Ipirvik & Tookoolito

I would totally go to Antarctica me too, My mom. I don't like the cold, obviously, but it's different. Yeah, it's freaking Antarctica. Yeah, no, you you have to go. I like the cold. I mean I don't think anybody likes that cold, but I don't think it was like, oh, I feel so cozy in this structure that's barely keeping the my blood from freezing. My mom once was like, listen, I want to go to Antarctica, but ad refuses to go.

Will you go with me? And I was like, yes, I will go, And so she was talking to me about it She's like, listen, there's a hot springs. There's a hot springs that you can swim in. And I was like, okay, so the water is warm, but what about getting out and getting in like that? There's a whole part of the hot springs that I'm not interested in. And it's the kidding. I would just would be like, I live in this water now, I guess because I'm never getting out. Well, um, we're so excited to bring

you to the Arctic, not the Antarctic. Today. We're gonna go north, north, north, as far north as people have been, I mean, pretty much more or less, and we're going to tell the story of totally two and pere Vic, who were two Inuit villagers who got to travel to England and America and work as guides for British and American explorers who were trying to uncover the mysteries of

the Arctic. These two had a totally unbeatable spirit. They had amazing survival skills, and that was pretty much enough to keep even the most inept sailors alive through circumstances that seem basically totally unsurvivable. So I say we jump into this story. It's so exciting. I really want to hear all about these two snowbirds and their incredible adventures. So everybody bundle up. We're stepping out into the snow. Let's go. Hey the French, come listen. Well, Eli and

Diana got some stories to tell. There's no match making, no romantic tips. It's just about pridiculous relationships, a love it might be any type of person at all, and abstract cons that tour concrete wall. But if there's a story, were the second glance ridiculous role. That's a production of I Heart Radio. So okay, we're talking about the Inuit today. We're talking about way Northern Canada. Um, and the language up there is enocta tut and we are gonna swing

for the fences with this and do our best. There are some great pronunciation guides out there. There's some cool videos that teach us a little bit um and then we're winging it on some of them based on uh, those pronunciation guides, kind of being like, I guess this vowel is pronounced like this, doing our best, but um, but it's really fun, like it's actually kind of a cool language to listen to, and uh yeah, I'm excited by it, and of course if you are Inuit, let

us know something. We would love to correct that later on. But totally two was born around eighteen thirty eight on Baffin Island, which is like way northeast Canada, right across the Davis straight from Greenland. Now in Baffin Island, currently they have an average temperature of eighteen degrees fahrenheit, but in July it can get all the way up to forty eight. So you know, don't don't pack your speedos away just yet, because you will break a sweat just

real quick. For our metric using friends a lot of joke, is an average temperature of minus eight degrees celsius, which in July can get all the way up to positive eight plus eight. Yeah, like, I don't know, I guess metric. Sure, I guess water freezes at zero and boils at a hundred, But I don't know why it's so hard to just remember that water freezes at thirty two degrees fahrenheit and boils at two and twelve degrees. That's very simple, right.

So the man who would eventually become to Kalitu's husband was born about two years earlier on the other side of Baffin Island near Cumberland Sound. His name was a pier Vic. A lot of English whalers came through this area and they had a relatively positive relationship with the Inuit there, and probably should have said this earlier. But side note, the name for the indigenous people of Northern Canada in this region is Inuit, which is the plural form of Enuk. So you are and Enuk were part

of the Inuit, yes, as I understand it. Yeah, And Inuit means people, So saying Inuit people is redundant. It's just a machine, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And Inuit, as I've come to understand it, is not a blanket term for all of the Native people of Northern Canada. Um, First Nations, Mati, and Inuit are sort of the three different groups. Oh I thought First Nations was the blanket terms. No, apparently first People's is a blanket term for all three of

those group. But the First Nations are a different group of people than the Inuit or than the Mate. That's very interesting, yes, uh, And it's more complicated than that, and I won't be the one to explain to you. I'm just reading about it this week. So anyway, it peer Vic was familiar with English whalers at a young age because they were always coming through Cumberland Sound where

he grew up. And at some point, surely he said to one of these sailors, hang I uvanga peer vic ativa, which means hello, my name is a peer Vic in my terrible enough to touch language. Um and the English then responded, but I have no idea what you're said, so we'll just call you Joe. Joe. That's not even close. They gave him the nickname Joe, and that pretty much

stuck with him for the rest of his life. In eighteen fifty two, when she was about fourteen years old, to Kali two started learning English from a British whaler named William Barron. It's likely that a peer Vic was already familiar with English since he had, you know, grown up around these English whalers. Um And at some point to Kali too and a Piervic were married. With living conditions being so difficult, marriage was more of a necessity

than a choice in Inuit culture. Marriages were often arranged at a young age, sometimes at birth, and young women were eligible for marriage as soon as they hit puberty. While men usually were closer to seventeen or eighteen years old, and they had to prove themselves to be an effective hunter before they could marry. It's very interesting to me that you're sort of like, okay, you can now have babies, so that's all that's required. You need be able to

provide for the babies, so prove yourself. Um. Sort of similar to the Powhattan tribe as well. Well. It was such an episode, you know that. What I read about Inuit culture back then especially was it was it's very much about the community. Everything you do is so your

individual community can thrive. The idea of marriage reproduction these were all about like how can we survive up here, because that's constantly what they were thinking about because they're terribly difficult situations to survive in all the time, and there's not a traditional, fancy ceremony, marriage ceremony or anything like that. Often a couple would be considered married after the birth of their first child, and marriage was all

about uniting the community. As you just said, Husbands and wives both could ask for a divorce, but it was frowned upon because it wasn't good for the community at large. Tugalito's sister Inuluapeak had traveled to Scotland in eighteen thirty nine with a whaling master named William Penny. This would have been just after Tigalito was born, so took Alito grew up here and about that, and she always wanted to take a similar voyage. Lucky for her. In eighteen

fifty three an Englishman named John Bowlby showed up. Now he had been a wine merchant, but now he was experimented with the fishing industry. It was everyone was getting into the Arctic and whaling and fishing and all this stuff, and he wanted to capitalize on that. And his plan was to build a whaling station just off Baffin Island. So he goes there and meets the Annuit people and took Alitu and a pier. Vic were well known as good translators and they were well known as tough adventurous

types as well. So John Bowlby met them and was like, hey, hello, maybe I should come back to England with me. And this was the opportunity of a lifetime for them. So they packed up and set sail for England. And in England they stayed in Hull on the East coast, north of London with the family of the ship's doctor, William Getney.

Now it was common at the time for native people, Inuit, native amare, Amricans, Indians, Africans, basically any non Western European people to be quote unquote exhibited in world's fairs or expos as curiosities or explorers might bring a few natives around as like a fundraising ploy when they were trying to raise money for a voyage. Step right up, folks

and see who I found. See who I found? And white people would come pay to see these folks in their native clothing, speaking their own language, or giving some like cultural demonstration, which is funny because they're like, I would pay to see this, but not leave you well enough alone to do it everyday life. That's where I could see it for free, maybe if you're my neighbor, But that's fascinating. Your culture is so interesting to me.

