Christian Klengenberg
Encyclopedia
Christian Klengenberg Jorgensen (21 December 1869 - 4 May 1931), was a Danish whaler, trapper, and trader, active for 34 years in Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 (Point Hope
Point Hope, Alaska
Point Hope is a city in North Slope Borough, Alaska, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 757.-Geography:...

 and Barrow
Barrow, Alaska
Barrow is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is one of the northernmost cities in the world and is the northernmost city in the United States of America, with nearby Point Barrow being the nation's northernmost point. Barrow's population was 4,212 at the...

) and Northern Canada
Northern Canada
Northern Canada, colloquially the North, is the vast northernmost region of Canada variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut...

 (Herschel Island
Herschel Island
Herschel Island is an island in the Beaufort Sea , which lies off the coast of the Yukon Territories in Canada, of which it is administratively a part...

, the Coronation Gulf
Coronation Gulf
Coronation Gulf lies between Victoria Island and mainland Nunavut in Canada. To the northwest it connects with Dolphin and Union Strait and thence the Beaufort Sea and Arctic Ocean; to the northeast it connects with Dease Strait and thence Queen Maud Gulf. To the southeast lies Bathurst...

, and Victoria Island). He is notable for opening trade routes to the Copper Inuit
Copper Inuit
Copper Inuit are a Canadian Inuit group who live north of the tree line, in Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region and the Northwest Territories's Inuvik Region. Most historically lived in the area around Coronation Gulf, on Victoria Island, and southern Banks Island.Their western boundary was Wise Point,...

 territory. Klengenberg is also credited with the discovery of Blond Eskimo and recounting his experience to the anthropologist Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a Canadian Arctic explorer and ethnologist.-Early life:Stefansson, born William Stephenson, was born at Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, in 1879. His parents had emigrated from Iceland to Manitoba two years earlier...

 who went on to publish about their existence.

Early years

Born in Svendborg
Svendborg
Svendborg is a town on the island of Funen in south-central Denmark. The town is in Svendborg municipality . Svendborg is the second-largest city on Funen and has a population of 27,009 ....

, Funen
Funen
Funen , with a size of 2,984 km² , is the third-largest island of Denmark following Zealand and Vendsyssel-Thy, and the 163rd largest island of the world. Funen is located in the central part of the country and has a population of 454,358 inhabitants . The main city is Odense, connected to the...

, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

, his parents were Jørgen Christian Jørgensen (1836–1906), a soldier, cabinet maker, and wood carver, and Caroline Sofie Møller (born 1840), a Viking
Viking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

. He was one of eight children. Klengenberg also had eight half siblings from his father's second marriage to Margrethe Marie Gielster. Though confirmed in the Lutheran Church, his spiritual beliefs were more in common with Wodin and Thor
Thor
In Norse mythology, Thor is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing, and fertility...

, having learned of them from his mother.

Career

Klengenberg began his seagoing career at age 16 as a cook's assistant on the Iceland, bound from Sweden to New York City. As a ship's cook, his travels took him to Russia, Australia, Scotland, as well as Honolulu, and the Barbary Coast, San Francisco, California
Barbary Coast, San Francisco, California
Barbary Coast was a red-light district in old San Francisco, California. Geographically it constituted nine blocks bounded by Montgomery Street, Washington Street, Stockton Street, and Broadway...

. In 1893, he arrived at the Inupiat village of Point Hope on the Emily Schroeder. It was here that he met his future wife, Gremnia, a Tikigaq
Tikigaq
The Tikiġaġmiut, an Inuit people, live two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, southwest of Barrow, Alaska, in an Inupiaq village of Point Hope, Alaska . The Tikigaq are the oldest continuously settled Native American site on the continent...

 from Tigerah (Point Hope), Noatak
Noatak National Preserve
The Noatak National Preserve is an United States National Preserve in northwestern Alaska that was established to protect the Noatak River Basin...

-Kobuk
Kobuk Valley National Park
Kobuk Valley National Park is in northwestern Alaska north of the Arctic Circle. It was designated a United States National Park in 1980 by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. It is noted for the Great Kobuk Sand Dunes and caribou migration routes. The park offers backcountry...

, Alaska.

They made a home in Point Hope where Gremnia taught Klengenberg how to snare ptarmigan, set out trap lines, and the job of floor whaling. His early whaling career also included selling whale bone for corset
Corset
A corset is a garment worn to hold and shape the torso into a desired shape for aesthetic or medical purposes...

s.

In 1894, Klengenberg was a pilot on the whaler
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

 Orka that sailed to Herschel Island
Herschel Island
Herschel Island is an island in the Beaufort Sea , which lies off the coast of the Yukon Territories in Canada, of which it is administratively a part...

