Port Burwell, Labrador

Assorted Detail - 1920-1929

Crushed by Ice in 1929

Parker Cramer is unsuccessful a second time as his Sikorsky S-38 amphibious flying boat is crushed by ice floes at Port Burwell, Labrador

Port Burwell in 1928

Except for the factor of the Hudson's Bay Post and the two Royal Canadian Mounted police, the population of Port Burwell, numbering about seventy-five persons, was entirely Eskimo. The Eskimos at Killinek were more primitive than those we found at Hopedale and Nain. In winter they lived in snow igloos built wherever the best hunting and trapping was to be found, but during the more moderate weather of summer they congregated in villages along the coast, living in tents of their own construction.

Air Incident in 1928

2 March 1928 - Our sealers have been asked to keep a sure look out for Canadian airmen, pilot officer Lewis and his two assistants who left Port Burwell to observe ice conditions in Hudson Straits. After four and half hours Pilot Lewis wirelessed he was in trouble and landing on ice but did not know his position.

3 March 1928 - After practically all hope for their safety had been given up, flying officer Lewis and companions of Hudson Straits patrol who were lost on 2 March were reported safe at Port Burwell according to brief radio message received yesterday.

5 March 1928 - Ottawa despatch says that the Canadian airmen who abandoned their plane on the Labrador coast had to travel sixty miles over ice floes and were guided to land by an Esquimaux. Party had no food and existed on raw walrus shot by Esquimaux.

Hudson Strait Expedition of 1927

The RCAF flew sick and injured trappers, traders, farmers, and Natives from remote outposts to places where medical attention could be given. Noteworthy among the civil government operations was the Hudson Strait Expedition of 1927. It was undertaken jointly by various Government departments including National Defence. The expedition studied ice, weather, and navigation conditions along the new grain route from Churchill on Hudson Bay to the ports of Europe. The RCAF provided seven Aircraft for the expedition and a detachment of six officers and 12 airmen under the command of F/L TA Lawrence. Three bases were set up on Hudson Strait at Port Burwell, Wakeham Bay, and Nottingham Island. Many flights were made from the bases to collect meteorological information.

The RCAF in the North - 1927

The Royal Corps of Signals (RCCS) built radio stations at Wakeham Bay, Nottingham Island, and Port Burwell in 1927. These radio stations were built to support a mapping and charting expedition by the RCAF. Three RCCS operators and seven RCAF aircraft with crews were involved and the work that was done for the Department of National Defence and the Department of Marine to provide accurate shipping data for the opening of Hudson's Strait to shipping. Work was completed and the party returned in July 1928. Interestingly, the RCCS provided Air to Ground communications were one way only as the aircraft lacked receivers. Civilian Department of Marine and Fisheries operators provided the rear link communications to Ottawa. As a major safety feature the air crews were, in February 1928, ordered to remain within gliding distance of the coast at all times.

The Coast Guard in the North - 1927

Nevertheless, the development of the Hudson Bay route as a normal shipping trade remained a matter of some difficulty, not least in the process of acquiring an accurate daily knowledge of ice conditions. In 1927, the government made a concerted effort to apply the latest techniques when they appointed an advisory board, representing the Departments of Marine and Fisheries, Railways and Canals, and National Defence, to plan and organize a combined expedition to collect the required data, and to establish aids to navigation. Considering the financial and technical resources then available, this was an imaginative and well planned effort which, for the first time, used aircraft and radio as a normal operation of departmental activity.

Bases were constructed at Port Burwell, Wakeham Bay and Nottingham Island, complete with dwellings and hangars and wireless stations, as they were then called. Three ships were used, the ubiquitous Stanley, a more recent and bigger icebreaker from the Quebec Agency, the Montcalm, and a chartered freighter for the shipment of supplies and buildings. As a result of this expedition, radio direction finding stations were erected to aid ships in working through the Hudson Strait, and the basic framework of the present ice observation service was laid. The crowning achievement of this phase of the remarkable Hudson Bay route came in 1930, when the system was greatly strengthened by the construction of a powerful icebreaker for merchant ship support en route, the NB McLean which, since first patrolling those waters, has rendered incalculable service to the Churchill grain ships right down to the present day.

Moravian Mission - 1924

The Moravian mission at Port Burwell was closed by Reverend Berthold Lenz.

The Arrival of the RCMP in 1920

Here is an excerpt from Butler's description of the Moravian location. He was 19 years old when he came to Killinek as an RCMP officer in 1920 and stayed with the Lenz's:

Rounding a small cape, we saw through the morning mist the settlement ... Bald, rocky cliffs completely surrounded the bay, except for the entrance and narrow opening to the east...

The mist gradually lifted and soon we were able to discern the mission buildings, with their attendant store and blubber shed....

Once ashore, we saw that all the settlement was contained in a bleak strip of land between the surrounding hills and the hungry sea, whose twice-daily tides sent probing watery fingers to try and wash out this small advance guard of civilization. About half a mile to the east of the mission station was the Hudson’s Bay Company post. Along the ascending shore-line were small patches of soft snow, checkered with caribou-hide tents (tupiks) and two small huts made of driftwood and covered with skins....

I was intrigued by a six-foot wooden fence that had been erected around part of the mission yard. The minister said that it had been built to protect his children from the dogs; otherwise it would not have been safe for them to go out of doors. The dogs were a very determined lot, and cunning in a cruel way; and to prevent them from getting into the enclosure by digging under the fence, it had been necessary to construct a floor....

The building was typically church-shaped, about forty feet long and twenty-five wide. A ten-foot steeple, containing a small bell that had come from a locomotive, was mounted on the rear of the church roof. A porch protected the centre door, behind which a narrow hallway divided the front part of the structure. On the left side were the dining-room and the kitchen; on the right were our quarters, consisting of an office and, leading from this, a small room with two cots, our sleeping-quarters.

At the end of the hall a door led to the church proper, with an emergency door to the left and stairs leading to the Lenzes' bedrooms. The chapel was of fair size, with an old organ, a lectern, two chairs, bare wooden benches, and a large stove which kept the room reasonably warm....

While our quarters were small, they were adequately furnished. First and foremost there was a stove of a type I had never seen before, possibly of Dutch or German origin. It was quite large and covered with a blue tile that I think was delft. It was very efficient, retaining its heat for a long period of time. A table and two chairs completed our office equipment....

Kenneth C. Butler, Igloo Killinek [Toronto: Longmans, 1963], 22-27 - This detail made available courtesy of Hans Rollmann.

Sovereignty in 1920

How was sovereignty to be established? On 27 October 1920, an advisory board recommended to WW Cory, deputy minister of the interior, that three permanent posts be set up by the police on Ellesmere Island, that some Inuit be transferred to the island, and that the Hudson's Bay Company or some other trader be encouraged to extend operations to the area. At the same time, the suggestion made by AP Low in 1903 was adopted; in the summer of 1920 and an RCMP detachment was set up at Port Burwell, the gateway to Hudson Strait and Hudson Bay. The two policemen involved lived with the Moravian missionaries the first year, patrolled to the Inuit camps, and checked the navigation markers at Burton Island and Cape Chidley.