During his 1927 Arctic trip with A. Y. Jackson, Banting realised that crew or passengers on board the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) paddle wheeler SS Distributor were responsible for spreading the influenza virus down the Slave River and Mackenzie River, a virus that had over the summer and autumn spread territory-wide, devastating the aboriginal population of the north. Returning from the trip, Banting gave an interview in Montreal with a "Toronto Star" reporter under the agreement that his statements on HBC would remain off the record. The conversation was nonetheless published in the "Toronto Star" and rapidly reached a wide audience across Europe and Australia. Banting was angry at the leak, having promised the Department of the Interior not to make any statements to the press prior to clearing them.