Henry Toke Munn (1864-1952)

• Published in: ARCTIC
• Main Author: White, Gavin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Arctic Institute of North America 1984
• Subjects: Biographies; Businesses; Geological exploration; Gold; History; Hudson's Bay Company; Klondike Gold Rush; 1898; Munn; Henry Toke; 1864-1952; Baffin Island; Nunavut; Ontario; Northern; Southampton Island; Arctic; Canada; Hudson; Hudson Strait; Wood Buffalo; Yukon; Baffin; eskimo*
• Online Access: https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/arctic/article/view/65222

[Munn] came to Canada at the age of 22 and was nearly killed in a shoot-up in the streets of Montreal on the very day of his landing. He became a farmer and then a horse-breeder in Manitoba, and by 1894 he was hunting muskoxen and wood buffalo in the far northwest. He subsequently prospected around Kootenay, joined the Yukon gold-rush as a storekeeper, and acquired the title of "Captain" while serving in the South African war. . In 1914 Albert dropped off Munn and another man to trade and to search for gold just north of Baffin: that year was enough to convince Munn that there was no gold. Munn shifted his energies to trade. In 1916 he was left for a two-year stay on Southampton Island with six Eskimo families; in 1919 he visited his agents at several arctic posts but did not stay himself; and he spent the winter of 1920-1921 at Button Point, his original station north of Baffin Island. At the end of that stay, he found the Hudson's Bay Company moving north from Hudson Strait in such force that he could not compete, and Munn's backers soon convinced him to sell out . In the summer of 1923 he sailed in the HBC steamer to turn his Syndicate's assets over to its new owners, and a series of incidents intensified his long-standing dislike of the Company to a deep resentment, mixed with remorse at having to commit "his" Eskimos to the mercy of those he could not trust. . In the early years of his retirement Munn not only encouraged others to break the monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company, but he waged a constant propaganda war against it. .