Cleveland's Trading Post, Cleveland's Wives

By Nancy Wachowich

Friday, April 22, 2005

Today was the start of filming at the set designed to be
George Washington Cleveland's trading post. Cleveland was an ex-whaler who, at
the end of the whaling period in the Eastern Arctic, decided to stay in the
Igloolik region and run an independent trading post. There he collected fox
furs and exchanged them for flour, sugar, tea, tobacco, metal goods, guns,
ammunition, and (at times) alcohol. Cleveland was a tall, boisterous man who
lived hard. He was a drinker and a bigamist. He had three wives, numerous
"girlfriends" , and was said to have fathered children all around the Eastern
Arctic.

I dressed for my day out at the trading post in the Isuma
building lobby, alongside the three women cast in the film as Cleveland's
wives. They were trying on garish Klondike style skirts over top of their snow
pants and laughing amongst themselves. The set for Cleveland's post had been
built out at Zach's cabin on Ham Bay (about a mile from Igloolik). I had been
there several times previous to this for writing workshops for the JKR script.
At that time, Zach's cabin was a shack made from plywood and salvaged siding
with a five foot window facing the bay. This time, the cabin was rebuilt to
look like a trading post. A second floor and third room had been added. Small
paned windows were put in and shelves were installed, lined with trade goods.
White foxes covered one wall.

The scene that was planned was for the afternoon was a party
at Cleveland's. In Freuchen's arctic accounts, he tells about a drunken party--
a real bust-up-- when he and his traveling companions arrived at Cleveland's
post. One of the actors playing Cleveland's second wife is Carol Kunuk. She
told me that her great great grandmother, Sapinaq, was actually Cleveland's
second wife and that Sapinaq is Carol's Inuktitut name.

Inuit name their their children after deceased relatives
and friends and people are said to inherit characteristics of the person (or
people) who previously held that name. They become that person all over again.
History is cyclical. If Carol was following that logic, then I certainly felt
sorry for her that day. Pierre Lebeau (the actor playing Cleveland) arrived on
set a few minutes after I did, looking like someone who I would not want to
speak with in a bar. His costume was an crumpled old musty wool military
jacket, trousers tucked into 1880s military boots, a dirty loose blouse-type
shirt, and an undershirt. His tooth had fallen out before his flight to
Igloolik, so he had delayed replacing it in order to stay in character. It also
looked as if he had not seen a shower in a while. Poor Carol.

I sat for a few and watched the action. Lebeau brought to
his character particularly slimey gravitas that I had always imagined Cleveland
possessing. He sounded positively creepy. Yes, poor Carol.