Minik: The New York Eskimo
An Arctic Explorer, a Museum, and the Betrayal of the Inuit People
by Kenn Harper
Steerforth Press
Biographies & Memoirs , History
Pub Date 26 Sep 2017
FTC Reviewed ARC for Steerforth Press and Net Galley
Description
A true story from the great age of Arctic exploration of an Inuit boy's struggle for dignity against Robert Peary and the American Museum of Natural History in turn-of-the-century New York City.
Sailing aboard a ship called Hope in 1897, celebrated Arctic explorer Robert Peary entered New York Harbor with peculiar "cargo": Six Polar Inuit intended to serve as live "specimens" at the American Museum of Natural History. Four died within a year. One managed to gain passage back to Greenland. Only the sixth, a boy of six or seven with a precociously solemn smile, remained. His name was Minik.
Although Harper's unflinching narrative provides a much needed corrective to history's understanding of Peary, who was known among the Polar Inuit as "the great tormenter", it is primarily a story about a boy, Minik Wallace, known to the American public as "The New York Eskimo." Orphaned when his father died of pneumonia, Minik never surrendered the hope of going "home," never stopped fighting for the dignity of his father's memory, and never gave up his belief that people would come to his aid if only he could get them to understand.
My Thoughts
I had a curiosity about this author who became known as a historian of the Arctic. So, I decided to read Minik: The New York Eskimo.
Can you imagine a longing to go home? Can you imagine a time when that is all you could ever hope for, and yet seems so far removed it may remain... just a dream? I expect, a glorious dream at that. Now, imagine you are 7 years old, you do not speak English, and you are in a strange country.
I was immediately pulled into Minik's story. Thanks to the author's attention to historical detail, we are made aware of the life of this brave young man, who teaches us the true meaning of HOPE.
Minik: The New York Eskimo, speaks to humanity in the definitions of simple words we learn when we are young, like, empathy, humility, and consideration.
I highly recommend this book.