Give Me My Father's Body : The Life of Minik, the New York Eskimo

In 1897, American explorer Robert Peary brought Minik Wallace, a young Polar Eskimo, from northwestern Greenland to New York. During his 12 years in America, Minik's adoptive family went from riches to rags, and Minik's own life was shattered by the traumatic discovery of his father's skeleton on display in the American Museum of Natural History. Sent back to Greenland in 1909, Minik had to relearn his native language and hunting skills to survive. Told here for the first time, this dark chapter from the golden age of Polar expedition is based on original research in Greenland, Denmark, and the U.S.

Kenn Harper has lived in the Arctic for over thirty years in Inuit communities in the Baffin Region and in Qaanaaq, Greenland. He has worked as a teacher, development officer, historian, linguist, and businessman. He speaks Inuktitut, the Eskimo language of the eastern Canadian Arctic, and has written extensively on northern history and the Inuktitut language. He presently lives in Iqaluit, capital of the new Arctic territory of Nunavut, and was recently elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.