Echoing Silence: Essays on Arctic Narrative

241 Pages·1997·13.1 MB·English

by  John Moss

Echoing Silence:
Essays on
Artie Narrative
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20 REAPPRAISALS:
CANADIAN
WRITERS
Echoing Silence:
Essays on
Artie Narrative
Edited with a Preface by
JOHN MOSS
University of Ottawa Press
T
Canadian Writers
GERALD LYNCH
General Editor
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Echoing Silence: Essays on Arctic Narrative
(Reappraisals, Canadian Writers; 20)
Papers originally presented at the Symposium on Arctic Narrative,
University of Ottawa, spring 1995.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7766-0441-4
I. Canada, Northern, in literature. 2. Canadian literature—History and criticism
3. Canadian literature—Inuit authors—History and criticism. 4. Canadian
literature—Women authors—History and criticism. I. Moss, John, 1940-
II. Symposium on Arctic Narrative (1995: University of Ottawa). III. Series.
PS8101.A73E341997 C810.9'32719 C97-900552-3
PR9185.5.A7E34 1997
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the University of Ottawa
Faculty of Arts Research Fund.
University of Ottawa Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its pub-
lishing programme by the Canada Council, the Department of Canadian Heritage,
and the University of Ottawa.
t^^\ UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA
SB UNIVERSITE D'OTTAWA
Cover Design: Robert Dolbec
Cover Illustration: Judith Currelly, Phantom Herd, 1993, Oil on panel, 48 x 72 in.,
Diane Farris Gallery.
"All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, re-
cording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writ-
ing from the publisher."
ISBN 0-776&044M
© University of Ottawa Press, 1997
542 King Edward, Ottawa (Ont.), Canada KIN 6N5
[email protected] http://www.uopress.uottawa.ca
printed and bound in Canada
Contents
Echoing Silence: Preface
JOHN Moss 1
Documenting the Oral History of the Inuvialuit
NELLIE COURNOYEA 7
An Arctic Affair
GRAHAM ROWLEY 15
Coursing a Naked Country
RUDY WlEBE 23
An Early Meeting of Cultures:
Inuit and English, 1576-1578
H.G.JONES 33
"All,Well":(cid:13)(cid:10)
Narrating the Third Franklin Expedition
EDWARD PARKINSON 43
Inuit Accounts and the Franklin Mystery
DAVID C. WOODMAN 53
Science as Poetic and Visual Narrative:
J. Dewey Soper (1893-1982)
CONSTANCE MARTIN 61
On Making History
WAYNE GRADY 69
Creating Willem Barentsz; Piloting North
ARITHA VAN HERK 79
Thirsty for Life: A Nomad Learns to Write and Draw
ALOOTOOK IPELLIE 93
VI
Speech Habits and Inuit Ethos
HAROLD HORWOOD 103
Farley Mowat, Harold Horwood: Conversations
(cid:13)(cid:10)EDITED BY ANGELA ROBBESON 107
Approaches of White Regret:
John Steffler's The Afterlife of George Carturright
and Harold Horwood's White Eskimo
JOAN STRONG 113
Places of Spirit, Spirits of Place:
The Northern Contemplations of Rudy Wiebe,
Aritha van Herk, and John Moss
A(cid:10)(cid:13) RON SENKPIEL 123
Questions of Being:
An Exploration of Enduring Dreams
LORRIE GRAHAM AND TIM WILSON 137
The Spirit of the Arctic
or Translating the Untranslatable in Rudy Wiebe's
A Discovery of Strangers
KENNETH HOEPPNER 145
Go North Young Woman:
Representations of the Arctic in the Writings
of Aritha van Herk
MARLENE GOLDMAN 153
Gendering Northern Narrative
(cid:13)(cid:10)SHERRILL E. GRACE 163
"A Brave Boy's Story for Brave Boys":
Adventure Narrative Engendering
(cid:13)(cid:10)RENEE HULAN 183
Imagination and Spirituality:
Written Narratives and the Oral Tradition
SHELAGH D. GRANT 191
VII
The Sea Goddess Sedna: An Enduring Pan-Arctic Legend
from Traditional Orature to the New Narratives of the Late
Twentieth Century
MICHAEL P. J. KENNEDY 211
Stories: "Skeleton Woman," "Woman of the Sea"
MARY CARPENTER 225
Contributors 231
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Echoing Silence: Preface
JOHN MOSS
T
he Honourable Nellie Cournoyea said, "call me
Nellie." Graham Rowley, thirty-some years my senior, although I'm a
grandfather, was equally casual. Rudy Wiebe, whom I've known since
before he won the first of two Governor General's Awards, was character-
istically informal. Nellie spoke not as the premier of the Northwest Terri-
tories but as an Inuk on the values in collecting the elders' stories; she was
followed by Graham, after whom a district of Baffin is named, who related
to us his experience as an Arctic explorer between the Wars, when it still
seemed there was an unexplored Arctic; and Rudy completed the panoply
with a wonderous conflation of historical document and the literary imag-
ination. This was the opening session of the Symposium on Arctic Narra-
tive held at the University of Ottawa in the spring of 1995. Variant
authority and casual eloquence anticipated the program to follow, in
which from the apparent silences of the Arctic we could hear echoing
among us the words of its innumerable stories.
It is important to acknowledge that this book began as a social
event. The essays gathered here were shared first in oral presentation,
many of them having been conceived for oral delivery. Their arrangement
now, as it was then, is orchestrated to generate and convey maximum res-
onance. Through the course of a highly charged weekend, proscriptive
limitations inherent in the contemporary academic version of oral tradi-
tion were again and again challenged by the power of spoken language,
from such a broad variety of perspectives, to gather listeners into a spon-
taneous community. Disparities of opinion or ideology, race or sex, resolve
to the ear in a way they cannot when read—not in harmony but, through
tolerance, in symphonic diversity. The reader must listen to this text, if it is
to be appreciated as more than a document of passing common interests.