. Though he had planned to return home to Point Hope after this trip, he signed on instead to the whaler Mary D. Hume
Mary D. Hume (steamer)
The Mary D. Hume was a steamer built at Gold Beach, Oregon in 1881, by R. D. Hume, a pioneer and early businessman in that area. Gold Beach was then called Ellensburg.-History:...

, spending the summer whaling in the Beaufort Sea
Beaufort Sea
The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after hydrographer Sir Francis Beaufort...

. While anchored off Banks Island
Banks Island
One of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Banks Island is situated in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is separated from Victoria Island to its east by the Prince of Wales Strait and from the mainland by Amundsen Gulf to its south. The Beaufort Sea lies...

, an area that whalers thought to be uninhabited, he went ashore and found Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...

 footprints and made a secret decision that he would return here eventually to trade with them. He did not have an opportunity to return to Copper Inuit territory until 1905. It was at this time, while in charge of Charles McKenna's trading schooner Olga, that Klengenberg convinced the captain to allow him to search for these Inuit, though he was also ordered to remain in sight of McKenna's ship, the Charles Hanson. Pushed off course, the Olga ended up off the southwest coast of Victoria Island, forcing the Klengenberg family, three other families, and the ship's crew of nine to winter at Penny Bay. While here, their camp became a trading post, and a base from which to contact and trade with nearby Copper Inuit bands. The following summer, the Olga returned to Herschel Island, but less four crewman. Klengenberg's report stated that ice had prevented him from returning earlier. While at Herschel Island, Klengenberg met Stefansson and recounted his meeting of blond Eskimos, people who had never seen white men previously. But the Herschel Island whalesmen were not interested in Eskimo stories. Rather, they wanted an explanation as to why four crewmen had not returned on the Olga. Klengenberg explained all four deaths, then immediately returned to Alaska with his family.

After Klengenberg's departure, the other crewman gave a different account, including that Klengenberg shot the engineer, Jackson Paul, that two crewmen who witnessed the shooting disappeared, and that a third witness died while chained in the ship's hold. An American commissioner heard of these accounts and reported them in San Francisco. Klengenberg was charged with murdering Jackson Paul, and the British ambassador turned over the matter to the American Secretary of State. After the news reached Alaska, Klengenberg turned himself in, was transported to San Francisco, and was tried and acquitted in 1907 because of contradictions in the crewmen's testimony.
Klengenberg remained in the western Arctic for the next several years, supporting his family by hunting, trading, trapping, and whaling. In 1916, he moved his family to the western Coronation Gulf, establishing a trading post at Cape Kendall, north of Coppermine
Kugluktuk, Nunavut
Kugluktuk is a hamlet located at the mouth of the Coppermine River in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada, on Coronation Gulf, southwest of Victoria Island...

. After moving the trading post several times, in 1919, he settled at Rymer Point, Cape Krusenstern (Nuvuk), on Victoria Island's Wollaston Peninsula
Wollaston Peninsula
The Wollaston Peninsula is located on southwestern Victoria Island, Canada. Most of the peninsula lies in Nunavut's Kitikmeot Region, bordered by the Dolphin and Union Strait to the south. A smaller portion lies within the Northwest Territories's Inuvik Region, bordered by the Amundsen Gulf to the...

. The following year, he opened another post in Bathurst Inlet
Bathurst Inlet
Bathurst Inlet is a deep inlet located along the northern coast of the Canadian mainland, into which the Burnside and Western Rivers empty. The name, or its native equivalent Kingoak , is also used to identify the community of Bathurst Inlet located on the shore.-Plans for a deep-water port:A...

. Communication with the Victoria Island Inuit was not easy and he relied on his oldest daughter who spoke Inupiaq
Inupiaq language
The Inupiat language, also known as Inupiatun, Inupiaq, Iñupiaq, Inyupiaq, Inyupiat, Inyupeat, Inyupik, and Inupik, is a group of dialects of the Inuit language, spoken in northern and northwestern Alaska. The Iñupiaq language is a member of the Eskimo languages group. There are roughly 2,100...

 to act as an interpreter.

In 1924, Klengenberg sailed his ship, the Maid of New Orleans, from Alaska to Canada, bound for his trading post on Victoria Island. But after landing on Herschel Island, he learned of a policy prohibiting American ships from bringing foreign goods into Canada. Klengenberg asked for the right to only deliver goods sufficient for his immediate family. Permission was granted so long as he first stopped at Baillie Island
Baillie Island
Baillie Island is located off the north coast of Cape Bathurst in the Northwest Territories, Canada. The island formed part of the area used by the Avvaqmiut who are a branch of the Mackenzie Inuit.-History:...

 to pick up a Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...

 constable. Klengenberg complied and was thereafter reunited with his family. But on the trip back to Baillie Island, the RCMP's Constable MacDonald disappeared, with only his parka and notebook found in the icy waters. The mate, Henry Larsen, was not suspicious. But the incident was investigated as the drowned man was the grandson of Sir John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...

