Patsy Klengenberg

Patsy Klengenberg, 1924. (National Archives of Canada/172879)	Patsy Klengenberg and family, 1924. (National Archives of Canada/PA 172880)

Patsy Klengenberg, Charlie’s son, was also very successful in the fur trade. Part of his success may be attributable to the education in reading and writing English that he received from Diamond Jenness when he acted as Jenness’s interpreter during the Canadian Arctic Expedition. Due to his abilities as an interpreter he served as translator in the trials of Uluksak and Sinnisiak the two Inuit accused of murdering two Catholic priests in 1913. Patsy ran an independent trading post at Wilmot Islands between 1925 and 1941, and an outpost of HBC Cambridge Bay at Terror Bay on King William Island. He also worked with the Hudson’s Bay Company on the supply ship Aklavik: first under captain Scotty Gall; and then as the captain of the Aklavik himself. Patsy bought the Aklavik for one dollar on April 30th, 1942

Patsy Klengenberg’s warehouse. July 1929. Wilmot Island.
(L.T. Burwash/National Archives of Canada/PA-176937)

Patsy married Mary Yakalun from the Rymer Point area, Victoria Island, in 1924, and had two daughters, Amy and Dora Kelly. Patsy’s wife died in 1937, and he remarried soon afterwards. About that time he adopted a young boy, Donald Ayalik, who, in August 1946, was badly burned when he tried to rescue Patsy who was caught in an engine-room fire on his schooner Aklavik at Cambridge Bay. Patsy drowned in an attempt to swim to shore from the burning boat and was buried at Cambridge Bay.