Nunaga: Ten Years of Eskimo Life by Duncan Pryde 285 pages, 1971, Walker Publishing Company, Inc. New York, 1972 American edition. Available at Amazon from about $10 used.
Nunaga is extremely well written, a riveting story of a young man from Scotland who goes to Canada in 1955, seeking fortune and adventure. He answers an ad for fur traders by the Hudson Bay Company.
In 1955, eighteen-year-old Duncan Pryde answered the Hudson Bay Company ad. “Fur traders wanted for the far north,…single, ambitious, self-reliant young men wanted…” Pryde lived the Eskimo life for years, becoming adept at survival in the Arctic with a dogsled, snow knife, rifle, and harpoon, using Eskimo techniques. He earned a worldwide reputation for being a genius in the Eskimo language. He fathered children with Eskimo women as part of the Eskimo social wife exchange culture. The draft version of the book is said to have been cut back considerably because of too much sex. This correspondent does not recall exactly when he first read Nunaga. It was decades ago.
The book includes an episode in which Duncan Pryde shoots a polar bear at six feet in defense. His rifle was a Savage model 99 in .250/3000 caliber.
Studies of defenses against bears have come to occupy this correspondent’s time. A copy of Nunaga was obtained to evaluate the polar bear shooting. It was worth the time to determine if the event was included in the Polar Bear/Human Information Management System (PBHIMS), obtained by AmmoLand with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The PBHIMS was created with taxpayer dollars to gain an understanding of polar bears and human interactions, including conflicts in the Arctic. This famous event, from a credible source in a very popular and widespread title, was somehow missed.
After nearly dying in a canoe trip along an icebound shoreline, Duncan and his companion find narrow access to shore in a dense fog. With great risk, they manage to enter and find a safe but small beach. There is steep but climbable access to get off the beach. Duncan’s companion goes up to see if he can observe a Dew Line outpost they had spotted earlier. Duncan decides to stay on the beach in a tent. Sometime later, Duncan hears a sound. He thinks it is his companion. He speaks, then yells, expecting to be answered.
Duncan looks out of the tent and sees a large polar bear six feet away, next to the canoe. The polar bear sees him. Here is how Duncan Pryde described the event p. 264:
It [polar bear] pawed at the ground and I pawed at the inside of the tent, trying to locate my rifle. Finally my hand closed over it and I eased my shoulder back inside the tent so I could get both hands on the gun. I levered a cartridge into the chamber, and in the silence between me and the bear, the click was the loudest sound in the world.
The bear turned toward me and reared up. I still wasn’t sure what it would do, but it was so close if it decided to come my way, there would be little time for me to do anything. I swung the rifle up and fired. I shot it right through the heart with a .250/3000, and it flopped over against the canoe with a high pitched scream like a woman’s.
Nunaga is an epic biography of high adventure in the Arctic as it transitioned from dogsled to snowmobile. Duncan was eventually elected to the Northwest Territories council as a representative for the Eskimos in the area from 1966 to 1970. Nunaga is full of Duncan Pryde’s ten years in Eskimo culture. It is foundational reading for anyone attempting to understand what has happened in the Canadian Arctic. He is remembered as the foremost expert on the Eskimo language, pronunciation, and grammar. At Amazon, an anthropologist who conducted research in many Eskimo villages says:
One of the things this writer found is Duncan Pryde’s evaluation of accounts by Farley Mowat, the widely debunked author of the fraudulent work Never Cry Wolf. Pryde mentions Mowat on page 33:
When Farley Mowat claims in his books and articles that he went to the Arctic and in a matter of a month or two was able to speak a basic form of Eskimo and discuss shamanism and religion, I just can’t believe him. I know that when he came to Baker Lake he didn’t communicate at all in Eskimo.
It is another data point about Farley Mowat as an unreliable fabulist who said, “I never let facts get in the way of a good story.”
Duncan Pryde has impressive credibility. His reputation for accuracy is worldwide. Pryde joins numerous others who have impeccable reputations to point out exaggerations and fabrications published by Mowat.
If you are interested in fact and real-life Arctic adventure, Nunaga is a fascinating read.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
A polar bear at 6 feet !! Wow !!