Sole Desire Serve Cause

Contents Preface vii Introduction 1 Part I Early Lives and Initial Years of Service 1 Kathleen Gale Keass, 1919−1951 11 2 John Jameson (Jamie) Bond, 1917−1951 25 3 Gale Pioneers to Jamaica, 1951−1953 55 4 Jamie Pioneers to Coral Harbour, Northwest Territories, 1951−1953 72 5 Courtship, Marriage and the Ten Year Crusade, 1951−1953 98 Part II The Ten Year Crusade, 1953−1963 6 Arctic Bay, District of Franklin, 1953−1955 125 7 ‘Outside’, Cambridge Bay and the Passing of the Guardian, 1955−1957 163 8 Cambridge Bay, 1958−1962 201 9 Frobisher Bay, Pond Inlet and the World Congress, 1962−1963 239 Part III Teaching and Administrative Services, 1963−2009 10 Southern Canada, 1963−1975 263 11 Retirement Years, 1976−1988 307 12 Vancouver Island, 1988−2009 347 Appendix: Biographical Information and Record of Bahá’í Service as requested by the Universal House of Justice 403 Bibliography Notes and References

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Jamie Pioneers to Coral Harbour, Northwest Territories, 1951–1953 God willing, the call of the Kingdom may reach the ears of the Eskimos, the inhabitants of the Islands of Franklin in the north of Canada, as well as Greenland . . . Effort, the utmost effort, is required. Should you display an effort, so that the fragrances of God may be diffused among the Eskimos, its effect will be very great and far-reaching.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá1

A letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada, dated 1 March 1951, reads: He was also very pleased to see that Mr. Bond had gone north (summer 1950) and had been able to contact the Arctic Eskimos. He hopes that the way will open for this devoted believer to establish a more permanent contact in that area in some field of government work.2

Jamie: I completed my Master’s degree in the spring of 1951 and I had every intention of enrolling in a doctoral programme at Cornell University. But then I re-read ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s addresses to Canada in the Tablets of the 72

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Divine Plan and I reflected on the Guardian’s hopes for me ‘to establish a more permanent contact in that area’ (Coral Harbour). I realized that we were entering the fourth year of the Guardian’s Five Year Plan for Canada in which the Guardian had made contact with Eskimos a goal and that at that point in time, no one had arisen to go into the Arctic to carry out that mandate. I resolved that I must return to the Arctic as a pioneer. This, of course, meant that my plans to enter doctoral studies were put on indefinite hold. I wondered what that would mean in the future for my desired academic career but I decided to leave that to Divine Providence.

At that time the Canadian Arctic had very limited access from Southern Canada. There were perhaps thirty small outposts scattered along several thousand miles of coastline. Each tiny settlement consisted of a dozen buildings that normally included a trading post, a church mission and sometimes a Royal Canadian Mounted Police post.

Three or four hundred Eskimos would live in a number of small isolated camps often at considerable distance from these trading posts. The Eskimos would come in to the trading posts two or three times a year to barter their furs. Normally a hunting camp would consist of a small extended kin group of perhaps twenty-five people. The camp would move according to the season of the year. In the springtime, when the sun had returned and the seals would come up on top of the sea ice, the people would gather in larger sealing camps on the sea ice. Since the hunting was good at this season, it was a happy time of the year with much socializing. Communication with the outside world was limited to the annual government patrol 73

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ship and on rare occasions a mercy flight for medical evacuation. Otherwise messages could be sent by shortwave radio. In fact, people who never met physically became good friends in this vast region by radio communication.

There were only a few opportunities for employment, one of which was with the Canadian Meteorological Service where I was accepted for a job as a ‘Weather Observer’ despite the fact that my professional background had little bearing on the position. I prayed ardently that I would be posted to Coral Harbour.

It was providential that I fulfilled the Guardian’s hopes when, on July 19th, 1951, I returned to Coral Harbour.

The weather station where I was posted was located just five miles from the seacoast settlement of Coral Harbour where Ohmilik lived, the Eskimo I had introduced to the Faith the previous summer.

Almost simultaneous to my departure for Coral Harbour, Palle Bischoff, another young Bahá’í, one of the earliest Danish believers, pioneered to Greenland, thus fulfilling the other northern goal given to Canada by Shoghi Effendi in our first Five Year Plan. Palle and I became friends and met together a number of times throughout our years of service to the Faith.