Now I'm going to destroy it and assimilate you into mine. Yes, So of course, you know, it wasn't always for these exhibitions or whatever when not always performed willingly by these indigenous people or Africans or whomever they were trying to put on on display. But Fortunately in this instance, To kally To and A pierre Vic were willing and paid participants in these demonstrations, so yea for them. They even

saw Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in London. Um Arctic stuff was particularly exciting in England at the time because everyone was swept up in Franklin fever. Oh Franklin fever. Now. The Franklin Expedition was the third and final expedition of a British polar explorer named Sir John Franklin. He wanted to sail through the Northwest Passage, so cutting west from England and through all those messy clusters of islands in

northern Canada all the way over to Asia. So this would have kept them from having to go all the way down south around Europe and the southern tip of Africa to get to Asia. So it was just a way shorter route. Everyone was trying to make it work. They had all these plans. They were like, we can do it, and Sir John Franklin decided he was going to be the guy to do it. So they left in eighteen forty five, but the expedition was a huge failure. Their ships were trapped in the ice and eventually the

entire crew died. England, who didn't know the fate of the crew, offered twenty thousand pounds sterling to find and rescue survivors. That is a little over checking here two million US dollars today. Wow, that's quite a reward. Yeah, So obviously this became a big deal and everybody's talking about it. Through the eighteen forties and fifties, over twenty expeditions would set out to either rescue the crew or

find out what happened to them. So all this talk about Arctic exploration of northern Canada, of course made to Kalitu and a pier Vic extremely popular. Yeah. Everyone was like, I can finally see people, the people who lived there with my own two eyes, right, and should be said that I don't know they were paid. It may not have been great. They I'm I would definitely call this exploitation no matter what you're doing, because they toward these guys around and said, give me your money to see

them and I'll go find more, you know. But um, but they did seem to love it. They did seem to have a really positive attitude about their experience in England. Um. And they seem to just really enjoy it. I mean, these these one thing we'll see what Tookali too and a pure vic is their spirits are unbreakable and they are eternal optimists, and you know, coming from the Arctic, I think that's understandable. Maybe, like it's probably really hard

to get them down because look at where they live. True, they're like I have to be happy e three day and see the best in everything, or else I'd be like, why do I live on a frozen rock? It's probably nighttime for like five months out of the year, I imagine, so, or at least very long, long, long nights. So yeah, you've you've got to If you sink, you're not you're not coming back up. So yeah, they probably are very

good at staying upbeat. It's just appreciating things well and you're not you're you're What you said about them being exploited is just kind of calling up for me all the side shows and also racial representation that we've talked about in the last few episodes, because it might be like that they're like, well, we're not getting paid much or whatever, but it's really helpful for people to see that the people do live in the frozen wildlands and like,

you know, we're normal human individuals. So even if they're not getting paid much, you know, maybe they felt like it was a good thing, you know, for people to see them. And okay, so John Bowlby knows he's got a hot ticket and his two Inuit friends and he takes them around Hull in London doing these showcases for everyone to see and meet a real in UK person.

And I p Vic was described as an intelligent, quiet man, self willed who may be led but not driven, and they said he was quote a close observer of all that passes. He sounds like a strong willed but like strong was silent type, maybe kind of reserved, but he sees all, he knows all kind of energy. And Tokuli too was described is quote active, sprightly and full of fun and that quote her laugh is a joyous laugh.

So I love this couple already. He's just like chilling, Like, okay, that guy's definitely sleeping with that Guy's why his first thing when he gets to England is to like Bravo analysis to Bravo, and he's like to Chukuli too, and she's like, oh for real, like that hat and they seem to really enjoy their time in England, especially to Kuli too, who adapted well to English culture and style.

We found a crowd fun site for a film from a few years ago by ronelta our Luck, who's an Inuit actress and director, and she said that tokal too liked the style she learned about in England, so she would wear a bonnet and a bustle and carried a parasol and all that kind of like English style stuff. But she would take the patterns home back to Baffin Island and make the same style clothes out of steal skin.

So she was like adopting the other cultures that she learned and appreciated, but she would take it in without losing her own culture. And Renolds has said quote in as an Inuit woman, that's still very hard to do. Yeah, image After spending two years in England, they had become fluent in the English language, and then they even converted to Christianity. Many Inuit who came to Europe, either voluntarily or forcibly, ended up getting sick. Of course, many died

even just from being exposed to these foreign diseases. You can imagine they don't have as many viruses hanging out in the below freezing temperatures in the right. So they come out to the two warmer climates and yeah, classic, I mean that even happened for the colonists came they yeah, yeah, But peer Vic and Tokly two were lucky. They were totally fine. They thrived, and after two years they decided they were going to go back home to their old lives.

I Pervic got back and worked as a hunter, occasionally picking up work as a translator or a guide for the whalers that came through Cumberland Sound. And soon a whaling ship would come by with a man aboard who was going to change their lives forever. And we will meet that guy right after this commercial break, and welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the snow. I should say, I see what you did there, because we're

in the Arctic. Peer Vic and Tally two's lives changed forever when they met an American sale named Charles Francis Hall in eighteen sixty. And this guy was a lot of things. He was born around eighteen twenty one somewhere in Vermont or New Hampshire, and he started out young as a Blacksmith's apprentice. Then sometime in the eighteen forties, he married, had two children, and eventually moved to Cincinnati, Ohio,

where he started a business as an engraver. Then in eighteen forty nine he published his own newspaper called The Cincinnati Occasional. And after publishing a few stories about the Franklin Expedition, which was of course the hot news of the time, so you had to run some stories about that. They liked it or not. But he got obsessed with the story and suddenly he was a total Frankloholic. He

could not get enough of this. He couldn't get enough of stories about polar exploration, and he started dedicating his time to learning everything he could about the Arctic. I love that his He started a newspaper and he called it The Cincinnati Occasional, which is like kind of setting yourself up and be like, you'll get an issue when I get around. I'm ready, the st the Cincinnati Daily, the st the Cincinnati Weekly. It's the Cincinnati Occasional. Listen, guys,

I'm doing this for fun. It's a hobby when you get it homemade zine. I'm doing just really just thinking the exact same thing. I was like, we should have called our show occasional. I would really take the pressure off. By eighteen fifty seven, he had this stack of research all about the Arctic, about any expeditions that went out there, and every piece of info he could find about the Franklin expedition specifically, and he decided, you know what I'm

gonna do it. I'm gonna go find the survivors of the Franklin expedition. Make make way, folks. I want to make two million dollars. Yeah. Bear in mind Franklin's ships had disappeared over a decade ago at this point, but this wasn't a crazy endeavor because things moved way more slowly back then. It was so normal to not hear anything from these exploring ships for a very long time. That Franklin's mission was gone without any contact with England

for three years before anyone even started to worry. Yeah, that, but that was like, you know, so long, goodbye, we'll hear from you in a decade or so. Who knows, you know, there's not like there's a postal service, there's somebody to take carry a letter back right exactly exactly so, And they knew that once you get into that region, everything slows down because sometimes you just have to weigh anchor for months and just wait for the weather to change.

And with all that, it also wasn't totally impossible that the crew was stranded and surviving somewhere, either with the Inuit or maybe just on their own, like like some kind of Gilligan's Island on ice um, which would have done a much more boring show. I mean, Gillian's Island on It would be kind of fun though, to see this tropical paradise set, but they're all on skates. I don't know. Well, yeah that would be good. Yeah, I

don't know about Gilligan's Island, uh with an Arctic setting. Yeah, no, I don't think that would be a little buddy, professor, we're going to have to eat eat the professor. So do you think anyone thought of that? And then they were like, no, we need the girls in bikinis. Is often Oh yeah sure, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be like, are do you like Marianne or ginger mar like if there's their difference. I just see a parka, just walking parka. I don't know. So okay, So Hall has got no

experience sailing. He's got no experience exploring, he's got no ship, no crew, but he has a hundred percent committed to finding these guys. So what does please give me the confidence exactly? And what is someone with no money or experience do to break into the hottest industry of the day. He starts crowdfunding. Oh yes, he set himself up a Kickstarter. He's like, hey everyone that here's here's your second update.

