High Arctic Relocation - The Move

The Move

In August 1953, seven or eight families from Inukjuak, northern Quebec (then known as Port Harrison) were transported to Grise Fiord on the southern tip of Ellesmere Island and to Resolute Bay on Cornwallis Island. The families, who had been receiving welfare payments, were promised better living and hunting opportunities in new communities in the High Arctic. They were joined by three families recruited from the more Northern community of Pond Inlet (in the then Northwest Territories, now part of Nunavut) whose purpose was to teach the Port Harrison Inuit skills for survival in the High Arctic. The methods of recruitment and the reasons for the relocations have been disputed. The government stated that volunteer families had agreed to participate in a program to reduce areas of perceived overpopulation and poor hunting in Northern Quebec, to reduce their dependency on welfare, and to resume a subsistence lifestyle. In contrast, the Inuit reported that the relocations were forced and were motivated by a desire to reinforce Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic Archipelago by creating settlements in the area. The Inuit were taken on the Eastern Arctic Patrolship C.G.S. C.D. Howe to areas on Cornwallis and Ellesmere Islands (Resolute and Grise Fiord), both large barren islands in the hostile polar north. While on the boat the families learned that they would not be living together but would be left at three separate locations.