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Kanaka
The Inuit hunter and trader Kanaka was an important liaison between whalers and Inuit in the early 20th century. What is known about him comes from ships' records from that era. He was born around 1855, probably near Cape Haven, in the years just after whaling ships crews began to winter ashore. He was reputed to be the son of a black Azorean whaler, a Portugee, working aboard a New England whaling ship. Kanaka was known to have resisted conversion to Christianity by missionaries, although it is recorded that he eventually converted sometime around 1903.
Living and working in his earlier years on Blacklead Island, Kanaka would have developed an ability to communicate with whalers in the pidgin English used at the time. In 1903, he and another Inuk whaler, Ohitok, were invited to move their families to Igarjuak near Pond Inlet to hunt whales for a Scottish company. It turned out that whales were no longer abundant in these waters, however Kanaka's hunting skills contributed largely to the company's take of other goods such as ivory and animal skins. While in Pond Inlet he also served as hunter and guide for Joseph-Elzéar Bernier's 1906-07 expedition.
When the Igarjuak whaling station closed in 1910, Kanaka moved on to Kivitoo and eventually to Cape Mercy in Cumberland Sound, where he continued to work for the Scottish whaler James S. Mutch. At Kivitoo and Cape Mercy, Kanaka established trading posts for Captain Mutch and the Sabellum Trading Company he sailed for. For a time, the area was known to sailors as Kanacker or Kanacker Inlet, although the name didn't last in official records.
In the 1920s the Hudson's Bay Company began to assert its monopoly over northern trade, and Kanaka's old age was spent trading and travelling in the area of Cumberland Sound.
Based on a text by Philip Goldring (Goldring 2000). Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online.