TUNERK - The Gift, Epilogue
Royal York Hotel
The boisterous swarm of delegates was in full retreat from their lunch break. Fifteen hundred ambassadors of golf regaled in their finest clubhouse attire were excitedly buzzing back into the Ballroom of the luxurious Royal York Hotel in anticipation of what the afternoon would offer. As the time for the session to begin drew near, the Chairman requested that everyone find his or her seat. Then, as the din and commotion subsided to a level he considered manageable, he re-approached the speakers stand and in his best congenial voice said,
"Welcome back ladies and gentlemen. We have a surprise for you this afternoon; one that we have gone to great lengths to keep secret over the past few months, in order that we might reveal it to everyone at once. This convention has provided us with the perfect forum in which to do just that.
If I may take some liberties with George Bernard Shaw's toast to the late Albert Einstein - a toast which so eloquently referred to Einstein's place among great men -
When we consider the sum of all great discoveries and inventions through out time, we discern that there are orders of greatness among these. Some stand out above the others as great inventions and discoveries, but there are also great inventions and discoveries that must be considered great even amongst other great inventions and discoveries. The invention of the wheel would surely fall into this category, as would the discovery of antibiotics, the internal combustion engine, the airplane and the computer chip. To this list I know you would agree must be added the invention of the greatest game on earth - Golf.
If we could prove to you - give you indisputable evidence that golf actually originated in North America, would you be interested?"
The room was dead silent for a moment, and then it exploded into a cacophonous clapping, banging, and whistling all riding on a drone of excited babble.
When the uproar subsided, the Chairman continued, "This afternoon we are pleased to say that we can finally reveal to you the undeniably true story of the origin of golf. I know that many of you have researched the history of golf. Some of you may for years have put great stock in the accounts you have read about Scotland and other possible locations for the genesis of the world's favorite sport. This afternoon you will discover to you amazement and delight, that you have been mislead and that what until now has been the conventional wisdom turns out to be just parochial speculation by those who would have the game originate in their country. What you are about to hear will tear at your heart and I guarantee that you will be impelled to hang on every word. Now allow me to introduce the man who will guide you through the most thrilling sixty minutes you will ever spend, Chairman of the Rules Committee for the Canadian Golf Association, our very own Dr Glenn Hayes!"
"Thank you Mr Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow golfers, I think it is fair to say that every last one of us have been touched by the game of golf, in fact for many it has been a life changing experience. As you will learn over the next hour, this game we call golf has another name in the area where it originated but here too, it has for a thousand years had the same profound effect upon those who have played it. But I get ahead of myself.
Dr Kenneth (Ken) Knutsen has spent the last several years doing research in the Arctic. During this time he has become fascinated with Inuit culture and has written extensively about it. Early this year he published a paper, a copy of which the attendants are now placing on each table. If anyone does not get a copy please raise your hand and we will have one brought to you."
Now, if you are ready, we will have Sharon Cleveland from our office read the paper. Please follow along.
An excerpt from a paper published in 1922 by the Kenneth Knutsen in the Proceedings of the American Anthropological Society
"Research conducted in Baffin Island over the the past several years, has convinced me beyond any doubt, that Baffin Island, or more precisely northern Baffin Island in the vicinity of Nanisivik, is the archetypal birth place of the game we known today as golf.
Long before Martin Frobisher's visit in 1576, European whalers and fishermen were sailing to Baffin Island on a regular basis to harvest the extraordinary bounty of cod and numerous species of whale. According to Inuit history, hundreds of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish ships came without charts or the local knowledge to keep from inadvertently finding the many shoals along the coast. In a relatively short time the beaches of the island were strewn with all sorts of flotsam. Now keep in mind that there are no trees on Baffin Island and therefore no wood. To this point all implements such as spears, sleds, kayaks etc were made from bone or antler or tusk, and animal skin.
Now we might be excused for assuming that when this new building material arrived on their shores, the natives had no preconceived ideas about its utility; but we would be wrong. Several hundred years before these fishermen had arrived, Baffin Isand had had other visitors from Europe - the Vikings. This is relevent because archeological evidence shows that it was the Vikings who inadvertently introduced the Baffin Islanders to wood.
Furthermore, as circumstance would have it, this Danish wood had arrived not far from an area where there are beaches strewn with smooth round stones. It is therefore no surprise that one of these quick-witted, inventive people straightaway made a connection between the two.
At the outset, stones were simply hit into the water or out onto the ice. However this novelty soon changed into a game of skill, which over the centuries grew in popularity along the north coast of the island.