Thanks to everyone who pitched in so far. I'm gonna throw in an enamel pin for as a new park for anyone who decides to give over a hundred dollars uh, and if you give over five hundred I will send back as signed block of ice after in a in a plastic bag. Right, guys, I'm adding to the stretch goal. I'll send you your own piece of whale blubber. N I take a few months to get to you, and you won't want to eat it when it gets If you haven't if you haven't received your block of ice

or whale blubber in three years, that reach out. So after about two years, Hall had crowdsourced a little stack of cash, his primary benefactor being Henry Grinnell, a merchant and philanthropist, and he sold his newspaper and that was enough for him to get a spot on a whaling ship that was heading out to Cumberland Sound, right near bath An Island. The ship was called the George Henry and it was captained by Sydney Buddington. Of course, Charles

Hall was a complete amateur. He had very little support on this voyage. But his belief was, you know, if I can live among the Inuit, then anyone could have survived with them. He's like, I'm an idiot, I have no experience. My paper comes out occasionally. So if I can survive with the Inuit, anyone can. Like So his idea was basically like, let me go put myself amongst the Inuit, and if I end up not dying, then I know then I've got a shot at finding the

Franklin expertise. I've been well. So in eighteen sixty the George Henry arrived at Baffin Island, haul hopped off the ship and walked into a coastal Inuit village which just happened to be the home of a peer Vic and to Kali too. Now in their early twenties, they walked out to meet Charles Hall, and he's like, greetings, I am American. I come in peace. Can you teach me

the ways of your people? And they stared him for a second and then they're like, yeah, man, sure, like come on through, I'll show you where we hang our coats, like you want a beer? So he's like, oh, ship boy, it's my face red from frostbite problem. I was just about to say maybe he was embarrassed, but I'm not getting the impression that this guy gets embarrassed. No, I don't think Charles Hall knows how to get embarrassed. Great,

I will take a beer, thank you so much. I mean, haul hit the jackpot landing here with Tokali too and beer Vic because are totally versed in British culture and and you know a good bit of American culture as well. They speak fluent English, and they've had experience sailing with white explorers. So the two of them hit it off

with Hall right away. Also, remember they're like the friendliest, nicest people in the world at this time, I think, and they're just like, yes, welcome, please, I I love you. They're like immediately just hugs and jokes. Right. They all go back to their home to get to know each other, and Hall says, you know, probably something like, hey, so how are you all doing. My name's Charles Hall. What are your names? And she says I'm too Kalito. And Hall is like, oh uh, you know what, how about Hannah?

What if your name is Hannah? That's too hard to say? And peer Vic says, well, a lot of people call me Joe, but my name is a peer Vic and Hall writes down, got it Joe beer bing Beer being like, no, no, no, I said it pere Vic. He said, yeah, yeah, that's what I said it Beer being where the fund did you get a bee? From? Charles being where are you tying? So but that is true to this day. Most of the writings, you'll see them referred to as Hannah and Joe at beer Bingo, and they even, I mean they

seemed to like this. I mean they kind of adopted the names, and they even signed their letters Hannah and Joe especially, I mean their letters to other white people. So I don't know, I mean, you know, I think at the time it was a cute thing for them. They were like, oh, that's cool, we got our own like American names. That's fun. What's sort of like I took Japanese in high school and they all got to

choose our Japanese. Same with French. For me. Yeah, my friend was like, you should be Suco because it means little flower, and I thought it was so cute compliments I got in high school. But I me. We were given a list of names in French class to pick, and I picked Serge, uh specifically because I thought it was funny that it sounded like Surge, which was a

hot soda at the time. What's so funny about you saying that is that I immediately thought of Beverly Hills Cop three because Eddie Murphy has a French friend who calls Surge instead of Saragh keeps correcting him, of course, and then he goes, Surge sounds like a detergent. I was. I looked out because with my last name Banks, so I was early in line to pick names. We just she just went through the list and was like, we

all had the same list of names. She went down, everyone tell me what yours is and I said Serge, and I heard four other guys go, oh man, I wanted to be Surge alright. So Joe and Hannah a beer being took him in. They showed all their ways, and for two years he lived with the Inuit, and as an avid writer, he documented more about their culture

and their lives than any visitor before him. His journals describe their traditions, their oral histories, their language, and details of how they managed to survive for so long in such a seemingly unsurvivable climate. Yeah, that would be fascinating. I mean, you were describing some of the Igloe stuff and ship I was like, the igloos are so interesting to me because just I'll do a quick side note here.

Igloos were not traditionally like their main houses. They usually used them as shelter when they were hunting, you know, when they were going to be gone from their village for a while. And you build ice blocks up in a in an eglue shape like you're thinking, and um, it keeps the wind out and it holds body heat in.

And when you're in there at night sleeping, your body heat, you know, fills the igloo and it starts to kind of melt the ice a little bit, and then when you leave in the daytime to go hunh that ice freezes again and it solidifies the igloo more and more so that the longer you spend in it, the more sturdy and hard the structure gets. So it's it's brilliant. I mean the way they come up with these things. You have to drill air holes in your otherwise you'll

fill it with carbon dioxide and you know, suffocate yourself. Um, but they they could build fires in these igglues. That's so cool. So you had no idea. I literally thought, it's just so ice house and it's freezing in there, and like, why would you live like that? No, it's great, although I didn't read that their villages they usually used whalebone and skins to build their more permanent homes. I'll also say, just because of Charles Hall is very interesting

interpretation of a pure bicks name. I'm not sure that I really find his language notes to be very very reliable. Like yeah, it sounded like they said, I think it's I'm yeah or something. But the longer Charles Francis Hall lived with the Inuit, the more he was convinced that the crew from Franklin's voyage could still be alive. Um. He dressed like the Inuit, he drank, he ate their food. He adopted their lifestyle quickly, and he again knew if

he could do it, anyone could do it. And during the two years that he stayed, Pierre Vic and Tukuli Too helped him travel and map much of the Frobisher Bay area on the south side of Baffin Island. He found some evidence of British explorers around this area, but all from earlier expeditions in the sixteenth century, nothing from the Franklin expedition. I love I love that he shows up and he's like, oh, all I found was some three hundred year old this is worthless the water. So yeah,

he did. He needed to get to King William Island and that was not going to happen on this trip. Meanwhile, tukule Too and peer Vic, we're getting a taste of the difference between a American and British whalers. To kuli Too once wrote to Charles Hall quote, I feel very sorry to say that many of the whaling people are very bad, making the Inuits bad too. They swear very much and make our people swear. I wish they would not do so. Americans swear a great deal more and

worse than the English. I wish no one would swear, well, funk, I'm so sorry. It's true. My ass is the one telling this story. Would not. She would not for this show. She was so friendly, but she would have been like, damn, that girl, she's so nice, but she swears so much. Said damn, that's true. That girl. Girl is so nice, but she's a mouth like a sailor. Then, in eighteen sixty two, to Kali Too and at Parvik gave birth to their first child, a baby named Tara Leaky Talk

and that means butterfly. Hall wrote of him, quote, I never saw a more animated, sweet tempered, bright looking child likely to be remembered by all who ever saw him. Hall invited to Khalitu and a Piervic, along with their newborn son, to go back with him to the States to raise money for his next expedition, and they become good friends. At this point, and because of Hall's infectious enthusiasm, the two of them were pretty much getting super invested

in finding the Franklin expedition too. And they got back to the States and just like in England, they were brought to exhibitions, and this included Barnum's American Museum in New York. City run by P. T. Barnum, and they were advertised as the quote first and only inhabitants of these frozen regions ever brought to the United States, And of course it was sensationalized and totally inaccurate and probably pretty racist. And in fact Hall did stop bringing them

to these big exhibitions because there wasn't money up front. Uh, it was a little too sensational, and he was worried about their health, it says in some sources, so he stopped doing those big extravagant expeditions and instead took them on this lecture tour of the East Coast with him that that's probably, yeah, you could control a lot more about a lecture tour than you can yeah, and probably take more of the money for yourself, I think was a big part of it. Probably name your price, right.

