The Red One

As a schoolboy in Brittany, Pierre Henri dreamed of traveling one day to the frozen Arctic. As a missionary priest of the Oblate Order of Mary the Immaculate, he finally got the chance to realize his dream.

Traveling alone by dog sled in 1932, lean Father Henri arrived in King William Land, near the Magnetic Pole, with a portable altar and a bare minimum of supplies. Because of his rust-colored beard the Netsilik Eskimos called him Kai-i-o (The Red One); they were fascinated by his long black cassock, and asked whether they could make a tent out of it.

Finding the Eskimos well-adjusted to their harsh environment, Father Henri encouraged them to live on the natural resources provided by the Arctic. Too much contact with trading posts, he found, tended to undermine their self-reliance and their health. "The easy life corrupts them," he says. "It is sad to see such a noble race decline." To set a good example, he lived entirely on a diet of frozen fish for three years, something no white man had ever attempted. An attack of ague later forced him to vary the diet somewhat with flour-and-water biscuits.

During his 18 years there, the priest succeeded in converting most of the 350 members of the Netsilik tribe to Christianity. One day Father Henri saw the bodies of three newborn girls abandoned in the snow: this was the Eskimos' traditional way of solving their surplus population problem. Father Henri arranged for Eskimo parents to get the Canadian baby bonus, usually in the form of hunting supplies. Now the practice of infanticide has virtually disappeared among the Netsilik.

This spring, on orders from his bishop, Father Henri revisited civilization. Stopping off in Montreal, he was mildly appalled by the noise and glaring lights; he admitted that he found white men's beds uncomfortable after years of sleeping in caribou-skin bags. Last week, weighing the same 140 lbs. as when his mission began, he flew to France, where he will report to his superiors and recruit new Arctic missionaries. Next year Father Henri hopes to go back to the North, pioneer a new region, and spend his remaining days among the Eskimos he understands and loves. "I'll never wish to come out again," he says. "I don't understand how you can bear it here--all this noise and talk."

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