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be doing, I didn’t know who would be
there, I didn’t know anybody else who was
going, and they didn’t fill me in on what
would be involved. The only information
that I had was the press releases.”
While on board, each member of the
expedition was asked to prepare a presentation. Before leaving, Baikie had asked
the national Inuit government which of
their initiatives she should highlight in her
presentation. She was advised to give an
overview of Inuit culture instead.
“So I did,” Baikie recalls, “and everybody was shocked because previously
they knew so little. And from that day on I
became a spokesperson. It was challenging
because I’m not from there. I’m from the
East. I don’t have any of that Traditional
Knowledge. I can’t tell you the oral histories about Franklin.
“So it was good in the sense that I
gave them an education about what Inuit
society looks like today, our history, what
we live like today, and what we hope for
the future, and what it means to have our
own self-government, a national selfgovernment. Because nobody really knew
anything about Inuit culture and society,
which was so shocking and so sad.
“It was a big honour to be there with
everybody, and to be a part of history in
that way, but it was disappointing that I
didn’t get to be a part of the search.”
Due to the high level of secrecy on
the expedition, Baikie didn’t learn that
the Erebus had been found until after she
returned home. Out for brunch with her
roommate, she learned about the success
of the expedition via CBC news alert.
Inuit knew the location of the ship as
part of their oral history, but this knowledge had not previously been used when
searching for the lost ships, a fact which
infuriates Baikie. “If somebody told you
that you dropped your keys right here,
isn’t that where would look first? I mean
I get it, it’s the Arctic, and it’s the ocean,
and erosion happens, and movement of
seabeds happens, but the general area…
So that’s one of my biggest criticisms, and
a way that again, we are not included, with
our knowledge.
“They’re still looking for the second
ship; this year’s expedition is i ncorporating
Traditional Knowledge. It has a member of
the community of Gjoa Haven on board,
Forager 2 Fall 2015
Hunters making their way back into the community of Nain
the closest community to the place of the
ship... this year’s expedition has an Inuktitut name.” Baikie has not been a part of
the search for the Terror, the second of Sir
John Franklin’s lost ships. Like the rest of
us, she has been following the status and
involvement of Inuit through the media
and press releases.
“It is an important part of our history,
and it is an important part of the Arctic,
and I agree that Canadians should have
sovereignty over that, but the timeliness
of everything, and the manner that they’re
doing it in…
“The book exists of the Traditional
Knowledge around Franklin. There is a
published book —you can buy it— about
the Inuit oral history of the Franklin
expedition. If you go to Nunavut today or
twenty years ago, fifty years ago, community members could tell you where things
were. They knew the history, because it
was oral history that was passed down for
decades. And it has always existed.
“So I think that while Canada is
telling the narrative of its nationality and
sovereignty in the Canadian Arctic that,
before it starts celebrating a failed expedition of a British man in Inuit country,
that first it should talk about who lives
there. Who has always lived there. Who
has always survived and thrived there.
First you tell that narrative, and first you
support those people.
“To me it’s ingrained, because it’s
who I am; my Inuit culture and identity
Hopedale, Newfoundland and Labrador during field work in 2013
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