Yukon who is who

Christian Klengenberg (1869 – 1931)

Klengenberg was born in Svendborg, Demark. At age sixteen he was a cook’s assistant onboard the Iceland and travelled to places in both the Atlantic and Pacific. In 1893, he was on the trading ship Emily Schroeder and arrived at the Inupiat village of Point Hope, Alaska. He met his wife Gremnia Qimniq, a Tikigaq, and they made a home there. In 1894, Klengenberg signed on as a pilot of the whaler Orka and travelled to Herschel Island. Though he originally intended to return immediately to Point Hope he signed on as a whaler aboard the Mary D. Hume, and spent the summer whaling the Beaufort Sea. The Klengenberg family along with the crew of the Olga and three western Inuvialuit families spent the winter of 1905 headquartered at Penny Bay. The camp acted as a trading post and a base for contact and trade with surrounding Copper Inuit groups. The next summer, Klengenberg returned to Herschel Island with four less crewmen. He resigned his position and returned to Alaska with his family. The other crewmen reported that Klengenberg had shot the engineer, Jackson Paul, and a witness had died while chained in the ship’s hold. Two other witnesses disappeared. Klengenberg was charged with murder and turned himself in. He was tried and acquitted in San Francisco in 1907.During the following years Klengenberg stayed in the western Arctic hunting, trapping, whaling, and trading.¹⁾