The Winter Game
It is in the winter version that we see the final evolution of the game we recognize as golf. So enamored of their new found pastime were the Baffin Islanders that they began collecting perfectly round black stones during the summer so that the enjoyment of the summer could be protracted into the winter. Understand that by the 1100's the methods of fishing and hunting employed by these people had been well established for centuries. Leaving home the hunter would travel out onto the ice to a circuit of breathing holes cut into the ice for the benefit of the local seals and as a location from which to fish. To alleviate the boredom experienced when walking or riding a sled from hole to hole the Islanders initiated the practice of whacking or driving a stone from a small bluff above Lancaster Sound, out onto the ice in the direction of the first breathing-hole. The idea of course was to get the stone to the hole in as few whacks as possible. Later, as an aid to establishing the actual location of each hole, an old whale rib or broken harpoon shaft was left stuck upright into the ice beside the hole. The shortness of light in the spring and fall months limited a hunter to covering an average of nine or ten holes in one day. A dedicated hunter however, has been known to get to as many as eighteen.
Whacker (Club) Design
It scarcely needs to be pointed out to the astute observer of history that Europeans have a propensity for misinterpretation of the intent of peoples they encounter for the first time.
When the European fishermen first came in contact with the Baffin Islanders carrying whackers they assumed that they were weapons, instruments of destruction, and therefore referred to them as clubs.
At their inception, whackers apparently were not much more than baseball bats, but as the islanders learned how to fire harden the wood, the shafts became thinner and experimentation began with head shapes. Suffice it to say, this experimentation is ongoing."
Well there you have it ladies and gentlemen, an excerpt from a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the American Anthropological Society.
From the days of Sennacherib the king of Assyria who lost 185,000 troops in one night, to Monty Python's Black Knight, those who suppose they have a name worth preserving inevitably set out on a course of deprecation of the 'others', and embellishment of their own, largely imagined, accomplishments. So it is with the story of Golf. The Baffin Islanders continue to live in their quiet unassuming way largely unaffected by the parochial posturing of the rest of the world.
Some countries meanwhile have contrived what they refer to as 'history' in order to claim the passion we call Golf to have been of their own conception. Where, though, is their proof? Where indeed is their motive for creation of such a unique pastime? What holes did they hit things toward? Where did the concept of a small round ball come from? Where indeed do the terms "round" or "club" come from? Our friends on Baffin Island know the true answer to all these questions and today they are happy to share these profound truths with us.
Allow me to introduce one of the foremost authorities on the archaeology of the Arctic; a man Time Magazine has dubbed 'the bright new star in the archaeological sky'. He has published a number of papers on the archaeology of northern Baffin Island and is currently making plans to resail Lief Erickson's course from L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland to Greenland.
Please give a hearty welcome to Doctor Ken Knutsen."
Ken walked out on the platform and stood quietly behind the speaker's stand smiling an acknowledgement of the warm welcome.
"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen," Ken began. "It is a real honour for me to be able to come and talk to you about our discoveries of the last few years and their implications with regard to the origin of golf.
Over the next forty minutes, with the aid of a slide presentation projected onto a huge screen at the back of the stage area, Ken guided the spellbound audience through a much-abbreviated version of his adventures of the past few years. He began his discourse by relating how the whacker and the round black stones had been found. He showed a short film clip of his good friend Jimmy Longshot out with his whacker in front of a stone building in Pond Inlet and then had that same whacker carried out on stage for all to see. He introduced his listeners to the travels of Lief Ericssen, and tied in carbon dating information, which proved that the oar he had discovered on the north shore of Baffin Island was the better part of one thousand years old. Then he related some of the traditional Inuit stories about blue-eyed Tunerk and the development of the game he is credited with inventing. Finally he showed another film clip of Jimmy and two other men whacking golf balls from a raised earth mound next to the same stone building he had introduced previously. "This stone structure," Ken explained, "is referred to, throughout Northern Baffin Island, as the Baffin Island Golf and Country Club.
Ken thanked the appreciative audience to thunderous applause and left the platform. Finally - after the uproar had continued for some minutes Dr Hayes re-approached the microphone.
"We are pleased," he said, with unbridled enthusiasm, "to announce the induction of the archaeologist Dr Ken Knutsen and the undisputed champion of traditional golf, Mr. Jimmy Longshot into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame".
The audience was jubilant!
"...........You will also be gratified to know," he continued, "that some time back we applied to the United Nations to have Northern Baffin Island declared a World Heritage Golf Site - This very week we received word that our application has been accepted! Northern Baffin Island and the Baffin Island Golf and Country Club have now, officially, been declared the Birth Place of Golf."