Tag: inuits

Ken Kirkby

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excerpt

It was years later that I actually saw the book itself. I felt such
specialness to share this history with my grandfather who was a giant
of a man, loved by many and respected by all.
According to the National Geographic magazine, (Vol. 167, No. 3,
March 1985) Dr. Robert Paul Jordan confirms that the Viking traders known
as the Rus created Russia’s “first organized state and gave their name to a
future empire.” And the story that Ken learned as a wide-eyed boy seems to
support that claim.
As his maternal grandfather told the story, and as Ken passed it on to
his own son—who, at this point, is the last of the Kirkby line—the tale of
Rurik of the Rus goes like this:
Rurik was the eldest son and he chose to become a sailor, an adventurer
and an explorer. Like the Norwegians, the Danes were Vikings—an Old
Danish word which means ‘to dip your oar’ or in our terms, ‘traveller’.
Norwegians became known as the Norse, and Danes, the Rus.
Occupants of the Scandinavian countries realised early that to split the
farms into small holdings for their sons would make the land useless. So,
in order to preserve that livelihood, only one would inherit the land and
the others had to make their fortune elsewhere. The sea was the obvious
alternative. Through dint of need, the majority of them became mariners
and shipbuilders. They were a strong and courageous people and became
the Masters of the Seas as traders and mercenaries. The majority were
literate and highly industrious.
Those who became mercenary soldiers, a reputable occupation of the
day, were known also for their ferocity. They returned from the Middle East
with the knowledge of metalworking and equipped with this expertise, they
produced exceptionally fine swords and weaponry. This proved to be a great
advantage. A fierce minority banded together to form raiding parties and
this resulted in the Viking reputation for rape, slaughter and pillage.
Much like the dream of the Arctic that drew his future and distant
relation to northern Canada, Rurik also had a powerful dream of a vast
land beyond the ice; a land shaped by three great rivers. He was determined
to sail to that land one day. Rurik was an able navigator and commander
of several ships, and eventually he and his fellow mariners set out on a
long and arduous journey that took them east and north through the Arctic

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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The media continued to be fascinated by him, the way an audience is
mesmerized by a performer who embarrasses himself inadvertently, on
a talk show. Ken had stepped so far outside the boundaries, had put on
a show so over the top, right down to the Inuksuit painted on the streets,
that the media haunted his studio just to see what would happen next. Ken
continued to feed them quotable lines that seemed to come effortlessly to
his lips, but that he had, in fact, been practising for months and years.
But, tidbits wouldn’t feed them forever. Eventually they would want to
stop nibbling and indulge in another meal – and the next banquet would
have to be bigger and better than the last.
He met Salvador Grimaldi for lunch again at Boccacio Restaurant, in the
Columbus Centre, and once again the architect came bounding into the
room, perfectly dressed in understated, expensive clothing, his eyes sparkling,
and his smile spreading goodwill around the room. Ken had a plan.
He told him that his next project had to be an even larger success than
the last, and described the two immense paintings he was currently working
on: one was a sixteen by sixteen foot canvas, featuring an Inukshuk set
against an enormous white cloud, that was intended for the Reichmanns.
Why the Reichmanns? Salvador asked.
“They are a very prominent family which the media and the public
have become very interested in,” Ken said. “They’re secretive and almost
impossible to approach. I’ve been studying them, and the information is
very sparse. I know they spent time in Valencia after leaving Eastern Europe,
and then they spent time in Morocco, and then from Morocco they
moved to Toronto: they started a tile business that immediately turned
into a raging success. Then, they went into high-end real estate development,
in which they have achieved even greater success. They are an
intriguing family – and just what I need. I need a Lorenzo de Medici.”
“I want to get to a place where other people cannot go. I want to sell
a painting to a man who doesn’t buy paintings and see it hung in the
foyer of the tallest building in the British Commonwealth – and have that
become a media event – even though they don’t like the media, that is
what I am after. What do you know about the Reichmanns that you feel
comfortable passing on to me? I get the idea you’re pretty close to them.”
Salvador allowed that he was close to Albert Reichmann, who preferred
to be called Mr. Albert. He had done his corporate landscaping and was
currently working on his personal property. “He’s a prince,” Salvador said.
“A merchant prince. He is a man of many talents, and I find it interesting
that you would have, instinctively, known that.’
Ken took Salvador to the studio to see the Reichmann and Yellowknife
Airport paintings, in progress. When he unlocked the door and switched
on the bank of lights, Salvador froze. The larger painting was nearing
completion while the other was only half finished.