But in terms of the Barnum exhibit, they had to be there three times a day, for two hours each time, every day of the week, so it was like a noon to two, four to six, and seven to nine kind of thing they had to do three times a day.

People paid twenty five cents to get in, which is only about eight bucks today, and then of course they switched over to this lecture tour, and when they weren't on the road doing that, the Inuit family stayed with Captain Sydney Buddington in Groton, Connecticut, and they totally fell in love with this town. To Kali too became especially good friends with Mrs Buddington, and she referred to her

as her pretty mother. Soon totally too was like a celebrity within the Buddington's circle of friends, and they all said that she was quote full of frolicsome and comical ways except for the swearing. I think I could totally hang out with too curb in the tongue. Look, you do good with kids mostly mostly except when I slip up, I'll go fuck. I'll be like, damn kid, oh shit, fuck.

It just gets It's all that time on the whaling ship you spent the sailors, you know, so Tokuly to peer vic Entree k tuck toward the East coast with Hall as he gave lectures and raised money, but it

took a real toll on all three of them. Buddington told Hall he wanted to bring them back up north on his next trip out of concern for their health, but Hall fought with him about it, he said it was unnecessary, and then sadly, in the spring of eighteen sixty three, Tara Leak Talk, who was still an infant, died of pneumonia in New York, and he was buried in Groton, Connecticut, not far from the Buddington's home where

they had been staying. And Tukal too was understandably inconsolable, and it suggested she was even suicidal, but eventually she regained her health and the next year, in eighteen sixty four, they went with Hall on his next exhibition to King William Island, and they toured Rose Welcome Sound, trying to find Inuit guides who were more familiar with the islands in this area, but they weren't nearly as willing to help him travel as a pure Vic and Tukuli too were,

but the two of them helped him communicate, and he started to learn more about the Franklin Expedition crew who had come through there nearly twenty years earlier. At this point, but it was difficult to return to the ice. Tukul two was missing the warm years they'd spent with the Buddington's in Connecticut. In July of eighteen sixty four, Tukali too wrote a letter to them, saying, quote, Mrs Beddington, how are you. I've been sick three or four day.

I like to come see my pretty mother during this time. Homesick Joe lame back and leg sometime he can't rest in night. I'm sorry for him. I think of him every day, sometime better, sometime very hard time. I love that. I love that. Um yeah, I think that's one of the clearest examples of how they felt about each other too, Like they were really close. I think it's interesting that, you know, I read that they don't necessarily mary by

choice or marry out of love. They said it did happen sometimes, but because there were so few people, it wasn't like you had a lot of options. But I think that those bonds must have formed just out of adaptation, you know, like you had to really care about everyone because you were all like a single thing living up there. You know, like you're almost these villages almost a single organism in terms of how close and connected everyone was, and if one person doesn't well or if you didn't

like somebody, that could ruin it for everyone. Um. But I so, and then seeing them together on these trips. It's I thought it was nice to read this and hear her say, like I think of him every day,

I'm really sorry for him, Like it's kind of sweet. Yeah, well, you do see that with arranged marriages all the time, love does form and grow over the years, and especially in their In their case, you know, they're being brought together and kept together by some extreme circumstances, not only in their regular life, but also with all these expeditions and like going out there being the only two Inuit people around. I'm sure that was they became a great

comfort to each other. And they lost a child together. Either bind you or separate you, but I think in this case they probably were really clinging to each other for a lot of comfort in a strange place. A few years later into this journey to King William Island, par Vic and Tokuli too had another baby, who also died in infancy after a long, difficult sledding trip. A little bit of tragedy, a lot of tragedy for them

in the family family way. Definitely, definitely, it's just those I you know, I couldn't speak to how common that was or anything, but I imagine those could those conditions, it's got to be hard to keep a baby alive, I mean insane, Yeah, because you especially on these expeditions where they're like, well, we might just end up having to sit here in the snow for six months, or we might have to take this sledding trip a thousand miles, you know, into the ice, and you don't know what's there.

You don't know what's there. Yeah, you can assume, but you don't know, right, you're literally going to find out. It's sort of like how it was going around the internet got viral for a minute a couple of years ago about how women in Iceland will leave their babies bundled up in a full leave them outside like a coffee shop or something while they go in and have a drink. And people are like, what, this is insane, you know, but of course in an Icelander where I'm

guessing I'm I think I'm guessing Iceland. But they were kind of like, well, you have to get them used to the cold. I mean this is where they live, like they need to be feeling warm in Groton, Connecticut. Right. Yeah, So this whole expedition took a whole five years and in eight sixty eight, which is about four years into it. They had a huge argument which broke out between much of the crew and Charles Hall, and he ended up

shooting and killing a man named Patrick Coleman. Because Hall claimed that they were trying to mutiny, he never faced charges for it. I can't imagine that that made things less awkward for the trip home, but um somehow they pressed on and when they finally reached King William Island, Hall finally found some of the crew from Franklin's expedition. All his work and paid off. He was like, oh, you're here, except just one little problem. They were skeletons,

so he couldn't exactly ask him what happened. And with no survivors discovered and very little evidence as to what did happen to them, their expedition was at an end. They were not going to find the Franklin. It was time to go home, and so they packed up and set sail back for the States. On their way back, the ship stopped at an Inuit settlement called iglu Leak, which means there is a house here. I think it's a great name for a town. There is a house here that's like the town I grew up in and

upstate New York. It was like there there is a house here. Don't don't blink or you'll miss it. And in iglu Leak, they met with another Inuit couple named te Lee Comb and poo Kinning who had a two year old daughter named Is. A guy took and it's not clear why the couple was willing to do this, but at Hall's suggestion, took ale To and a Pirevic

adopted their little girl. Um. Apparently initially the mother was super into it and the father was resistant, but Hall gave them a sled in exchange, which was a pretty mus been nice sled deal because they were both like, all right, now this sounds like a good idea, and yeah it's strange. Um, I think he was just like, these these guys need a kid. They've been through a lot, and they need a kid. And I think maybe speculation station, maybe this couple didn't want or was having a hard

time with a kid or something. For whatever reason, they were willing to do it. As they adopted this girl and they called her Panic, which is simply enucta tut for daughter. Now, Hall of course had to do his thing and give her an American name, which was Sylvia Grinnelle, a beer being named after his benefactor, Henry Grinnell. So he was like, well, she gets an American name too, and I'm gonna throw Henry's name in there because he

keeps giving me money. They returned to Groton, Connecticut in eighteen sixty nine, and this all American family, Hannah, Joe, and Sylvia bought a two story house for three hundred dollars, which is about six thousand, one hundred dollars today, And just for reference, the median home price in Groton right now is three hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, so pretty good deal. And in Groton, Joe worked as a carpenter and Hannah as a seamstress, and they hoped to settle

down and live a nice, warm Connecticut life together. But two years later, in eighteen seventy one, adventure called once again. After the Civil War ended, the American government got very interested in the global race to the North Pole, and with Henry Grinnell's support, Charles Francis Hall caught the attention at President Grant, who named him a man with survival skills but no academic background in traveling and no experience leading men or commanding a ship. The commander of the ship,

