Grise Fiord

Inuk to his family in 1959, Resolute Bay was “a good place” since people never went hungry there with plenty of animals to hunt. The letter demonstrated that due to the animals, the Inuit earned more money and had an easier life upon the relocation. The government’s way of improving the Inuit’s life quality worked out and helped them achieve a higher life standard, succeeding in supporting their human rights of a proper life. But some sources provide a contradictory point of view. Sarah Amagoalik, an Inuk, argued in the House of Commons Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs that the life conditions there were harsh (1990). “It was cold and already freezing… We had to melt ice for water… There was no other light,” said her. But the Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay were supposed to be cold and to have no light because of their geographic locations. Melting ice for water was just the way of life in the High Arctic. The so-called hardship that they suffered was just an unavoidable process of adaption to a new way of life. After they got accustomed to the new lifestyle, they soon prospered and developed a better life. Another different argument was made by the Honourable John Duncan, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-status Indians (2010). Representing the federal government, he apologized for the hardship and suffering caused by the relocation. However, the apology was unreliable because it was made quite recently. He…

The movie "Broken Promises: The High Arctic Relocation" aims to document the history and opinions of Quebec Inuit during the military relocation of the 1950’s (National Film Board of Canada [NFB], 1995). The film begins by conveying the historical groundwork for the introduction of the Inuit relocation project. Canada and America, both tense from the Cold War, begin to see Canada's northern regions as an important line of defense against Soviet influences. Discussions with the Canadian…

instead focuses primarily on the issues of regulations surrounding the use of the dumpster, and how the constables in charge of the dumpster were very “gentle and effective”. He outright ignores the glaring issue that the Inuit, who were promised a better standard of living with plenty of food, were eating from a dumpster. Mr. Sivertz also disregards the complete lack of proper investigation and research conducted by the government prior to the relocation. First, Mr. Sivertz downplays how the…

Documents 9.2 and 9.3 in Keith Smith’s Stranger Things are both accounts which describe the federal government’s experiment to relocate Inuit from northern Quebec to Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord in the northern Arctic in 1953. However, while both sources recount the government’s experiment the narratives have different perspectives highlighting how people remember events in different ways depending on how they were affected by the outcome. Document 9.2 is a testimony given by Markoosie Patsauq…