For the Flahertys, the Royal Commission signalled the end to a long, exhausting exile. In one sense it was a banishment which had begun a century and a half before when Robert Flaherty's ancestors had left Ireland. It was a journey that had taken them to the northernmost reaches of the world. Who could have predicted that its final phase, that terrible voyage to Ellesmere Island, would, in its turn, have led to quite another, greater kind of journey.
Martha Flaherty saw her mother off on the flight back to Grise Fiord and returned to her own home outside Ottawa. Maggie Nujarluktuk and Robert Flaherty's granddaughter is there now, smiling her grandmother's smile.
EPILOGUE
IN JULY 1994, over a year after the first Inuit depositions, The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples reported its findings.
The relocation was not aimed at relieving population pressure on limited game resources. There was no population growth in the Inukjuak area in the early 1950s and the game situation had not changed in thirty to forty years. The concern was with the ability of the fur trade to sustain the income levels to which Inukjuak Inuit had become accustomed … Greater reliance on hunting would substitute for the income that fur trading would, in the long term, be unable to provide.
Everywhere in the Arctic, hunting was cyclical in nature, even in areas of relative abundance. The relocation would not alter these cycles and would not alter the hardship experienced by people who lived by hunting during adverse game cycles or weather conditions. It was recognized in the Department that the cyclical nature of hunting could and did lead to periodic famine and starvation. This was considered to be the natural state for the Inuit. The goal of the relocation was to restore the Inuit to what was considered to be their proper state.
The Department proceeded with the High Arctic relocation without proper authority. The relocation was not voluntary. It proceeded without free and informed consent. There were material representations, and material information was not disclosed. The true nature of the relocation …and the inherent risks were not disclosed. Nor can it be said, given the cultural factors affecting the giving of consent, that consent was given freely. Moreover, many Inuit were kept in the High Arctic for many years against their will when the government refused to respond to their requests to return.
The relocation was an ill-conceived solution that was inhuman in its design and its effects. The conception, planning, execution and continuing supervision of the relocation did not accord with Canada's then prevailing international human rights commitments.
Great wrongs have been done to the relocatees, and it is incumbent on the government to accept the fundamental merit of the relocatees' complaints. This acceptance is the only basis upon which reconciliation between the Inuit and the government is possible.
The Canadian government did accept the findings and in 1995 it set up a Heritage Fund of ten million Canadian dollars to provide housing, travel, pensions and compensation for the sixteen families who were relocated to the High Arctic in 1953 and 1955 and their descendants. In spite of many calls on the government from politicians, statesmen, human rights groups and from the Inuit themselves to apologise for the High Arctic relocations, the government of Canada has never done so.
On 1 April 1999, the territory of Nunavut came into being, with its own parliament and legislative process. Nunavut comprises one-fifth of Canada's land mass and is eight times the size of the UK. Its population of 27,000, 95 per cent of whom are Inuit, would fill barely half the seats in a modern baseball or soccer stadium. Nunavut remains the only self-governing state in the world to be established for the benefit of indigenous people.
Many Arctic watchers now believe that global warming will for the first time open up the Northwest Passage to commercial shipping. The U.S.A. indicated that it regards the passage as existing in international, not Canadian, waters. Russia, Norway and Denmark all have competing claims to the natural resources that may lie beneath the High Arctic seabed. In August 2005, the Canadian government announced that it was sending its navy back to Churchill following a disagreement between Canada and Denmark over Hans Island in the eastern Arctic archipelago. It seems the issue of sovereignty remains unresolved.
The communities of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord still exist. Resolute Bay is a tiny but bustling settlement, which makes some of its income from guiding and kitting out sport hunters, some from traditional hunting and trapping and an increasing amount from hosting polar expeditions, which most often begin from there. The devastation wrought by drink is by and large a memory, though the place still feels both fragile and somewhat anarchic. Grise Fiord remains cut off, though it is now serviced by a Twin Otter twice a week. The settlement escaped many of the privations found throughout the Arctic settlements caused by disillusionment, unemployment, social fragmentation and alcoholism and is now seen as one of the more successful hamlets in the Canadian Arctic. When I was there, it seemed a charming if eccentric place, at once part of the world and very much cut off from it. Television had arrived only three years before, and a generation was growing up with the usual fare of cop shows and soaps, but without ever themselves having seen a motorway or a skyscraper or a branch of McDonald's. In the school, posters showed pupils how to spell common words. One of these, I noticed, was “baleen.”
