Ethnologist and Cartographer
Comer was highly regarded for his Arctic anthropology, ethnology, natural history, geography, and cartography work. Lacking formal training, Comer was mentored by anthropologist Franz Boas. In return, Comer provided Boas with information that was used by Boas's in his 1888 book, The Central Eskimo.
Comer published papers in 1910 and 1913 in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society of New York providing improved maps and charts of Southampton Island. In appreciation for his cartography, the government of Canada named the narrow strait around the bend of Roes Welcome Sound that separates northern Southampton Island from White Island "Comer Strait" (65°45′N 85°05′W / 65.750°N 85.083°W / 65.750; -85.083) in his honor.
Comer also published notes in American Anthropologist (1923) about Southampton Island's isolated Sadlermiut who became extinct in 1902. Subsequent to their extinction, Comer attempted to repopulate Southampton Island at the exceedingly flat Cape Kendall on the island's western shore, northwest of the Bay of Gods Mercy, with Aivilik. Shoofly's only child, Oudlanak ("John Ell"), was the Aivilik group leader. However, within a year, the Aivilik moved to South Bay (an inner cove on the south side of Southampton Island) and they occasionally crossed to Repulse Bay went weather permitted.
In November 1903, Comer recorded Aivilingmiut and Qaernermiut songs on a phonograph while in northwestern Hudson Bay, notable as some of the earliest recorded voices of Inuit. Frozen in the ice at Cape Fullerton during the winters of 1910–1912, he made phonograph records of local Inuit, and preserved Adelaide Peninsula's Iluilirmiut folklore and legends. On board the Era, Comer made plaster casts of their faces. The 300 masks can be found in museums in Germany, Canada, and New York. The Canadian Museum of Civilization bought a large collection of Comer's artifacts in 1913, including a group of animal ivories (fox, musk ox, narwhal, polar bear, wolf), most of which, if not all, were created by "Harry" Ippaktuq Tasseok (or Teseuke), Chief of the Aivilingmiut, and Comer's chief Inuit shipmate while wintering at Cape Fullerton. Commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History, Comer also collected Arctic and Antarctic animal skins, birds, bird's eggs, and geological specimens now at the museum's Comer Collection.
Read more about this topic: George Comer