Michael Palin awarded first Louie Kamookak Medal

L-R Michael Palin, Gavin Fitch, and John Geiger at medal presentation
(Credit: Credit Ben Powless/Canadian Geographic)

Last week, I was delighted and honored to host Michael Palin at Providence's historic Columbus Theatre, where we enjoyed lunch together, followed by the evening's delightful "in-conversation" style talk about all things Erebus. Among the many subjects we turned to, that of Louie Kamookak was one of particular poignancy to us both. I recalled how, the last time I saw Louie in Gjoa Haven in the summer of 2017, he'd seemed in such good health and spirits, though that turned out to have been only a couple of months before his cancer was diagnosed. From him, I learned that Louie had planned to guide him a land excursion to some of the Franklin sites on King William Island -- a collaboration that, alas, is now never to be. In the Acknowledgements section of his book, Michael offers this moving tribute:

"Though, to my great regret, I never met him, the name of Louie Kamookak, the Inuit historian who died in March 2018 at the age of fifty-eight, came up again and again in my research for the book. He wanted, above all, to find Franklin's grave, and it is a huge sadness that time ran out for him. But he won't be forgotten. Everyone who has ever been curious about the fate of the Franklin expedition owes a huge debt of thanks to him for his dogged and thorough research."

Michael with Chris Cran's portrait of Louie

And now those thanks come full circle, as the Royal Canadian Geographical Society has presented Mr. Palin with its first Louie Kamookak medal. It was a surprise honor, given on the occasion of the book event at the new RCGS headquarters at 50 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, and although Michael was characteristically modest in saying he felt he didn't deserve it, to my mind it's entirely apropos. I feel sure that Louie, from wherever he journeys now, would feel the same. No book in many years has commanded the audience of Erebus: One Ship, Two Epic Voyages, and the Greatest Naval Mystery of All Time, and none has brought home the human elements of its dramas -- both in the Antarctic and the Arctic -- as eloquently.  It's those aspects -- both the courage and resourcefulness of Franklin's men, and the curiosity and 'doggedness' of those who have searched for him and his ships for all these years -- that both Louie and Michael embody.