great idea. And when we come back, we'll join them on their most dangerous, harrowing, ridiculous voyage yet an absolutely catastrophic journey full of ice, snow and murder. So bundle up and we'll be right back. Welcome back to the show. So everyone's trying to be the first to the North Pole. It's the space race of the day, right, and America thought this guy, who did have a ton of experience sailing in the Arctic and certainly never shut up about it,

should be the one to do it. Right. It was all over the Cincinnati occasionally, every once in a while, occasionally it was talked about. So the ship and the expedition were both named the Polaris. And of course, because Hall had no sailing experience and he knew it, he knew he was going to have to be super selective

in choosing his officers and his crew. He mostly hired whalers who were experienced with sailing Arctic waters, and these were salty gruff sailors who had a different kind of discipline than the British vessels who used mostly military crews. For these kind of voyages. So he's like, you know, he's probably smart in terms of who he's picking for being able to navigate these waters. But also these were not guys who were easy to control. Um, they were

not trained like disciplined sailor types. They were like, I do what I want because that's how we survived, Like teamsters, you know, like they were like this, this is how it's done, boss. But for his sailing master, of course, he knew he had to get Sydney Buddington, who had been his captain on his on the George Henry back in his earlier voyages. Even though they had fought a whole lot in the past and didn't seem to actually like each other very much, he knew that like, Sydney's

my boy. That guy is going to be able to do a good job. This guy knows what it's like to sail up there. So he picked him. And Buddington, however, was like, oh no, please, please, no, don't make me go with I don't don't make me go with this guy again. But when another one of his contracts fell through, he had to say, yes, do it. In the time

that Buddington wasn't going after he turned him down. Charles Hall asked another guy named George Emery Tyson to do it, who also said no. But then Sidney came back and said yes, and then Tyson came back and said yes. So Hall's asked a few too many questions, He's made a few too many offers, and so to make up for this, he just makes up his position for Tyson and he calls him the assistant navigator. And basically what this meant was that this ship had three people who

thought they were in charge. Terrible, terrible idea. So a pere Vic and took to couldn't turn down Hall for this trip. But they brought their adopted daughter Panic along with them and they left in June seventy one and immediately had problems. Before they even left the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the cook, a fireman, and an assistant engineer deserted the ship.

They were like, wait, where are we going? Never mind, I distinctly heard you, says I thought we were going to the Caribbean, and the ship Steward was immediately discovered to be a drunk and was left behind. The doctor, a German named Emil Bessels, thought Hall shouldn't be in charge at all, and Tyson, the assistant navigator, wrote in his diary that a lot of the crew didn't like Charles Hall and quote already some have made up their minds how far they will go and when they will

get home again. So they were like, I mean, I'm along for as long as I feel like being there. You don't tell me what to do. So it was just a messy bunch all around, like nobody on this I bet Tuculi too and a peer Vic. We're like, do y'all not know about the community thing? Y'all not familiar with how we all have to live together and about The only people on Hall side were too Couldly too and a peer Vic. Everybody else kind of just

saw him as this micromanaging jerk right. Particularly to and a peer Vic were old friends of his, and of course they just saw the good in everyone, Like like you said, they were more about like, well, yeah, but we all have to get along the community here. Why would I focus on your worst qualities when I'm supposed to live next to you for the life and let me find what's good about you and focus on that.

I guess that makes sense. So nevertheless, they pressed on and in early September, they crossed the ropes and Canal and set a new record eighty two degrees eleven minutes north. Now, no white man had ever been closer to the North Pole at this point is they're really feeling good about themselves. They really made it far. At this point, the three

commanders started to argue about what to do next. Hall and Tyson agreed that they should sail further north to minimize the amount of time they would have to spend sledding, but Buddington's thought that was too risky for the ship. They should anchor here and start sletting north from here. In the end, Hall and Tyson one out. But as they sailed north and winter got worse, they were forced to anchor the ship, which was exactly what Buddington was trying to avoid. They ended up in a place called

Thank God harbor. Whoever named it was like, thank God, there's a harbor here. Yeah. Right. At this point, Hall decided that he was going to go ahead on foot, kind of scout out the area head see if they could sled up to the North Bowl from here, and he would have taken Tyson with him. They were getting along better than anyone in Buddington at this point, but he told Tyson, quote, I cannot trust Buddington alone with the ship, so he asked him to stay behind and

keep an eye on him. Literally, maybe Buddington will turn and leave while we're gone, or maybe he'll just you know, screw everything up. Because Buddington's may have been an Alca Hollick. There's some evidence in the cruise testimony afterwards that he was stealing liquor from the ships stores, including alcohol from the science lab that they were using to preserve specimens. So that that's the sign of a serious alcoholic when

you're drinking. Yeah, yeah, that's fairly bad. Although it makes me think this ship steward must have been a really bad drunk and they realized it before they even left, and they had this guy chart. Maybe Budington was like, listen, it takes one to know why that guy out of

here is Melbow Crooker. So Hall took two sleds, his first mate Chester, a peer Vic and another Inuit guide named Hendrick, and they left on October tenth for the sledding expedition to see if they could make it to the North Pole, and Tookoli too, stayed behind to take care of their child. Panic. Hall sent Hendrick back on day two with a bunch of instructions for the rest of the guys. For example, he told the doctor, who was a scientist with three degrees, don't forget to wind

the clock. And he left Buttington, who was a sailing master with over two decades of experience, a lengthy to do list while he was away, And this was the kind of micromanaging that made everybody hate him. Seriously, you're a manager, remember Charles Hall, and don't be like that. Oh my god, I love that. He like that. They left and two days later he was like, you know what, you know what, I gotta I gotta something to say to these guys. He's been thinking about it this whole time.

I should have left them something to do there. What are they going to get up to while I'm gone? Not work, that's for sure. So they were gone for two full weeks and when they came back, they had a nice cup of coffee and a Pierrevic took his to his room to drink, but at ten pm, to Kali two came to get a peer Vic and told him that Hall was very sick and vomiting and he

wouldn't let anyone see him except to Kali too. He was convinced someone on the ship had poisoned him, and to calit You told him, you know, why don't you go see the German doctor who's sitting right here and meal vessels. But Hall was like, that's probably the guy who tried to kill me, So no, I'd like to not see him. And for a few days he was terribly sick, just vomiting and feeling weak and tired of aching, and his left side all hurt. It was crazy, but

he started to improve. A couple of days later he was getting better. He was back on his feet, and on November four he was able to go above board, and finally he relented. The one of the other officers convinced him, like, you've got to go see vessels. He's our doctor. You're sick, Like, can we just forget all all this? And and you go talk to the doctor and he says, all right, I'll do it. And then suddenly,

after seeing vessels, he started to get sick again. A few grueling days later, Charles Hall vomited, collapsed and died. Now Bessel's diagnosis was apoplexy, which is a dated term they don't use anymore. That meant like a ruptured organ or a stroke. They took him ashore and they had a formal burial, but the mission wasn't over. They needed to press on. But now Buddington's was in charge, okay, So of course things got way worse. Morale and discipline

totally diminished. Buddington was drunk all the time, although Tyson started to drink a lot more too, and one of the crewmates even stole and made a copy of Buddington's key so that they could all steal liquor from the stores. Do you think get any point anyone opened the stores and like, there's no fucking They must have brought so much to have several drunks, and the whole crew was stealing. There must have been a lot of booze when they left.