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Ken Kirkby – Warrior Painter

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Warriors Come in Many Shapes
“We all grow up with the weight of history on us.
Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they
do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.”
(Shirley Abbott, Writer)
~~
Ken Kirkby inherited genes from a thousand years of determined and
intelligent men and the clever women who worked beside them. In each
generation, the face of the world inhabited by his ancestors was left
improved. If he feels some pressure to leave his own imprint on his world,
he chooses to do so by inspiring others as he has been inspired; by restoring
what has been spoiled and by righting what is wrong. Justice is an important
word in his vocabulary.
His father, Ken Kirkby, Sr. turned his back on both a fortune and his
influential British steel family as a young man. He left his assured place
in Britain to make a successful life in Australia and eventually returned to
England with a reputation for a sound ability to turn failing companies into
profitable ventures. With World War II on the horizon, he was seconded by
Winston Churchill’s team to transform the venerable but struggling Rover
Motor Company into an efficient, profit-making war machine.
In 1938, he met and married Ken’s mother, Louise May Chesney. Her
father was a respected Spanish industrialist whose family traced their roots
back to Rurik of the Rus, a Dane whose history was recorded in written
form in 746 AD. Ken was born in 1940 and his sister three years later. The
Kirkby and Chesney families left recession strapped Britain for Spain in
1946 and the Kirkby family ultimately settled in the Portuguese village of
Parede, a coastal village south of Lisbon. Their neighbours were diplomats
or professional elite, but Ken’s father preferred to do his own gardening and
knew the children of all his employees by their first names.
Ken’s childhood was unorthodox by any measure. Their family home
on the Avenue of Princes welcomed many of the brightest minds of the
European world at the time, but he ran barefoot with the Gypsy kids, bartered
his drawings in the marketplace and escaped his mother’s restrictions

