Thomas Umaok (1879 – 1965)
Thomas Umaok was born into a traditional Inuvialuit group on the Yukon coast of the Beaufort Sea. In January 1900, Umaok and his uncle Atumachina came to Herschel Island from Kay Point and stayed for four days. Soon after, Umaok and another young man arrived with fish from Shingle Point. In March he appeared with four men to hunt up the Herschel River. In December, Susie, Umaok’s future wife attended Rowena Stringer’s 4th birthday party. Evening classes started at the Herschel mission in January 1901 and Umaok was a student with five others. They had already mastered basic English grammar.1)
The Stringers left Herschel in August 1901, and the replacement minister did not have Stringer’s relationship with the Inuvialuit. When Reverend Stringer became the Yukon’s bishop, he became the commissary for all western mission and carried out inspections and performed confirmations. In 1909 he travelled to Herschel and married Umaok and Susie and two other couples and baptised four people including Umaok and Susie. In 1912 Stringer wrote to Umaok asking him to assist Walter Frey, a new missionary at Kittigazuit, put up a new mission house. Stringer made his second episcopal visit that year and confirmed Umaok at Fort McPherson. That year, Sadie Stringer’s uncle, Will Young, was charged with overseeing mission work in the Delta, on the Yukon coast, and at Herschel Island. Umaok was asked to help him in his travels and his chores. He was put on a salary and tasked with building a mission at Kittigazuit to teach and hold services. 2)
In 1914 the missionaries were well set up and Umaok was not so needed. He was sent to the mission school at Hay River, and he and Susie spent two years there. Then Umaok went to Herschel where he stayed for years. Stringer arrived in 1917 for this third episcopal visit and Umaok translated for him at services. Before he left, he made Umaok and Atumachina catechists. The Hudson’s Bay Co. was paying its local helpers five dollars a day and a dollar for each dog. Umaok was unhappy with his wage of two dollars a day. Fry would have hired another man, but no one wanted to work for that little. In 1918, Umaok and Susie took six children from Herschel at least part-way to the mission school at Hay River and were paid a dollar a day each for seventy-nine days, plus five dollars a day for the use of their dog team. 3)
In 1923 Umaok was a catechist at Shingle Point and was ordained at Herschel.4) No missionary was stationed at Herschel and Umaok looked after the congregation by himself. In 1927 Stringer arrived and had him come with him on his inspection tour as an interpreter. Bishop Geddes was stationed at Herschel in 1927-29 and at some point Umaok became the cleric at Tuktuyaktok.5)
Bishop and Margaret visited with Thomas Amaok in January 1964 when he was eighty. He lived in a house beside the church at Tuktoyaktuk that he had built with his own hands. He was the first Inuvialuit man baptized and later ordained by Bishop Stringer. Umaok was having heart problems, so the Marshs took him in their plane to Inuvik. Reverend Doug Stanley took over his work in the parish.6)