I mean that's you know, when you're picking out your provisions that remember one thing. At some point we're gonna have to sit in the snow for six months, so there was no set bedtime. Everyone was just doing as they pleased. It was total chaos. And then Buddington decided to start handing out firearms to everyone. Nobody knows why. It was just like we're all getting drunk, so have a gun. You got a gun. You got a gun. Let's add freaking weapons to that. Just total nonsense going

on in this ship. In January, Tyson wrote in his diary, quote, last month, such an astonishing proposition was made to me that I have never ceased thinking of it since, enough to make Captain Hall stir in his ice cold grave.

He wrote that he and the first mate agreed that the proposition was monstrous and unthinkable, and he never said specifically what they were talking about, but Canadian writer Farley Mowitt suggested that the proposition they're talking about was that they would fake the rest of their journey to the North Pole and just cartend they had made it. That's so, I mean, like, yeah, for for someone whose job this is, you can imagine, that is like the craziest thing anyone

has ever said to you. Yeah, you want us to just go back and lie about it and have the whole world like hail us as heroes for something we never did. That sounds like a nightmare. I mean, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, you know, right well, and at this time, you know, there were lots of guys that had this sense of honor where it was like, oh, you know, I could call an eye and kill an entire coasts worth of people, but if I cheated cards, I'm a real asshole, Like you know what I mean,

I would never do something terrible. So I agree, I'm sure. I'm sure he really did think like to go back, And as you say, I didn't think about that. To be hailed as heroes for something you never did certainly be really uncomfortable. That would weigh on you. You were a right well. They chilled out until June until some of the men set out in a smaller boat to try and get to the pole, but the boat was crushed by ice and they were forced to walk back

to the ship. Another mini team set out, but within days Buddington's got cold feet and sent a piervic to bring them back, and so they had to abandon their boats and walk back to the Polarists once again, and now they were short for lifeboats. God, so the Polaris mission was over. They were like, we're done with this. We are not going to get to the North Pole. Is not even a hot mess, it's a cold mess. I guess at this point, they were just like we're well.

Buddington already was like, I'm stugged down with this. I'm going home. I've had We're out of booze. I'm getting out of here. Tyson was like he hasn't got the bottom for this voyage. Tyson was pretty bummed out about this. He really, I think, wanted to go on and finish. He wrote, quote what opportunities have been lost? And there's a there's longer quotes about how he's just like, this sucks. Somebody's going to get to the North Pole at some point, and I'm going to be mad that people got in

my way and it couldn't have been me. Well, and they were already all the way up there and had already been through all this stuff. I'm sure it's like a little bit of sunk cost fallacyies like, no, I have to make it so seriously, seriously. So they turned around. They started to head south back to the States, but in October Buddington ran the ship into an icy sandbar and they started taking on water. So he was drunk

mending white possible, I mean almost definitely drunk sailing. He starts ordering cargo to be thrown overboard so that they wouldn't, you know, sink, they could lighten the ship, balance things out, and booie the ship. But because they sucked so bad at discipline and order and they just there was no clear chain of command, everything was just chaos and they're just throwing stuff over overboard with no one telling them where or how to throw it. So they ended up

losing a ton of cargo. Like everything they jettison basically it was never seen again. Meanwhile, pere Vic Tukali to panic, Hendrick Tyson and fifteen other crew members. We're all out on the surrounding ice at night. They had told everyone like, it's not safe on the ship, so let's all just go hang out on the ice and tell we know things are good, and then we'll bring you back on board. And suddenly the ground started to break, the ice cracked and split, and soon the nineteen people on that ice

flow we're floating away from the polaris terrifying. I cannot imagine a more scary thing than to be on a freaking piece of ice, floating through a frozen sea from your ship. Oh my god, terrifying nightmares. I wonder if Tyson Speculation Station maybe maybe if I'm Tyson, I'm like,

you know what this is better? Wait to Tokali, to andre Vick here, Oh we're good, right, Seriously, I just keep thinking of yukonk Nelius and Rudolph the red Nose Reindeer when they're running from the Abosmiable snowman and the like he chops the ice up and they float away on that. Not not as cute, but they drifted over eighteen hundred miles for six months, and it is universally agreed that if pere Vic and to Kalitu as well as Hendrick hadn't been with them, everyone would have died.

I definitely would have thought that because the sailors were again just terribly undisciplined. They went through their food rations like crazy. They even had a night where they just went hog wild and started feasting just stuff in their faces with their rations because they just couldn't take it anymore. They were like, what I really want is to become a cannibal, so let's get all food. Yeah, I can't wait to eat a person. They're like it's day three

and they're like, I can't take it anymore. And not only that, but they actually had some lifeboats with them, but they were confused about where they were. Uh. They thought they were on one side of Greenland, but they were actually on the other side. So they kept expecting to see land come up, but they didn't. I don't know if they were just looking in the wrong direction or what, but they decided that the lifeboats were useless to them, and they broke them up for firewood. Oh

my god, So they are not handling this well. Nobody's listening to Tyson. He like tries to take command, and everyone just does whatever they want, so he basically gives up. Meanwhile, pere Vic and Hendrick start hunting seal and they're on the middle of this chunk of ice in the Arctic Ocean with like nothing around them. They start bringing in seal for everyone to eat and to Kalit builds IgG loose so they have somewhere to get away from the

wind and the cold and save their body heat. So these guys just start working for these lazy asses, start collecting up and started just making sure everyone's gonna survive all in all. I mean, it sounds like a pretty nice cruise, you know. Oh, I guess it's on par with that carnival cruise where everybody, Yeah, I don't know which would you rather be out in the middle of the ocean freezing for six months eating nothing but seal in any glue, or six weeks on the carnival cruise

covered in ship. That's a game show right there. That's a tough one, a real sofas chowing. They were picked up in April of eighteen seventy three on the coast of Newfoundland by a whaling ship, and their Inuit guides were hailed as heroes, which obviously they were. Everyone will be dead without them. Meanwhile, Buddington had gotten the Polaris moving again, but they burned too much coal without any discipline during the voyage, and soon he had to run

the ship aground. And since they lost so much of their ship when he had them throw it overboard, they really didn't have the supplies they needed to survive another winter. So they pulled lumber from the ship and built shelters. And they were fourteen of them, huddled together with few survivor skills among them, very little food, near death, when suddenly, lo and behold, the Eta Innuit showed up and helped

them survive through the winter. Man. Innuits are the real heroes of this whole story throughout stranded in the art, you better hope some innuit show up to help you out, because you will die only where these people lived, and in June of seventy three they built ships from salvaged wood and sailed south and were eventually rescued by a whaling ship in July. So, the nineteen people from the ice flow get back to the States and the US Navy is like, hey, uh, you, what the hell happened

out there? This looks like the frozen hell happened. You're like where, I'm sorry, where's your captain? Sorry? Where's your ship? By the way, you didn't get to the North Pole. I'm guessing. Uh. They brought back more questions than answers or people, more questions than people boats anything. So the U. S. Navy opened a formal inquiry. Obviously this was a lot of money went into this. At this time, Buddington and his people hadn't even been rescued yet, no one knew

what happened to the polarists. At this point, they asked to Galita and she had actually said, oh, they're they're good. They parked somewhere safe. If they wait till the summer, then they'll be able to sail out no problem, which of course Buddington was not able to do, but she thought it should be no problem for them. So they're kind of waiting for them to show back up. She had a lot of faith. She was such an optimist,

she really is. So they bring Tyson in to give his sort of testimony about what happened, and he says, basically, uh, yeah, Buddington's sucks, and we think the doctor might have poisoned Charles Hall, like that's probably something that happened apparently. So they decide they're gonna they want to talk to everybody, and they bring in pier Vick and Tokalitu as well, who again were considered heroes of this trip, and they get their testimony. If pier Vick laid it out, he said, quote,

