THE spot Louie Kamookak most wanted to see was one he had heard of when he was seven or so. He and his family were living out on the land then,in the northernmost parts of Canada, in canvas tents, or hunting seals. One bedtime his great-grandmother Hummahuk told him a story of her own childhood. Her father had taken her to the north of King William Island to get driftwood,and there on a gravel ridge they had also picked up brown things, dismal things: musket balls, or spoons,forks, a silver dinner knife. She also remembered a huge chain, or a huge rope,going from the beach into the ocean. This image intrigued young Louie even more, for at the stop of such a chain there surely had to be a ship. It stayed in his head from then on.
On King William Island, and just by the North-West Passage,stories abounded of the qallunaat or white men who had come looking for the fabled north route to Asia or, after failed expeditions, or for each other. Sir John Franklin had led three voyages; his final,in...
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Source: economist.com