Dundas Harbour

Of all the places that hold special meaning for me in the North, Dundas Harbour must be at the top of the list. I’ve not been there for awhile, and probably won’t get back until at least next season. It isn’t an easy place to get to.

The RCMP had a detachment at Dundas Harbour on Devon Island from 1924 to 1933 and from 1945 to 1951. Devon Island is the largest inhabited island in the world, directly north of Baffin Island across Lancaster Sound. It is perhaps best known these days for the Haughton Crater Mars project. People have lived there, going back at least 3,500 years and although teams of scientists and support people spend summers there, there are no permanent settlements.

In the 1920’s, concerned about the threat to Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic Archipelago RCMP detachments were established in places such as Dundas Harbour. There was no one to police there, in fact for the first year the three mounties didn’t even have Inuit special constables and their families to help them survive. From 1925 on, however, there were Inuit families that lived there, assisting the members and providing further Canadian identity to bolster Canadian sovereignty.

In June of 1926 Cst Victor Maisonneuve, one of the original members posted at Dundas Harbour committed suicide while alone at a seal hunting camp at Croker Bay. He was due to be transferred out in August. Tragedy further visited Dundas Harbour Detachment the following August, just prior to the annual return of the supply ship. Cst William Stephens was hunting walrus near the detachment, and accidentally shot himself.

The RCMP maintains a cemetery at Dundas Harbour and Arctic Bay Detachment is responsible for making an annual grave inspection there, to ensure that Csts Maisonneuve and Stephens’ graves are kept in good order and their memory maintained. There is also the grave of the baby of one of the special constable’s daughter. The story of the baby is in itself a fascinating tale, as is the story of the headstone of a Scottish whaler which was kept in the cemetery. They will have to be told another time.

Dundas Harbour is a beautiful setting, quiet and lonely. Rough-legged hawks nest on the cliffs behind the detachment. Muskoxen graze all through the site. Walrus haul out on an islet just off shore. The detachment still stands, and is in surprising good shape, having been unoccupied since 1951. I’d like to see the site declared a National Historic Site, and the building restored to its former condition.

Whenever I’ve been fortunate enough to visit I find myself wanting to spend time by myself, away from the others there at the same time (the first time I visited was with the Quest Nature tour, aboard a cruise ship). Each time, I find myself looking out over Lancaster Sound, and I try to imagine what it would have been like in 1924, sitting on the pile of lumber and supplies that would make up the detachment, watching the ship sail away, knowing that I would see no one else but my two companions  for at least another year. It would have been an incredible experience.

(the photo’s in this post, including the photo that was the base for the woodcut are by Captain Stewart Klebert, Captain of the pride of Canadian Coast Guard Icebreaking fleet, the CCGS Louis S. St. Laurent)