James Spence wearing Inuit traditional clothing (caribou parka).

Information on James Spence:

Date & Place of Birth – 1909, Banffshire Scotland. On leaving school in 1923 he worked for 4 years as a foster then joined the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1927 and worked for them in the posts listed below until 1936 when he became sick and could not work. (Jim Spence (son of James Spence) believe the cause of the sickness was that he fell through the ice into the water and this lead to a year of ill health that caused him to resign in 1937). In 1937 he returned to Scotland and met and married Jim Spence mother in 1938. He then bought a General Store in the small village of Oxton in Berwickshire in the south of Scotland and run that until he retired in 1973. He died suddenly in 1997.

James Spence postings with the Hudson’s Bay Company were at the following locations:

1927-1928 Chesterfield Inlet – Clerk
1928-1930 Wager Inlet – Clerk
1930-1931 Kelsey Outpost – Clerk
1931-1932 Repulse Bay – Post Manager
1932-1933 (On leave, in Scotland)
1933-1936 Baker Lake – Post Manager

Date & Place of Death : 1997, Berwickshire, Scotland

Photos by James Spence while working for the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1927 – 1936