By Kerry McCluskey -- Inuktitut linguist Mick Mallon always lived richly in the Arctic. Then, it almost killed him. Yet he still has a twinkle in his eye.
To hear a recording of Inuktitut words and phrases produced by Mick Mallon, click here.
This is the story of Mick Mallon, a man who loves women, boats, and long walks – so much so that, as he lay on the tundra after suffering a near-fatal fall, he was sorry his memories of this trio of pleasures weren’t coming in a more orderly fashion. When he next meets death, they will. “I’ll think of kayaking trips I’ve made in Borneo, walks I’ve had in Kashmir, walks in Ireland, boats,” Mallon says. “I love boats. And women – I’ve had marvelous, pleasant times with ladies.”
Mallon was born in 1933, on Albert Einstein’s birthday, in Belfast, Ireland. His father was a self-made entrepreneur who, Mallon says, recognized that providing his son with a posh education was a prudent investment. Mallon was sent to England’s Cambridge University, where he studied English and history. Admittedly shy with the fairer sex early in life, Mallon was at a party when he managed to meet a lovely young woman named Cynthia. “She was there with a bit of a drip,” he says, “and flirted outrageously with me.” Mallon invited Cynthia to come for a row in his rowboat. So began their courtship.
After graduating in 1954, he headed to Canada. Cynthia followed a year later and they married. Over time, they had three children. They moved around Ontario, Mallon teaching at various schools, until 1959, when they went to Puvurnituq, in Nunavik (Arctic Quebec). It was there Mallon added a fourth pleasure to his trio: Inuktitut, the language of Inuit. Slowly, he mastered it, becoming more fluent than almost any other non-Inuk. By 1968 he and Cynthia had moved to Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, to set up the Eskimo Language School, before continuing on to other education jobs in Yellowknife and Iqaluit.
In the 1980s, middle-aged and having given a quarter-century to the North, the couple headed to the warmer climes of Victoria. There, Mallon thought, boats would occupy him in his retirement. But less than a year later, Cynthia showed her first symptoms of early-onset Alzheimer’s. By 1992, she was institutionalized.
On a short break from caring for Cynthia, Mallon returned north, to Yellowknife, to visit his daughter. She told Mallon that a longtime family friend and fellow
Inuktitut linguist, Alexina Kublu, was also in town, and would be joining them for dinner. Over dinner, they discovered a shared passion for teaching and dissecting the linguistic anomalies of Inuktitut. Their passion would eventually become a romance.
Mallon still loved Cynthia, too, and was devoted to her. But she’d long ago forgotten his name and face, and he was alone, living on his boat. With a wink, he says: “I persuaded Kublu that it would be very useful for income-tax purposes if we lived and worked together.” Kublu helped Mallon care for Cynthia until her death. Then, in 2000, they married, making their home in Iqaluit, teaching Inuktitut together at Nunavut Arctic College. It was in Iqaluit that Mallon nearly lost his life last year.
It was a gorgeous February day: “Sunny, 21-below and no wind.” He emailed Kublu of his plans for a hike and headed out with his two dogs. Dressed for the weather in warm, windproof clothing and mukluks, Mallon walked overland toward Apex, an Iqaluit suburb. There, he came upon “two horrible hills,” perilous with ice. His hope was to walk below the crest of the hills – but, he says, “I took seven stupid steps and knew I was in trouble.” A jumble of rocks, one shaped like a tombstone, loomed down the slope. A misstep, and suddenly he was plummeting. “I went swish, bang, whee through the air and thumped into the snow bank. I broke seven ribs; one of them punctured a lung. I broke my collar bone twice, and my shoulder blade once.”
Mallon was severely hurt, unable to walk, but not yet worried. He believed his proximity to town would save him. It was 2:30 p.m. “I thought sooner or later some civil servant is going to come back because he can’t stand the office, pour himself a drink, stand at his window and see me.” No such luck. Other than his dogs, which refused to leave his side, he spent the next hours alone. As darkness approached, he dragged himself closer to a snowmobile trail that connects Apex to Iqaluit. He waited for death. “When you die of hypothermia, you go into a hallucinogenic state and you think you’re warm. I was feeling cold and I got to thinking, when is the coma coming? When do I feel warm? When will I feel like I’m on a tropical desert island with beautiful, delicate, bare-breasted ladies bringing me bananas and coconuts?”
Instead, just before midnight, Mallon was greeted by a search-and-rescue party organized by Kublu. A snowmobile whisked him to a waiting ambulance, which transported him to the hospital. Doctors and nurses flew into action to raise his core temperature, trying to save his life and stem the damage to his gravely frostbitten hands and feet. He was later medevaced to Ottawa, where part of a finger was amputated.
More than a year later, back in Iqaluit, Mallon still fades easily, as happens when he recounts his ordeal. He holds a cold glass of cranberry juice with a napkin, to protect his sensitive nerve endings. Yet, at 75, refreshed from a birthday celebration in Antigua, he’s back walking on the tundra. When asked what’s next, after a life of women, boats and long walks – including his almost-fatal one – he laughs. “Death. May I live to be 90 and then be shot by a jealous husband.”