I felt humbled and gratified when I later received a copy of a letter dated October 30, 1951 from Shoghi Effendi through his secretary sent to the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada stating: The departure of Mr. Bond for the Arctic made the Guardian very happy; this, as well as the sailing of Mr. Bischoff for Greenland, marks the opening stage of the 74

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campaign to carry the Faith to the Eskimos, a plan set forth by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and very dear to his heart.3

Coral Harbour is named for the fossilized coral found in the area. The coral had flourished when the Arctic had a warmer climate. Southampton Island is approximately the size of Switzerland and almost four times larger than Jamaica. It is about 250 miles (400 km) long and about 150 miles (250 km) wide and 15,900 square miles (41,214 sq. km) in area, shaped like a triangle with a big ‘v’ cut into the base. The climate is typically Arctic. The mean temperature for the month of February is minus 25°F (−32°C). The mean temperature for July is about 45°F (7°C) with the highest temperature in the summer being around 60°F (16°C). There are 24 hours of daylight through the summer months and less than seven hours of daylight during the winter months. The area surrounding Coral Harbour is gently rolling barren tundra with a ground cover of mostly snow, many loose rocks and boulders and intermittent stretches of deep mosses and lichens. I admired the amazing ingenuity and plasticity of the Eskimos in their unending struggle for survival in this extremely harsh environment.

The hamlet of Coral Harbour consisted of a trading post, two missions, a school and a cluster of shacks in which perhaps 100 Eskimos lived. Scattered along the coast of this ‘v’ another hundred Eskimos lived in a halfdozen encampments.

The Americans built the weather station during the war as part of a string of bases between Canada and Europe.

These bases were to be used to evacuate wounded by air 75

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from Europe. Fortunately the flow of casualties never reached the peak where these facilities were needed. In 1946 the Americans turned the base over to the Canadian Federal Government and only the weather station part of it, together with the airstrip was maintained.

Work challenges Life at the isolated weather station was characterized by a routine of repetitive duties that took about four to five hours to complete. Twelve to fourteen men worked at the station. The basic complement included two meteorologists (I was one), four radio operators, two cooks, a diesel engineer (for our power plant) and three men who maintained the airstrip. Each morning we sent up instruments attached to balloons to a height of about 12 miles (19 km). They transmitted weather data to the ground.

We abstracted this information, which was then radioed to the National Weather Bureau where the data was used as part of an international weather news exchange.

The monthly arrivals of the Air Force transport plane and, in the summertime, the annual visit of the supply ship, were among the few changes in the routine. Most of the station personnel took Arctic postings to save money or to escape personal problems. The arrival of the monthly plane meant a drinking binge that usually lasted for days after its departure.

Once, after the transport plane left, the station cook disappeared from camp. A search party later found him and he had to be shipped out. The assistant cook took over, but unfortunately he had no cooking experience and 76

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was an alcoholic as well. One night he went to bed drunk and fell asleep while smoking. The mattress caught fire.

Fortunately the fire was extinguished before it spread and the assistant cook was shipped out on the next plane.

While I had the occasional opportunity to rediscover my salty Navy vocabulary, blaspheming was a relatively constant characteristic of the tongues of the others. I found it wearing. I missed the Bahá’í community life I had enjoyed at the University of Toronto. It was an understatement to say that life on the weather station was lacking in intellectual stimulation.

I was able to get away to some degree by moving to a bedroom at the end of the barracks and by insulating the walls for sound. It was usually an environment conducive to prayer and meditation. I also had a large desk and spent hours at it studying the Writings. During my reflections I realized that one purpose for me in the Arctic was to study the Teachings, as my six previous years of academic study had resulted in an imbalance between conventional scholarly study and research into the Teachings.

A low point in the depressing cycle of work, personnel conflicts and bingeing came in early January 1952 when, during a two-day drinking party, one of the men fired a number of shots from his pistol – one shot just thirty inches above another man’s head. Another shot hit the floor between a man’s feet. I was in my room and I did not go to investigate the disturbance as I had learned from long experience that it was unwise for a non-drinker to interfere in a drinking party. I did not know until the next evening the severity of what had happened the previous night.

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