I didn't like Buddington always talking behind back. Hall told me when sick, somebody give him something bad. He was sick two weeks. Buddington did not take care of him. I think it not right. Made me feel bad. He says, something bad in coffee I drink last night, making me

sick and stomach bad. And then he said in the few days where Hall felt better, that Hall was looking through the doctor's medicinal books and he pointed to something and told it peer Vick that that thing is making me sick, and I peer Vick didn't know what it was specifically, but he said in this deposition quote something

about poison, I think. And to Kuli, to gave testimony to their experience on the ice flow, she said she was taking her stuff off the ship after the big leak, and a fireman had told her the ship was going to be okay, but Buddington told her to ignore that and just take her stuff and her daughter and go out on the ice where it's safe, and then the ice broke up. God never listen to Buddington. He was right that one time. That's true. So it's I mean, they were none of them were. None of them were

ever right very often. That's the problem. And they asked to Kali too, who was in command on the ice flow, and she said nobody, which definitely sounds accurate. And they asked, you know what about Tyson, because he's this assistant navigator or whatever, and she said, quote, well, he could not control them. He tried to do everything he could. He's a good man. We have known him a good many years. He tried to do everything for the best I saw,

and Joe very sorry to sometime little provisions left. And she tells a story about how they thought they were about to starve, but a bear showed up across the ice killed a seal, and while the sailors laid down and tried to stay hidden, appear Vic chased the bear off and took the seal meat for everyone. We chased a bear, and we we must assume that this was a polar bear, which, if you're called last a couple episodes, if it's white, good night, good night, You're not so

everybody is. I'm sure he told everyone else, Okay, you all laid down, stay quiet, I'll take care of this bear. And just when I don't know whatever he did, no, bear, you can't have your food. We're taking it. Like that's not a conversation you have with a polar bear. Oh my god. And also like she's apologizing, oh my god, for what she's well, because there wasn't more food, you know, or whatever. I'm so sorry. There wasn't always a lot of food, but we only with zero bait. I can

chase the bears off this ice plod for you. She's so sweet, I can't stand it. She's the best. And through all this testimony and in interviews later, it's the

same thing. Authors and historians keep pointing out that if pier Vik and took al To just refused to have a bad attitude about anything, they like kind of grumbled about Buddington, but they didn't want to ever say anything out right bad about anybody, even the lazy sailors on the ice flow, who they basically had the hand feed the whole time they were out there, like let me chew up this CeAl and spin your mouth, even them, if peer Vick was like, oh, they're good guys offered

me a cigar once. The bar is low to say, like what they offered me a cigar once? I kept them alive for six months and they offered me a cigar one time. I mean, like we said, tukali To apologized for their not being enough food. I think it speaks to how they were so loyal to Hall as well, because this guy, I mean, it really seemed like he exploited them in the States, taking them on this lecture tour.

I don't think he had bad wishes for them, or they didn't care about them necessarily, but he was definitely yeah, but he was definitely using them. And they were always just like, oh, he's a good friend of ours, he's a good guy. He means well, he's trying his best. You know. They just they're super optimistic, which, like we said, you must have to be. You got to bring your own sunshine. Did not have time for a bad attitude in the Arctic. That's going to get everybody in trouble.

I mean, we could all learn a little bit from Tukali to a little bit of that energy into our everyday life. In all honesty, I'm saying like, sometimes times it's not like if you have comforts and you have stability and security, that you can't be upset, that that things can't bother you, that you can't be angry or anything like that. But I do try to remind myself

that I'm not living on a sheet of ice. You know that your outlook, your attitude towards your community, towards other people around you who are just trying to survive

with you, matters a lot. And I think we have a lot of cynicism and negativity that is very infectious, right, And if you imagine yourself in a smaller community like that, thirty forty people living in a village in the middle of the harshest conditions on earth, and you learn that like that, that negativity really is toxic, Like it spreads and it hurts and it doesn't do anything to help us. So if you're not, if your attitude isn't also contributing

to our survival, then check it. Yeah, it's not that easy. I also believe that you know, emotions are real and you know, go by them sometimes, but it's just just something to keep in mind. Yeah, I mean it is. There is such a thing as toxic positivity, and you know. But but I do agree with you that a sousson of Tokuli too and pere Vic could not could not go wrong in all of our views. Well, in the end, there was not enough evidence for any charges to be

filed in Hall's death. Um The final report said, quote, we are of the opinion that Captain Hall died from natural causes and that the treatment of the case by

Dr Bessel's was the best practice under the circumstances. But in ninety eight, Charles Francis Hall's biographer, Chauncey Chester Loomis Jr. Took an expedition of his own to exhume Hall's body, and he was remarkably well preserved for being dead two hundred years because of the whole of the ice you kind of, I mean, that's sort of what it does. They didn't like thaw him out, and he's like in Sino man who the world has changed? Dudes? That would

be dope for real. And testing of his exhumed body showed that he died from arsenic poisoning, although it must be said that a lot of medicines contained arsenic back then. Um, so it's possible that he even accidentally poisoned himself. So we're still not sure it's like a malicious poisoning or not. Certainly he was poisoned. Just who did it? Why? It's

up in the air. Although I think I'm still personally prosecuting Dr Emil Bessel's in my head because in another twist, it turns out Bessel and Hall we're both into the same girl back in New York City. Her name was Vinny Reem and she was a famous sculptor and Vessels was more into her than Charles Francis Hall was, but she was more into Hall. So there's a whole love triangle that is a crime recipe for a poisoning. Was like, I see a great opportunity to clear the field for myself.

If there was any more information than just that, this would be a whole episode for us. That's a little bonus romance because there's not anymore. That was a good one. Um So, yeah, that's just another possible motive for the sociopath. Dr right, just kidding. It remains unproven. Vessels was never charged. We don't know Speculation Station. He wasn't charged there, But here on ridiculous romance, in the safety of Speculation Station, we're going to say he did it. He definitely did it.

He murders love so a pier vik tokal Too and Panic returned to Connecticut, but panics health had been poor ever since the six months they spent on the ice flow understandably. Um So she did go to school, but in early eighteen seventy five she caught pneumonia and in March of that year she died at just nine years old. I know. Tkalito fell into declining health after that, and in December of eighteen seventy six. She died at thirty eight years old. I know, it's just so tough for

her trying to raise a family. They never had much luck with that, um, but she cared about those kids so much. UM. They were all buried together to Gal too, was buried right there in Groton beside her children. Panic and tar Leaky talk and a pear. Vic was heartbroken after Tito's death, of course, and he avowed to return to the North. In eighteen eighty he joined Frederick Schwatka's expedition in search of records of the Franklin Expedition, So

once again going back to his roots. I mean, Franklin Expedition really defined his life, you know, and people were so interested for like decades and decades. I feel like it was like the Titanic of their day, right, or maybe like the Donner Party type, or they just disappeared and you're like, what happened? Like we're still are asking that all. Yeah, for sure, that voyage didn't wasn't very successful.

They didn't end up turning up very much. And when they decided it was over, Piervic decided that he was going to stay in the North and there, he remarried, and it's unknown exactly when, but it appears that he died just a few years later after that and peer Vic was described by American journalist January US McGann as quote one of the most interesting and pleasant characters he

has ever met. A Beer Being Bay in Canada and Joe Island in Greenland are both named after him, and the two Kali two Inlet in None of It, and Hannah Island and Greenland are both named for her. In Canada named Tokuli two and A peer Vic persons of National Historic Significance for their contributions to exploration, cultural insight, and saving the lives of those on the ice flow right, Get damn right, historical significance. Indeed, I mean, for real,

these these two were awesome. I mean, I'm so sad about them never getting to grow a family because it's clear they really wanted Why but um but they really did some. I mean, you could say she was sort of mother to all of these nasty sailors. You could, but I don't think she'd say. They're very nice boys. They're not mine. They ain't mine. I don't know them.

