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Naujaqtalik
also known to qallunaat as Naujateling, Niantilic, Niatlic, etc.
Naujaqtalik, meaning it has a seagull colony, is an island that shelters an excellent harbour in Cumberland Sound. Whalers referred to both the harbour and the island by the same name. It is about eight kilometres southwest of Umanaqjuaq (Blacklead Island).
Before the arrival of qallunaat, Naujaqtalik was the most southerly settlement of the Talirpingmiut, the people of the west side of Cumberland Sound. Talirpingmiut came to Naujaqtalik in the fall to hunt seals in the surrounding fjords and channels. The island provided shelter against fall storms and made hunting easier and safer. After freeze-up each year, these people moved to Umanaqjuaq. They hunted bears and young seals in the spring, lived near Idjorituaqtuin and Qimmiqsut in the summer, went on their annual inland caribou hunt and then returned to Naujaqtalik every fall.
Because of its harbour and its fall Inuit population, Naujaqtalik became a very popular overwintering site for qallunaat ships. The whalers attracted even more Inuit to the area. In 1848, Naujaqtalik was home to 160 Inuit. In 1853, a single captain hired as many as 50 of them, and Naujaqtalik developed a reputation as a profitable site. The mate of the Andrews happily recorded in 1865 that the ships at Naujaqtalik were full of oil and baleen. "There is quite a number of natives here, he added, and [they appear] to be quite friendly." Ships continued to overwinter at Naujaqtalik for several decades although the trade increasingly centred on Kekerten and Umanaqjuaq's shore whaling stations.
The Inuit population of Naujaqtalik declined: it was recorded as only a few in 1877 and as 20 in 1883. Some families relocated elsewhere. Throughout the whaling period, Inuit continued to move into, through and out of Cumberland Sound following seasonal patterns and seizing new opportunities. Still, the decline in Naujaqtalik's population must have been partly due to a high death rate. Naujaqtalik was a traditional fall camp, not a great year-round sealing location. With dozens of new people overwintering in the area, and with inducements to stay close to whaling ships rather than travel to better hunting grounds, many Inuit died of starvation. In the winter of 1847-48, 20 of the 170 inhabitants starved to death. Several of them had eaten the flesh of their own arms. Disease struck often as well. It was especially common in the late fall when there was little food left in reserve, there were many storms and the ice was not yet strong enough for hunting. In 1853, a cholera epidemic killed one-third of the Inuit living at Naujaqtalik Harbour. People also suffered from tuberculosis, diphtheria and sexually-transmitted diseases.
Qallunaat died at Naujaqtalik as well, most often from scurvy, a Vitamin C deficiency. Inuit got plenty of Vitamin C from fresh country food, but if qallunaat ate only hard bread and preserved meats on board their ships for many months, they would eventually die. Some qallunaat understood that country food or lime juice could save them, but many did not. They tried different methods of curing the sick that ultimately failedlike making them get exercise or burying their legs in the ground. In the spring of 1857, five men on board the overwintering ship Alibi perished from scurvy at Naujaqtalik. In early 1878, an Inuk reported that scurvy was once again raging among the men at [Naujaqtalik].
It is not surprising that there are many Inuit graves near Naujaqtalik and that the neighbouring island of Inukjuaq has one of the largest qallunaat graveyards in Cumberland Sound. The headstones once listed the names and hometowns of men buried there. One tombstone, for a 25-year-old named George Norrie, reads, "Deeply regretted by all". He was buried next to his father. Both of them had perished in the same place, far from their home in Scotland.
This article was co-written by Karen Routledge and Andrew Dialla
NOTES :
Andrews log, 1865-1867.
Chummy reported in Howgate, ed., The Cruise of the Florence, 69.
Benjamin Hoppin, A Diary Kept With the Peary Arctic Expedition of 1896, 73-74.