Aulajijakka (Things I Remember)

Description

‘The Wreck of the Nascopie’ story from the ‘Aulajijakka (Things I Remember)’ series by Kananginak Pootoogook – Inuit Art – Cape Dorset 2010 print collection by Dorset Fine Arts, presented by DaVic Gallery of Native Canadian Arts.

Condition:          No condition noted.

Description by Artist:     No description by the artist found.

Notes from DaVic Gallery:  The series “Aulajijakka” (Things I Remember) by Kananginak Pootoogook are all signed posthumously by the artist’s son, Johnny Pootoogook.

The Nascopie was a Hudson’s Bay Company 285 foot long steamer-icebreaker named for the First Nations peoples of Quebec and Labrador that was built in Scotland in 1911.  In 1912 she set sail on the first of 34 voyages into the Canadian Arctic, serving as a supply ship for the Hudson’s Bay Company’s northern outposts. The vessel steamed north each year, once going as far as Robertson Fjord in Greenland.

The Nascopie played a key role in the Canadian Arctic providing vital supplies to the RCMP and the fur traders as well as transporting many RCMP and traders to the North. The Nascopie was a constant presence in relatively untraveled waters. Besides serving as a cargo vessel in both world wars (and even engaging an enemy submarine north of Murmansk) the Nascopie also spent a great deal of time traveling from Canada to Great Britain.

In 1947, the Nascopie struck an uncharted reef off Beacon Island at the entrance to Cape Dorset harbour. With the ship crippled, the crew and cargo were evacuated. The ship remained stranded on the reef for over two months when on September 25, the Nascopie broke in half during a storm and her partly submerged bow sank. Three weeks later, another storm swept the rest of the ship off the reef and into the water.