, the first Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...

 of Canada and founder of the RCMP. Klengenberg was eventually vindicated and the event was deemed an accident.

Personal life

When he went off to sea, Klengenberg's surname of Klengenberg Joergensen, was shortened to "Klengenberg", and it was occasionally spelled "Klingenberg" or "Klinkenberg". His given name was shortened to "Kris", but was occasionally spelled "Kristian". His nicknames were "Charlie", "Little Charlie" and "Charliuyak". Stefansson referred to Klengenberg's reputation as akin to Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...

's Sea-Wolf
The Sea-Wolf
The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American novelist Jack London about a literary critic, survivor of an ocean collision who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him...

character.

In 1894, Klengenberg married Gremnia (or "Grenameh") Qimniq (or "Kenmek") (1878 - after 1931), daughter of Takpaluk and Wenek. They had several children: Weena, Etna, Patric ("Patsy"), Collinson, Andrew, Jorgen, Lena, Diamond, and Robert. Daughter Weena married the Norwegian explorer Storker Storkersen who accompanied Stefansson. Daughter Etna married Ikey Bolt ("Angatilsiak Anutisiak"), of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, and Coronation Medal
Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal
The Queen Elizabeth II Coronation Medal was a commemorative medal made to celebrate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.-Issue:For Coronation and Jubilee medals, the practice up until 1977 was that United Kingdom authorities decided on a total number to be produced, then allocated a proportion to...

 awardee. Etna and Ikey took over Klengenberg's Rymer Point store in 1920, and Gremnia lived with them when Klengenberg retired to Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

 in the 1920s. Their son Patsy became a successful fur trader in part because Diamond Jenness
Diamond Jenness
Diamond Jenness, CC was one of Canada's greatest early scientists and a pioneer of Canadian anthropology.-Biography:...

 taught him to read and write English when Patsy served as interpreter during the Canadian Arctic Expedition
Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916
The Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913–1916 was organized and led by Vilhjalmur Stefansson. The expedition was divided into a Northern Party led by Stefansson, and a Southern Party led by R M. Anderson. The objective of the Northern Party was to explore for new land north and west of the known lands...

. Jorgen became a trapper, trading with Captain Christian Theodore Pedersen
Christian Theodore Pedersen
Christian Theodore Pedersen was a Norwegian-American seaman, whaling captain and fur trader active in Alaska, Canada, and the northern Pacific from the 1890s to the 1930s...

.

Klengenberg became a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....

 United States citizen, but gave up this citizenship in 1925, becoming a Canadian. He retired in Vancouver where two of Weena's daughter, Bessie and Ida, attended school. He died there in 1931 and was buried at Rymer Point
Rymer Point
Rymer Point is a cape in the Canadian Arctic territory of Nunavut. It is located on southwestern Victoria Island's Wollaston Peninsula, facing the Dolphin and Union Strait. Clouston Bay is situated along the north shoreline...

. Many of Klengenberg and Gremnia's descendants live in Ulukhaktok
Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories
Ulukhaktok is a small hamlet on the west coast of Victoria Island, in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. The 2006 census indicated a population of 398 of which 360 were Inuvialuit or Inuit along with 7.5% non-Aboriginal and 2.5% North American Indian...

 and Qurluqtuuq (Coppermine).

On 12 May 2010, Klengenberg's great-granddaughter, Edna Elias
Edna Elias
Edna Elias is a Canadian politician from Kugluktuk, Nunavut. On 12 May 2010 she was appointed as the 4th Commissioner of Nunavut by Prime Minister Stephen Harper....

, was appointed as the 4th Commissioner of Nunavut
Commissioners of Nunavut
This is a list of the Commissioners of Nunavut, Canada, since its creation in 1999. As of 12 May 2010, the commissioner is Edna Elias.-History:The position of Commissioner was created in 1999 with the creation of the new territory...

 by Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

 Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

.

Works

  • Klengenberg Joergensen, Kristian, & MacInnes, Tom
    Tom MacInnes
    Thomas Robert Edward MacInnes was a Canadian poet and writer whose writings ranged from "vigorous, slangy recollections of the Yukon gold rush" to "a translation of and commentary on Lao-tzu’s philosophy"...

    (1932). (Christian) Klengenberg (Jorgensen) of the Arctic. London [usw.]: Cape.
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