Was Mina one of the nineteen (a new record!) passengers seated in a row on the train, their thumbs working like automatons on their iGods?
Was it Mina whom I recently saw taking a selfie next to a statue of Paul Revere while holding the hand of a toddler who kept repeating over and over again, “Password, password, password…?”
Was it Mina who told me that she felt much worse when her computer crashed than when she had some sort of medical problem?
Did Mina exchange her vacuum cleaner for a computer, sit down, and never get up again?
A week or so after describing this putative Mina’s dance into Cyberia, I received an email from Taliriktuk’s daughter telling me of her father’s death.
All of the other Qiqiqtarmiut who’d talked to me about the 1941 murders had died. Now Taliriktuk, too. His daughter told me that he’d had a massive stroke not long after watching a DVD of Nanook of the North.
Taliriktuk’s daughter added: “When my dad wanted to learn about our culture, he watched this movie.”
Not only had I lost a friend, but I’d lost a friend who’d mistaken the screened world for the real one.
“How shall the heart be reconciled / to its feast of losses?” asked poet Stanley Kunitz.
I decided to reconcile my heart to Taliriktuk’s death by doing what I usually do when confronted by a loss—I went for a walk.
I walked until I reached the end of the world, where I heard a white-throated sparrow singing not “Poor Sam Peabody, Poor Sam Peabody,” its usual song, but “Bye Bye Nature, Bye Bye Nature,” a very different song.
Ajurnamaat. That’s the way it is.
GLOSSARY OF INUIT WORDS
angakok (pl. angakut)—shaman
atiq—soul
ayee!—wow! or great!
ee—yes
ijuruq—a ghost or phantom
ijurnarunaq—funny, laughable
Inuktitut—the Inuit language
kalopaling—a man-eating eider duck
kamik—a sealskin or bearskin boot
Naakalauk—Big Belly; euphemism for a white person
nanook—polar bear; also the name of the hero in Nanook of the North
qallunaak (pl. qallunaat)—white person
Qiqiqtarmiut—Inuit of the Belcher Islands (lit., “People of the Islands”)
qivitoq—A Greenlandic hermit with a cannibalistic bent
siuk (pl. siut)—ear
tupilak—a Greenlandic monster that eats human entrails
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Robert Pearson—for his diligent research into the Belcher murder trials and his scholarly essay on the subject
William Closson James—for his discussion of the Belcher murders in Locations of the Sacred
Ray Price—for his account of the Belcher murders in The Howling Arctic
The Stefansson Library at Dartmouth—for providing me with a typescript of the murder trials
Kim Cheechoo—for connecting me with elders in Moose Factory
Bill Fraser—for helping me with logistics in Sanikiluaq
Gary Moore—for offering a critique of this manuscript
Suzy Hunt—for both her splendid line drawings and her proofreading skills
Gretchen Wade—for her archival expertise
Russell Potter—for his photographs of Robert Flaherty
Rex Passion—for the map of Hudson Bay
Sylvie Cote Chew at the Avataq Cultural Institute—for providing me with photographs
Kenn Harper—for his expertise in Inuktitut
Marcia Markland and David Stanford Burr—for being a savvy editor and savvy copyeditor respectively
and
the Qiqiqtarmiut
Author seated on komatik (dogsled) (courtesy of the author)
Typical East Greenland village scene (courtesy of the author)
Female and male eider duck (courtesy of the author)
Belcher women processing eider down in the traditional way (courtesy of the author)
Nanook of the North listens to the voices inside a record player (courtesy of the author)
Nanook of the North throwing a spear (courtesy of unknown 1920s magazine)
Filmmaker Robert Flaherty (courtesy of unknown 1920s magazine)
Ninety-three-year-old Johnny Inukpuk, cousin of “Nanook” (courtesy of the author)
Peter Sala (on left), with two unidentified Inuit (courtesy of the Avataq Cultural Institute)
Peter Sala with an unknown woman (courtesy of the Avataq Cultural Institute)
The grave of Peter Sala (courtesy of the author)
Mina in Port Harrison, 1948 (courtesy of the Avataq Cultural Institute)
Grave marker in Moose Factory cemetery (courtesy of the author)
ATVs, not Suburus, roam the Belcher Islands (courtesy of the author)
Idling walrus (courtesy of the author)
The view from the author’s tent, with walrus bones in the foreground. (courtesy of the author)
Burial cairn above the author’s tent (courtesy of the author)
The author listening to an Umbilicaria lichen (courtesy of Tom Murray)
ALSO BY LAWRENCE MILLMAN
Our Like Will Not Be There Again
Hero Jesse
A Kayak Full of Ghosts
Last Places
The Wrong-Handed Man
Wolverine Creates the World
An Evening Among Headhunters
Lost in the Arctic
Northern Latitudes
Paris Was My Paramour
Fascinating Fungi of New England
Hiking to Siberia
I’ll Dream You Alive
Giant Polypores & Stoned Reindeer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LAWRENCE MILLMAN is the author of fifteen books, including such titles as Last Places, Our Like Will Not Be There Again, Lost in the Arctic, Hero Jesse, A Kayak Full of Ghosts, Northern Latitudes, Hiking to Siberia, and Fascinating Fungi of New England. His articles have appeared in National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, Atlantic Monthly, and Sports Illustrated. When not hanging out in some northern place or looking for mushrooms, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Author’s Note
A Sort of Introduction
Map
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Glossary of Inuit Words
Acknowledgments
Photographs
Also by Lawrence Millman
About the Author
Copyright
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
AT THE END OF THE WORLD. Copyright © 2016 by Lawrence Millman. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
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Cover design by Young Jin Lim
Cover photographs: man © Roberta Olenick/Getty Images; sky © Tsuguliev/Shutterstock; ducks © RGB Ventures/Alamy
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Millman, Lawrence, author.
Title: At the end of the world: a true story of murder in the Arctic / Lawrence Millman.
Description: New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016037251 | ISBN 9781250111401 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250111418 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Murder—Arctic regions. | Violence—Arctic regions. | Inuit. | BISAC: NATURE / Ecosystems & Habitats / Polar Regions.
Classification: LCC HV6535.A68 .M55 2017 | DDC 364.152/30971952—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037251
e-ISBN 9781250111418
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: January 2017
At the End of the World Page 11
