1. Captain George Comer was considered the most famous American whaling captain of Hudson Bay, and the world's foremost authority on Hudson Bay Inuit in the early 20th century.
26 Facts About George Comer
1. 2.
George Comer made 14 Arctic and three Antarctic voyages in his lifetime.
3.
George Comer was born in Quebec City, Canada East in 1858.
4.
George Comer's father was English, and his mother was Irish.
5.
The family immigrated to the United States in 1860 and George Comer grew up in East Haddam, Connecticut.
6.
Subsequently, George Comer spent time in an orphanage and an East Haddam foster home.
7.
In 1877, George Comer, married Julia Chipman and they made their home on Mount Parnassus Road in East Haddam.
8.
George Comer made the first of his Arctic voyages at age 17 on the whaler Nile bound for Cumberland Sound, Baffin Island in 1875.
9.
George Comer hired the Caribou Inuit men as whaling hands and they supplied caribou meat for his crew saving them from developing scurvy.
10.
George Comer photographed the Inuit on many occasions and for that he was given the Inuktitut name "Angakkuq", as the images were not a reality easily understood by the Inuit.
11.
George Comer developed a bond with an Aivilik woman named Niviatsianaq, referred to amongst Inuit as "Shoofly George Comer".
12.
George Comer was Comer's traveling companion on his ships for several years, bringing her son Oudlanak, referred to as "John Ell", who was rumored to be Comer's biological son, with her.
13.
George Comer fathered at least one other child while in Hudson Bay with an Inuk woman named Ooktok, Laurent Pameolik.
14.
George Comer's find is called "Comer's Midden" as it included a kitchen-midden.
15.
George Comer visited Antarctica on several sealing voyages, including: South Georgia and Kerguelen Island.
16.
George Comer is noted as having written the first account of the island's endemic flightless moorhen, the species Gallinula comeri, named after him.
17.
George Comer was highly regarded for his Arctic anthropology, ethnology, natural history, geography, and cartography work.
18.
In return, George Comer provided Boas with information that was used by Boas's in his 1888 book, The Central Eskimo.
19.
George Comer published papers in 1910 and 1913 in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society of New York providing improved maps and charts of Southampton Island.
20.
George Comer published notes in American Anthropologist about Southampton Island's isolated Sadlermiut who became extinct in 1902.
21.
Subsequent to their extinction, George Comer attempted to repopulate Southampton Island at the exceedingly flat Cape Kendall on the island's western shore, northwest of the Bay of Gods Mercy, with Aivilik.
22.
In November 1903, George Comer recorded Aivilingmiut and Qaernermiut songs on a phonograph while in northwestern Hudson Bay, notable as some of the earliest recorded voices of Inuit.
23.
On board the Era, George Comer made plaster casts of their faces.
24.
George Comer retired in East Haddam, but he continued to send presents to his Inuit friends.
25.
George Comer remained active, serving in the Connecticut State Legislature.
26.
George Comer was in ill health in his latter years, and died in East Haddam in 1937 at the age 79.