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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same feeling about you as I had about where that puck would be.”
“I want to help you,” he said one day over lunch.
“I’d appreciate all the help I can get,” Ken said. “There hasn’t been a
helluva a lot of it at this point.”
“Yes, so I gather.”
Virgil Pires, a tall Portuguese man, became another frequent visitor.
“You come from my country,” he said when he introduced himself.
“You’re almost Portuguese. I love what is in the papers and on TV. You
talk about my country with so much love.
“I wasn’t born in Portugal,” Ken said. “But I think that part of my soul
is Portuguese.”
The collection of paintings for the show grew, most of them featuring
an Inukshuk standing sentinel over the stark Arctic landscape. Irving and
Virgil visited almost daily, moving the paintings around, discussing the
merits of each one, and arguing about who should purchase which. Virgil
liked to say proudly, “He’s Portuguese, you know.”
Irving argued, “Portuguese, my ass. He’s no more Portuguese than
I am. He’s a mongrel – Danish, Irish, Spanish, French, Italian, Jewish
grandmothers, Christian grandfathers – grew up in Portugal – I tell you,
he’s a mongrel!”
“Oh no!” Virgil protested. “This is brilliant! This is magnificent! It was
written in heaven! This man has a place in heaven!”
Ken painted, working in a world he was entering for the first time.
These visions of the Arctic had been bottled up inside him for years, and
a great dam had burst open, spilling out a Niagara of creativity. The faster
he painted, the more powerful the pictures.
The week before the show, Irving and Virgil began to choose the paintings
they wanted, arguing good-naturedly over several of them. “You
can’t have them all,” Ken said. “You can only have twenty paintings!”
“Between us or each?” Virgil asked.
Were they serious? Ken wondered, beginning to feel excited. “Each,”
Ken said.
He had completed ninety-six canvases. Virgil and Irving fell on them
with the glee of schoolboys who had just been told they could choose a
dozen of any sort of candy in the store. They argued, talked, and wrangled
possessively over one or two of the larger paintings, until each had a
pile of twenty. “How much?” they wanted to know.
Ken forced his voice to remain calm. He studied each painting and methodically
wrote the price on a slip of paper. The forty canvases totalled
eighty-five thousand dollars.
Neither man flinched. Instead, they insisted on a celebration, and over
a bottle of good wine, Ken explained that their paintings would be part of
the exhibit – and he recalled one of Alex Fraser’s pieces of advice.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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trying to meet you for years,” he said. Gruber carved decoys, many of
which had made their way into Ken’s extensive collection. “Our paths
have crossed many times,” he said. “But somehow we’ve never met. Now,
unfortunately, we have to meet under circumstances that aren’t the best. I
work for a credit company, and I have to cancel and pick up your gas card.
I’m awfully sorry to do this.”
“That’s fine,” Ken said. “You’re just doing your job. Come over now.”
They talked, while consuming an entire bottle of Scotch, and became
friends for life. Ron and his wife lived in a big house near Jericho Beach,
that had separate living quarters on the ground floor. When Ken told him
he had just lost his house, Ron suggested he move into their ground floor
suite, and a few days later, Ken loaded his possessions into his truck and
drove to Jericho Beach.
Revenue Canada sent a letter demanding a large sum of money in back
taxes on his real estate investments. Because he had never taken the money,
but only reinvested it, it had never been taxed. Ken put the letter on his
bureau. Another letter arrived and then another, until he had accumulated
seventeen progressively threatening tax notices. The final one informed
him he was being sued. Ken took the notices to his accountant who was as
puzzled as Ken. Each one demanded a different sum of money.
When they went to court, the lawyer for Revenue Canada made his
statement. The judge turned to Ken. “Guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” Ken said. “Impossibly and completely not guilty.”
“How so?”
“Your honour, if I may be allowed to approach the bench and present
you with the situation in writing. But, before I do that, may I ask you a
question in order to help clarify the situation?”
“What if one were walking down the street,” he asked, “and came across
a car lot, and spotted a car he fancied, and wanted to buy it, and the salesman
didn’t know how much it cost? And what if he went to his sales manager
and the manager, also, didn’t know how much it cost? And what if
he went to the owner of the car lot and the owner didn’t know how much
the car cost – would one be able to conclude a satisfactory transaction?”
“Clearly not,” the judge said.
“This would appear to be the same situation,” Ken said, handing the
demand letters to the judge. “There are seventeen different notices here,
which are completely confusing. There is no way, even according to the
accountants I am acquainted with, to make head or tail of it. Every single
one has a different figure on it: that makes no sense at all.”
The judge studied the demands, his frown deepening.
“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t owe the money,” Ken said.
“I think you’re absolutely correct,” the judge said. “This is disgraceful.”
And he threw the case out of court.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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The day before the exhibit, he helped hang the paintings;
only one in each room of the gallery. Opening night resembled a Hollywood
premier. People gathered in the street and, when a chauffeur
driven limousine drew up to the curb, the media descended. Ken parted
the crowd and opened the door, guiding the Duchess into the gallery. The
crowd inside fell back as though God himself had made an entrance.
Ken led her through the rooms, telling the stories of the Canadian
North. She nodded, smiled, listened attentively, and left as quickly as she
had come. Forty-five minutes later every painting wore a sold sticker.
Ken extended his stay, in order to accept all the invitations he was besieged
with. He had been in Madrid for six weeks, when his father called.
“You must come home right away.”
“What happened?”
“Just, come home immediately. It looks like the trust company has
gone under.”
He flew home the next day and took a cab directly to his father’s apartment,
where he found him more agitated than Ken had ever known him
to be. “This is real trouble,” he said. “We tried to get into the office and it’s
locked – the locks have been changed and nobody is there.”
In his own office, he discovered several key files missing. He arranged
a meeting with other clients of the trust company. There were rumours.
Some said the company principal had moved to the Fraser Valley, where
he had set up an Arabian horse farm and purchased a Rolls-Royce. Others
said he had simply vanished without a trace.
Ken called the RCMP commercial crime division and drove to the station
with his father. The officer explained that the department was aware
of the issue. “It’s a complicated mess,” he said. “We’re going to have to
investigate you and your activities, the same as everyone else.”
The police found many of the missing files but not a trace of the company
president and CEO. Rumours continued to circulate. One claimed
that the head of the trust company had had nothing to do with the missing
funds. It was Ken Kirkby. He was crazy, and smart, and out of the
country when disaster struck. He was the one who had masterminded the
plot. The media ran with it and reporters parked their cars and vans in
front of his house waiting for one glimpse – to take just one picture with a
telephoto lens. Two professional hockey players, convinced that Ken had
taken their money, filed a lawsuit. The judge threw it out of court. Ken
threw himself into the investigation, working with the police day after
day to piece together what had happened.
The RCMP interviewed the victims of the fraud and examined the
documents. Sorting through his own papers became a full time job, and
there were many times he gave up all hope of making sense of them.
His greater despair was the loss of his friends.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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There is a deep hunger to have the sunshine of their former
homes, and of their great-grandparents’ former homes. There are these
stories that persist about how wonderful life was, and how sunny it was,
and how warm it was. But, with the exception of this little coastal strip,
this is a very cold country. You’re trying to give paintings of vast, distant
places that are freezing cold, to Canadians. Why would anyone, with the
psyche I’ve described, even think of buying one? They won’t even come
out to look at them.”
“Well, Jesus!”
“Go ahead – break my argument.”
“What else about these paintings then?
“One word – pretty. The Canadian art scene is almost non-existent,
but what passes for imagery in the public mind at large is pretty. Doreen!
Doreen! Bring some magazines!”
Fraser grabbed the top one, from the stack Doreen delivered, and
opened it at random. He turned two pages and pointed. “Look – here’s an
ad – it’s perfect. Isn’t that a pretty photograph? Do you notice that it has
a white, sandy beach, a scantily clad couple, and palm trees? People work
very, very hard to make money, so they can save some up and go to that
place – and it’s very pretty. That’s what is in their minds. You and I are the
children and grandchildren of peasants, and we have their tastes.”
Fraser reached into his pack of cigarettes, pulled out a fresh one, and lit
it from the butt that had almost burned down to his fingertips.
“It’s taken Europe an eon to get to its appreciation of art. You’re expecting
too much, too quickly.”
“But, if we don’t push we won’t get anywhere,” Ken said.
“It’s not just a matter of pushing the public. We have to find individuals
who will get behind this. It’s not just good old Alex and Ken who are
going to go and foist this on the country. It’s a much bigger story.”
Ken left the gallery deep in thought. Yes, there was truth in what Fraser
had said but it wasn’t the whole truth. Canada was ready for his paintings.
The Group of Seven was proof. Fraser thought they were rubbish too. If
he wanted to tell his story through his paintings, it wouldn’t be with Alex
Fraser by his side.
Unexpectedly, Ken received a letter from his Aunt Vicki in Madrid. She
had taken the photographs he had sent her, of his latest paintings, and
shown them to a popular gallery owner who wanted to exhibit them.
He tapped the note against his desk, read it again, and picked up a
pen. He wrote a letter to Mr. McEachern, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
describing his good fortune in coming to Canada, and telling him how
he had arrived in this country. He wrote about his art and said that he
wished to go back to Europe for an exhibition in Madrid.

