavut. And these “beings” had seemingly materialized out of nowhere.
“They’re not Inuit; they’re not human,” was how a woman, badly shaking with fright, first reported their arrival to the assembled camp.
They were all gathered in an igloo. The men of the camp were away seal hunting, leaving only the women, children and one old man.
As the group tried to process the terrifying reality of what they’d just heard, the crunching footsteps of the strangers got closer.
“Everyone got scared. Very, very scared,” was how the Gjoa Haven shaman Nicholas Qayutinuaq described the encounter to historian Dorothy Eber in 1999. The story was included in Eber’s 2008 book Encounters on the Passage.
It was easily one of the most unearthly and chilling visions that had ever struck the land that would soon become Canada.
Eight or nine lurching figures: Their eyes vacant, their skin blue, unable to talk and barely alive.
It was sometime before 1850 at a remote Arctic hunting camp near the southwest edge of King William Island, an Arctic island 1,300 km northwest of what is now Iqaluit, Nunavut. And these “beings” had seemingly materialized out of nowhere.
“They’re not Inuit; they’re not human,” was how a woman, badly shaking with fright, first reported their arrival to the assembled camp.
They were all gathered in an igloo. The men of the camp were away seal hunting, leaving only the women, children and one old man.
As the group tried to process the terrifying reality of what they’d just heard, the crunching footsteps of the strangers got closer.
“Everyone got scared. Very, very scared,” was how the Gjoa Haven shaman Nicholas Qayutinuaq described the encounter to historian Dorothy Eber in 1999. The story was included in Eber’s 2008 book Encounters on the Passage.