They really are amazing, I do I will say they they lived full lives, short lives, but I think they did and saw more in there you know, forty issue years here than most of us will in a in a eighty or hundred, you know, which is you know,

a small comfort, but still amazing. I love that they had these lives that they saw so much, that they had such a tie to their home and it mattered to them, but they also got to live in completely different places and have all these like cultural mash up of experiences, which I think is so cool that they were able to kind of retain themselves but also adapt and make all these friends with all these Americans and stuff,

like what a life. And clearly they were both just so awesome and charming, like like she was full of fun and laughter, and he's like pleasant and interesting and like observant, and so they probably were just so much

fun to be around. So when they're like in a Inuit village of thirty people to grow in Connecticut to breaking London, where there's probably more people they've ever seen in their lives, and then they go around all around, you know, the East Coast on some lecture tour and see all these people that you know, it's just as much of a community to them as their own tribe back home, which I think is a really lovely way

to look at the world. Yeah, definitely. I feel like I learned a lot from Tuculi to and a pear Vicks. I think so too, how to view things and people. Absolutely, like I think like we were saying, like it's the kind of comparative nature of your surroundings, Like what you've seen before and what you're seeing now are so important. Like, you know, they could be having a rough day in Groton, Connecticut and be like, well, what was a rough day

in Baffin Island. This is pretty nice? Yeah, this is in comparisson to that, but just such a just such a I don't know, just two very bright lights, very uplifting people. Yeah, I love them. Plus, is such a cool era of history when everyone was so interested in the polar ice, like expeditions and all this stuff. Just the era of exploration in general is so fascinating, and I so wish it wasn't so clouded with colonialism, you know, and imperialism, because that's obviously the downside of it all.

But speaking from you know, the twenty first century comforts, I'm very used to. It seems so weird to me, an alien and idea to be like, let me go put myself in the most extreme conditions on the planet that I can find, because I just want to know what's there and see if I can do it or whatever. Like I I can't imagine be like, especially back then when they've had very few ways to heat themselves or wrap themselves up or anything like that. Like to choose

negative degrees. It is so crazy to me. But of course I'm from Georgia where we rarely go under thirty, So but yeah, I do. I wonder about the people who say there who who moved and moved across you know. I read somewhere that the Inuit may have come originally from Mongolian travelers um up across the Bearing Strait into Canada. Could be wrong about that, but that's something I've read.

But in either case, getting to Baffin Island. At some point, somebody got to Baffin Island and said, yeah, this is good. I'll stop here and stayed yeah, this is good. Probably doesn't get any better than this. Do you think someone next to him was like, are you sure this is good? Feel like the further that way we walk, the warmer it gets maybe we should keep going. We're good. Look we got fish, we got ice. What else is there? What else? What else? It's nights, sometimes it's day sometimes.

I may have mentioned this on the show before, but I remember driving from Atlanta to l A, which was an amazing road trip, and then you and I got to take an almost similar one out to Utah. But when I drove from Atlanta l A, and I was in the desert, you know, crossing Texas and New Mexico and Arizona for hours and hours and hours and hours, like a full day of driving out there, driving my car at seventy eight miles an hour, and I just

wondered they were explorers here. Even pre colonial there were people who walked out to the desert, saw nothing but desert in front of them for as far as they could see, and said, let's keep going. No, I'm telling you, on the other side of this, there's gonna be palm trees and water. It's gonna be great. And and then they probably spent days and days walking and then said let's keep going, let's keep at it. And that to me is a level of human ambition that I that

I guess I don't know if we have anymore. Um, I certainly don't. I think we have it, but it's so much more specialized because the what's what's left to explore but ocean and space, and you need kind of, you know, specialized equipment for that. At least back then

you could just walk until you found something new. Um. But Tony Horwitz said that in his book Fourage, Long and Strange, he was talking about the conquistadors coming up through Mexico and walking through the plains, and he was like, at some point they were in the middle of summer in their freaking armor, Like they're wearing full conquistador gear and it's hot and there sweating, and he's like, all they can see for miles and miles and miles and

miles is nothing but grass. It's nothing, there's it's it's just like seeing dessert, but it's just grass, no trees, nothing, And he's like, and they decided, let's keep walking. And he was also like blinking, Like when I do that, I don't think. I don't think unless I got this book advanced, I'd probably not be doing it right now. Amazing. So anyway, I do admire that I admire that in

the past, for sure. I don't know. I guess we like I say, we still have it, but it is so much more specialized in and concentrated into certain fields and a more complicated world. I think that we live in two where it's like, look, I love space exploration. I'm all for it. I think we need to do more of it, but um, probably not necessarily the way

we're doing it now. Like I feel like there's something that's a little more beneficial for everyone, and maybe a way to disperse those resources to kind of stabilize things here. Sounds like a lot of communisms. Well, I was going to say, you can kind of see, though I don't know. I mean, this is just off the top of my head, but you can kind of see. As we discovered more and more of the world around us and had a better picture of what was been and out there, um,

and there was less to explore out there. The more we started turning inward and trying to understand our own human experience, our own selves, and started thinking about psychology. And now of course we're in a real mental health like kind of renaissance. It feels like people are like, no, this is everyone should be in therapy, like you don't need to experience a traumatic event to need therapy, like we we we should all be examining why and what and who and where these biases are coming from our

unconscious thought patterns or whatever. So I guess you could

kind of. I don't know. I'm just kind of seeing like these people were looking out and seeing a lot to go find that was not had anything to do with me, myself and I. But like as as we progressed in that way and govern Martin, we kind of had to make it smaller, almost turn inwards and look at this because all those explorers at rampant A d D and depression and alcoholism, well now and then somewhere in between, mean that is me and Dorothy Putnam who are like my therapy is to travel. I would just

like I would rather explore. Please, Yes, that sounds great. Yeah, including the Arctic. I would totally go to Baffin Island. I would love to check it out up there. Um, I hope if you are Inuit or not, anyone who is set us up, I would love to come. Here's the thing, and I've mentioned it before, this hurts me and travel. I'm a vegetarian that includes fish and um, I guess I'll just have to pack a snack, is

what I'm saying. It will be hard. It's going to be hard to feed you something only food up there, it's fish. But you know I'll work it out. I always do. UM. So I would love to come visit Northern Canada, Greenland, the Arctic. We have gotten a couple of offers to crash with some of our listeners and are amazing places in Scotland or in Munich, or a

couple of places. I want you to know that we're taking you incredibly seriously and I am writing a whole tour down for us where we can crash on your couch. So don't offer unless you mean it's because we will descend upon you and then make you show us around. I am ready, Yeah, I am so ready. So if you would like, please reach out and tell us what you thought about this episode, when you think about Chikuli too, and appear Vic or any of these dumbasses they were

helping out. Or if you haven't offered to crash on your couch somewhere cool we can travel. We would love to hear that too. Our email is Romance at i hurt media dot com, or you can find us on social media. I'm at oh Great, It's Eli on Twitter and Instagram. I'm Dianamite Boom and the show is at pridic Romance, So please reach out let us know what you thought, um, and if we made any errors, please correct us as usual um, but hopefully not and we

will see you at the next episode. Right, So any and knocker Mick listening Kermick, So long, friends, it's time to go. Thanks for listening to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncles in dance to listen to a show Ridiculous Well Dance