The Canadian government claimed the Inuit were moved for humanitarian reasons; that their living conditions around Kuujjuaq and Inukjuak were not good and they needed a fresh start in a new location. However, they were dumped on a barren landscape with virtually no supplies or support.
Strengthening Canada’s Arctic Sovereignty Claims
For decades Ottawa maintained that the reason for the relocation was to benefit the people and to break the cycle of welfare dependency into which they had fallen.
However, an article in the Spring 1991 issue of Northern Perspectives (“Their Garden of Eden” by A.K.S.) says the true motivation was staking a claim to the land: “…families who agreed to participate in the relocation ‘experiment’ were to become pawns in a high stakes game rife with international intrigue and bureaucratic zealotry. They were to serve as a tangible symbol of Canadian ‘use and occupancy’ in the Arctic archipelago.”
They became, in the words of one commentator, “human flagpoles.”
Delivered onto a BarrenShore
Writing in the National Post (“Ottawa Apologizes to Inuit Families for Forced Relocation,” August 18, 2010), Carmen Chai points out that “The relocated families faced an entirely new environment they were not warned about when they were forced from their ‘lush tundra’ to the Arctic desert 1,200 kilometres away. They had to adapt to constant darkness in the winter and a rough terrain and climate...”
Where they were used to hunting game such as caribou they now found walrus and whales without any harpoon skills to catch them.
Shortage of Supplies
Taken north on the Coast Guard ship C.D. Howe, the Inuit were dropped off at the new home with very few supplies. There were no houses for them to face the coming winter and they had to survive in flimsy tents with temperatures plunging as low as -51C.
Toronto Star columnist Paul Watson wrote about their ordeal in an article entitled “Inuit Were Moved 2,000 km in Cold War Manoeuvring,” (November 29, 2009).
He commented that “…the Inuit took strength from promises from the qalunaaq (white people): the group would not be broken up, and if the families didn’t like their new homes after two years, they could return south. Both were lies.”
They were told they would receive regular supplies but they didn’t show up. They were not even allowed to hunt the few scrawny musk oxen in the area because, the Inuit were told, they were endangered. Given the pitiful conditions under which the Inuit were expected to live it can be argued they were also endangered. Indeed, some did not make it through their first winter.
Redress Sought for Inuit Suffering
Against the odds, most of the Inuit survived and slowly their living conditions improved. Today, Grise Fiord has 141 inhabitants and Resolute Bay 229. However, both communities have education and health services well below levels in the rest of Canada.
For decades, the Inuit lobbied for recognition of their mistreatment. In 1990, the House of Commons standing committee on Aboriginal Affairs recommended offering an apology and compensation to Inuit people.
In their book “Tammarnit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63,” Frank Tester and Peter Kulchyski (UBC Press, 1994) record the government’s response given by Tom Siddon, then-Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development: “The decision made by the federal government, in the early 1950s appears, to have been solely related to improving the harsh social and economic conditions facing the Inuit at Inukjuak at that time.” He added that neither an apology nor compensation were appropriate.
Compensation and an Apology for Inuit Hardship
In 1996, Ottawa acknowledged that an injustice had occurred and set up a trust fund of $10 million to help survivors of the relocation and their families.
Then, on August 18, 2010, Indian Affairs Minister John Duncan read an apology on behalf of the government and the people of Canada.
In part, the apology read: “We would like to express our deepest sorrow for the extreme hardship and suffering caused by the relocation. The families were separated from their home communities and extended families by more than a thousand kilometres. They were not provided with adequate shelter and supplies. They were not properly informed of how far away and how different from Inukjuak their new homes would be, and they were not aware that they would be separated into two communities once they arrived in the High Arctic. Moreover, the Government failed to act on its promise to return anyone that did not wish to stay in the High Arctic to their old homes.”
Rupert Taylor - Rupert Taylor is the editor of a magazine that provides background to current events.
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