Taissumani, March 12

James Mutch at Pond’s Bay

KENN HARPER

In 1902 a Scottish ship-owner, J. M. M. Mitchell, established the Dundee Pond’s Bay Company and purchased a sturdy little vessel, the Albert.
She — it’s peculiar that ships are called “she” even when they have names like Albert — she had been built in 1890 at Fellows’ Yard in Great...

Taissumani, March 5

James Mutch, Arctic Whaler

KENN HARPER

When I moved north and learned Inuktitut, I began to hear elders speak of a legendary qallunaaq who had been an important figure in the whaling days on the east coast of Baffin Island.
Most whalers of the time were given Inuktitut names – like Sivutiksaq (William Duval), or...

Taissumani, Feb. 26

Samuel Kleinschmidt, Greenlandic Language Pioneer

KENN HARPER

Samuel Kleinschmidt was a most remarkable man.
He lived at a time and place which ideally suited him to carry on the earlier Greenlandic language work of Poul Egede and Otto Fabricius. Moreover, he was a writer, printer, cartographer, scientist, sociologist and missionary, as well...

Taissumani, Feb. 19

Inuit Language Pioneer — Otto Fabricius, Part 2

KENN HARPER

(Continued from last week.)

Otto Fabricius made his mark on scientific scholarship of the last 1700s and early 1800s with his publications on the zoology, ethnography and language of Greenland.
He built, of course, on the earlier work of his friend, Paul Egede. His works, in...

Taissumani, Feb. 12

Inuit Language Pioneer - Otto Fabricius, Part 1

KENN HARPER

Otto Fabricius was born in Denmark on March 13, 1744, the son of a clergyman, who was a friend of Hans Egede, the first missionary to Greenland.

Greenland was often a topic of conversation at the vicarage where Fabricius grew up and Hans Egede was a frequent visitor. Otto’s older...