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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While he studied, he periodically found himself distracted by the
thought of the one art gallery in Vancouver he had not approached with
his paintings – the Alex Fraser Gallery. Stories of Alex Fraser, and his
treatment of artists in his London and Vancouver galleries, had circulated
through the art community for years. Ken was angry with himself. He
was rarely afraid of anyone and had met no one in Canada yet who had
intimidated him. Alex Fraser’s reputation did.
He had heard that the man was irascible – so what? He had heard he
was powerful. Was it in his power to judge his work? What if he found it
wanting?
The only thing worse than his fear was the prospect of his disappointment
in himself if he refused to face it, so one day he screwed up his
courage, loaded his truck with paintings, and drove to 41st Avenue near
Boulevard in Kerrisdale.
He walked into the gallery, where an attractive middle-aged woman
asked if she could help him.
“Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Fraser if he’s about.”
“Mr. Fraser doesn’t see people without an appointment.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. I’m here and I have some paintings. Please, can
you ask if he’ll see me?”
She smiled and walked into a back room. A few minutes later, a small
man with slicked-back hair and icy, blue-green eyes walked out. He was
dressed in a perfectly fitted gray pinstriped suit, with knife pleats in the
trousers and shoes that shone like mirrors.
Exhaling a great puff of smoke, he lowered himself into a big armchair,
and placed two packages of Players unfiltered cigarettes and an ashtray
on the little gate-legged table beside it. Taking a fresh cigarette from one
of the packages, he lit it from the one in his yellowed fingers, and crushed
the stub in the ashtray.
Turning to the woman who had followed him out of the back room he
called, “Doreen! Doreen, I want you to tell the young man about manners.
Ask him does he understand the meaning of manners?”
“Mr. Fraser would like to know if you understand the meaning of manners,”
she said, turning to Ken.
“Indeed I do,” Ken said. “And I apologize for coming in without an appointment
but I was nervous and I managed to screw up all my courage
to come in – and here I am.”
“Doreen! Doreen, tell him he is quite right to be nervous in approaching
me. Ask him what it is that he wants.”
“I have some paintings and would like to show them to Mr. Fraser.”
“Tell the young man that I can’t bloody see his paintings, anywhere.
Where are his paintings?”

