Southampton Island, Northwest Territories;
1952

While traveling with Ohnainewk, I remarked, as best I could in Eskimo, "The wind is cold." He laughed. "How," he asked, "can the wind be cold? You're cold; you're unhappy. But the wind isn't cold or unhappy."

Not until I arrived did Ohnainewk have anyone to talk to about such things. During the winter of 1910, he had learned a little English from the wife of a Mounted Policeman, and though there had been little opportunity to use it in later years, he had not forgotten it. In this he was unique, for though a few Canadian Eskimo had acquired limited English from early whalers, they were never motivated to transmit it to their children or even to retain it.

Our association resulted in superb English on his part, limited Eskimo on mine. One oaf at the white settlement, who resented Ohnainewk's "pretensions," gave him a subscription to Fortune & the Wall Street Journal. If he understood the insult, he ignored it; he was too grateful for reading matter on this exciting new world of power. Between visits we corresponded about everything, including the threat to use atomic bombs in Korea: "This is from an eskimo, the entire world seemingly have worked and found a way to distroy people butt are somewhat behind in finding ways to protect their wives and children from the might of thier own distructive weapons. However if you should come up north with your family I should soon find a plase somewhere north of here and I tell you, we should not starve even if we should fall back on bows and arrows & harpoons not for a long while anyway."