Out in the Cold: The Legacy of Canada's Inuit Relocation Experiment in the High Arctic

In March 1990, members of Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs listened to testimony presented by Inuit (Eskimos) who had been the subject of a 1950s government relocation experiment. The Inuit recounted years of suffering and neglect as a result of their resettlement. Eleven Inuit families had been moved by the Canadian government from the region of Port Harrison (now Inukjuak) on Quebec's Ungava peninsula, 2250km north to Ellesmere and Cornwallis Islands in the High Arctic. They were joined by four Pond Inlet Inuit families from north Baffin. The operation was developed as a coloniz­ation plan (Larsen, 1952c), making the new colonies at Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay the northernmost Inuit settlements in Canada (Figure 1).