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

One day the dogs heralded the arrival of a new family. They staggered
into camp with barely enough dogs to pull the sleighs. The animals’ ribs
stood out through their fur, and they lay down exhausted, their eyes
glazed. The people had to be helped from their sleds. Inside the big igloo,
they explained that they had come from far away and had left most of
their people behind. They had not found caribou this season and had run
out of food. They had no seal oil for heat. They were dying.
One young man’s toes were badly frostbitten. The elders determined
that they would have to be removed to prevent gangrene, a common condition
in the North where blood circulation to the extremities slowed.
There was no hospital – not even a doctor. The old woman said she
would select the person to perform the operation, but the young man
said he would do it himself.
The old woman stopped Ken as he turned to leave. “No,” she said.
“Kabluna wants to go everywhere and experience everything. This is part
of everything.”
The young man honed a knife and with immense concentration and
deliberation, selected the correct place to amputate the toes. One by one,
he sawed through flesh, sinew, and bone. He did not complain, cry, or
moan, taking the same impassive, measured care that he would if he had
been skinning an animal.
It shocked me. How can someone do that in that way and not fall into
paroxysms of agony? And I knew I had something to learn. I had to investigate
what pain was and how it was dealt with. I knew these people were not
superhuman but their understanding of humanness was very different from
mine and it probably came from eons of living in that environment.
These things set me on a very different track in my own head. They led me
to deal with our concepts of possible/impossible, difficult/not difficult and
so on. Nature is neither good nor bad. Nature is neither kind nor unkind.
Nature simply is. Possible and impossible are things of the imagination –
just as the pain is in our imagination. And seeing as we don’t know enough
to make these judgments, we shouldn’t even consider worrying about them.
If there is something in you to be done that is powerful then you set about
doing it and you take out all the imaginings of the dark monsters you might
meet on the road ahead. They may, in fact, never materialize. These concepts
were the golden door through which I walked toward a completely different
understanding, an understanding that has made it much more difficult for
me to live in our culture.
A council was held to decide the fate of those who had been left behind
to starve to death. Four dog sleighs were loaded with food, blankets, and
other necessities, and when it seemed that Ken was to be left behind…

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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distance away observing him. When they saw that he had noticed them,
they came to sit beside him. The man said, “My mother says you are a
very quiet Kabluna.”
“Maybe all Kablunat are quiet,” he said.
The man translated for his mother and said, “She says that all other
Kablunat that she has known are noisy. They talk a lot.”
“Maybe I don’t have much to say,” he replied. “Maybe I don’t know
very much.”
When Ken questioned the old woman about the Inuksuit she told him
a story that began a long, long time ago when there were very few human
beings. They travelled over the vast land in small family groups, following
the herds of caribou that were the source of their food, their tents,
their clothing, and their utensils. They could not afford to deplete their
energy by chasing the food. Instead, they made stone human beings and
called them Inukshuk, which means, like a person or acting in the place
of a person.
The people placed the Inuksuit in V-shaped formations. The caribou
with their poor eyesight, thought the Inuksuit were hunters and so it required
only a very few people to herd them into a trap. The closer they
came to the end of the V, the closer together the Inuksuit were placed.
At the point of the V, hunters hid behind boulders while women
and children lay on the ground beside the Inuksuit. As the caribou approached,
the women and children jumped up, waved their arms, and
danced about, to give the appearance of many, many hunters. The caribou
would then stampede to the end of the V, which was usually at the
junction of a lake and a river. When the caribou plunged into the lake,
the hunters hidden behind the boulders would jump into their kayaks
and paddle after them, spearing them in the water. Then they would haul
them back to shore where the entire family, even the children, would
clean and gut the animals.
Inuksuit also took on many other shapes, the old woman said. The one
on the river’s edge where they were sitting was a fishing Inukshuk. She
knew this because it was topped with a smooth stone taken from the riverbed.
It indicted that the fishing was good here. Other shapes had other
meanings and the configurations of Inuksuit had meaning also.
To my mind, what I was hearing sounded like language but they didn’t
write the language on a piece of paper – they wrote it directly on the land.
And I was beginning to get the picture of absolute practicality. Here you
could live with minimum technology if you knew how. To think that you
could direct an entire way of life by putting a few stones together just so,
so that other people coming would be able to read the significance of these
things. The degree of sophistication of this began to seep into me and I realized
there was much to learn here. And this way of life was like the people

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