An old kayak continues to breath life into the lives of Inuk people in Labrador.
A year-old book, a life-long story and a presentation by the author of “Renatus’ Kayak,” the story of a Labrador Inuk, an American G.I. and a secret Second World War weather station, will be outlined at The Rooms on Sunday from 3:30-5 p.m.
The author, Rozanne Enerson Junker, has taken on the project of recounting the life of her uncle, Woody Belsheim, a young American G.I. during the Second World War when he found himself stationed at a secret weather station in northern Labrador, along with six others.
“He escaped death so many times, I think he may have been a cat with nine lives,” she said during a break from research at The Rooms on Friday.
“He could have been the original Arctic Cat.”
She completed her book more than a year ago, but new and compelling information continues to come her way.
She said there is one story that comes from a book published by the Nunatsiavut government a few years ago that quoted an acquaintance Renatus had met — on his way to jail — “I think Renatus might be a shaman.”
He stopped in a community and spent the winter there, hunting Caribou. His skills as a hunter and perhaps the fact he was able to record kills seemingly without weapons led the man to make his shaman quote.
In addition, after Renatus’ father died when he was 12 the family was forced to leave Hebron for Okak. His mother decided they had to leave Okak in 1914 and, had they stayed, it is certain they would have died in the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918.
“He escaped death many times,” Junker said.
Her love of the story and what it meant to her uncle left an indelible mark on her life, especially for the Inuk people.
So much in fact, she is donating her appearance fees to the youth kayak program in Nain, in support of indigenous activities and history.
“It’s not a huge sum of money, obviously, but it feels good that the funds are being spent in the community,” she said.
Belsheim’s job was to record weather measurements needed to ensure the safe delivery of over 10,000 military planes to European allies and to code those measurements in a way that they couldn't be read by German U-Boats offshore.
He kept his stories private until later in life, when he began to wonder about the Inuit family who supported him during his year-long stay, turning what could have been an isolating posting into an unbelievable adventure.
Aside from his memories, a model sealskin kayak given to him by Renatus Tuglavina was his only link to the past. Could that kayak take him back again?
Belsheim gave Junker the canoe prior to his death in the hope she would honour a last request and find an Inuit hunter, Renatus Tuglavina, and his daughter, Harriot, the two individuals who befriended him in 1944.
Harriot, in fact, was Belsheim’s love interest in this story.
