Cochrane adventurer Sarah Leete will be sharing her journey though the North West Passage to the capital of Greenland through her upcoming An Arctic Alphabet presentation on February 24.
The presentation will take place at Seniors on the Bow, located on the second floor of the SLS Centre, at 4 p.m. Entry to the event is free, and is presented by Seniors on the Bow and Engaging Men.
Leete explained that the presentation itself will discuss her voyage alongside the unique history that can be found in the arctic circle. Through each letter, Leete said she will show attendees different parts of her journey that took place last year.
“I’ve got my Arctic Alphabet my long adventure through the Northwest Passage to Greenland,” she explained.
In the presentation itself, Leete said that she shares her time in Kugluktuk, while also taking the time to share the history behind the Copper Inuit.
“There’s this amazing trade route by the Thule people, later they were called the Copper Inuit,” she explained. “Large chunks of copper were found on the surface, and they fabricated them. That was one of the reasons for them being around in the area, but also there were lots of caribou and they harvest the caribou.”
She also looks at historical events like the Franklin Expedition that took place in the area, an expedition by the British Navy that went missing, which led to the crew resorting to cannibalism in their last moments of survival.
“The local Inuit said: ‘We saw these big boats that were stuck in the ice, and the men were starving and ate each other,’” she explained. “Of course, the British Navy said that their men would never resort to cannibalism, but they did eat each other.”
Another aspect of the presentation involves the flora and fauna located in the region that the area.
“Back in the day, the Inuit used to use cotton grass in their lamps, in their igloos in the winter,” she said. “They had seal oil lamps and they had used the cotton grass in the lamps.
“For fauna, well they had musk ox, caribou, and reindeer.”
With several topics on the docket for her presentation, Leete invites everyone to Seniors on the Bow to listen to her presentation.
