Red Pedersen

Even with Angulalik’s lack of English, the HBC was able to communicate well enough with him to ensure that he received all the goods he needed. Scotty Gall was in charge of supplying Angulalik’s post from Cambridge Bay for most of the 1940s and he and Angulalik had an understanding.

Listen to Scotty Gall on Angulalik (MP3 - 357k) (Northwest Territories Archives/ N-1988-040-0001 and 0002) Read the transcript instead.

Later in the 1950s the HBC was in the practice of sending a man down to work with Angulalik on his financial records. One of these employees was a trader named Red Pedersen.

Red Pedersen first went to Perry River in February of 1954 as an apprentice with the Hudson’s Bay post in Cambridge Bay. Part of his duties was to go down once a year to take inventory and to help Angulalik in making up the merchandise orders for the following year.

Hear Red Pedersen talk of working with Angulalik (MP3 - 210k) (Northwest Territories Archives/ N-1998-049-0050) Read the transcript instead.

In 1955, Pedersen did the same trip and worked with Angulalik at Perry River and then moved on to work with George Oakoak who managed Angulalik’s outpost at Sherman Inlet.

Jimmy Nakoyak in kayak in front of Perry River post.
(Red Pedersen/Northwest Territories Archives/N-1986-002: 0127)

Hear Red Pedersen’s description of the Perry River Post (MP3 - 389k)  (Northwest Territories Archives/ N-1998-049-0050) Read the transcript instead.

After Angulalik was charged with murder in 1957, he was in a position where he had to sell the post. The HBC bought the post from him at that time and Red Pedersen became its first manager. After Angulalik was acquitted of the charge, he returned to Perry River to work alongside Pedersen as an assistant.