Andre Norem caused us a little anxiety this evening. He started out with a gun; he was going to examine his traps he said. It was then about 7pm. Capt. Bernard met him outside – we others did not know he had gone – and induced him to return. He has been a victim of hallucinations since before Xmas, and on Xmas eve wandered off, was lost, and though search parties were out all Xmas day, he was not found until Box Day; he had been wandering about 72 hours in a very low temperature. For a man of 56 it was a wonder he survived. […] Since then a quiet watch has been kept on him, but he is aware of it and has been greatly depressed.
April 11th, 1914
Andre Norem seems to be rather worse than usual – he sits with a vacant stare for long periods, takes up a thing and lays it down again several times before he adopts any decisive course, and in many ways acts like a little child. He has to be under supervision all the time.
April 16th, 1914
The day was marked by a terrible tragedy. Andre Norem, ex-cook of the Mary Sachs, blew out his brains a few minutes before breakfast in the passageway just outside the door. […] We laid him out at the end of the passage. Thomsen, the sailor on the Mary Sachs, had worked with an undertaker in earlier days, and he washed and dressed the body. Then a coffin was made and a wooden monument engraved.
Diamond Jenness
Antropologist
Arctic Odyssey – The Diary of Diamond Jenness 1913-1918, edited by Stuart E. Jenness, Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1991.
I wonder if Andre Norem’s grave at Collinson Point, Alaska, is still in existence. For the men who died on the CAE, the fate of their graves is just another part of the many little mysteries about the CAE that we are still trying to solve.David
During my research on the CAE, I have been contacted twice by individuals who had stumbled on CAE graves. I was sent a photo of John Jones’ grave on Victoria Island, and a note about Daniel Blue’s grave at Cape Bathurst.
In 2009 I had an opportunity to search for Charlie Thomsen’s grave on northern Banks Island by helicopter. Unfortunately, it seems that his grave has long since been washed into the Arctic Ocean as coastlines erode with the effects of climate change.
David