After the Royal Commission hearings, Rynee Flaherty returned to Grise Fiord while Martha Flaherty stayed in the Ottawa area. The remaining Inuit members of the Flaherty family divided themselves between Grise Fiord and Iqaluit, where Rynee eventually moved to be with her daughter Mary. Martha Flaherty continued her work as President of Pauktuutit, the Canadian National Inuit Women's Association. She moved on from there to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. She has been a member of the Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women and the Panel on Economic Development for Canadian Aboriginal Women. She is listed in the Who's Who of Canadian Women and is now a prominent lobbyist and broadcaster on Inuit issues.
The two sides of the Flaherty family, white and Inuit, are reconciled and on good terms. Robert Flaherty's papers are archived at Columbia University in New York and the Flaherty Foundation, which is also based in the city, is active in promoting and training promising documentary film-makers. In the UK, Robert Flaherty has lent his name to the British Academy of Film and Television's most prestigious annual documentary award. In polls from the U.S.A. to Russia, Nanook of the North is consistently voted the greatest documentary of all time.
“In the end,” Robert Flaherty said, “it is all just a question of human relationships.”
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brody, Hugh. Living Arctic: Hunters of the Canadian North. London: Faber, 1987.
Brody, Hugh. The Other Side of Eden: Hunter-Gatherers, Farmers, and the Shaping of the World. London: Faber, 2001.
Brody, Hugh. Maps and Dreams. London: Faber, 2002.
Dick, Lyle. MuskoxLand: Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact. Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2001.
Fossett, Renée. In Order to Live Untroubled: Inuit of the Central Arctic 1550 to 1940. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2001.
Lopez, Barry. Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape. London: Harvill, 1999.
McNaught, Kenneth. The Penguin History of Canada. London: Penguin, 1998.
Marcus, Alan R. Relocating Eden: The Image and Politics of Inuit Exile in the Canadian Arctic. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1995.
Mowat, Farley. People of the Deer: The Vanishing Eskimo—A Valiant People's Fight for Survival. London: Michael Joseph, 1952.
Newman, Peter. Empire of the Bay: The Company of Adventurers That Seized a Continent. London: Penguin, 1998.
Petrone, Penny, ed. Northern Voices: Inuit Writing in English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988.
Pielou, E. C. A Naturalist's Guide to the Arctic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953-1955 Relocation. Ottawa: Canada
Communication Group Publishing, 1994.
Spufford, Francis. I May Be Some Time: Ice and the English Imagination. London: Faber, 1997.
Tester, Frank James and Kulchyski, Peter. Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic 1939-1963. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1994.
Wilkinson, Douglas. Arctic Fever: The Search for the Northwest Passage. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1971.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In writing this book I have relied on the work of many people, though any mistakes are entirely my own. I am grateful in particular to Pita Aatami and Lisa Koperqualuk of the Makivik Corporation, Dr. Frances Abele, to my hosts in Grise Fiord, Ken Powder and their family, John Ashton who first steered me in the direction of Arctic exiles, Jack Aubrey of the Ottawa Citizen, Mary Audlaluk, Dr. Bernard Crystal at the Rare Books Library at Columbia University, Margarita De la Vega-Hurtado at International Film Seminars, Rachel Engmann, Professor Shelagh Grant, Jack Hicks my host in Iqaluit, Saomik Inukpuk who hosted me in Inukjuak, Tom Kiguk-tok, Alan Marcus who generously provided some useful contacts, Gilly Mafhieson, Bob Pilot, Christopher Potter, Elizabeth Roberts, Diana and the late Graham Rowley, Dr. Rigo Sampson, Shirley Sawtell at the Scott Polar Institute at Cambridge University, Mary Simon, Thea Udd, Johnny and Elizapee Williams. The staff of the National Library and Archives of Canada were unfailingly helpful. The pupils of Grise Fiord school taught me a thing or two. Kenn Borek Air and South Camp Inn offered me invaluable assistance in Resolute.
Thank you to Nicholas Pearson, Sonny Mehta and Ed Kastenmeier, Jack Fogg, Jessica Axe and to the staff at Fourth Estate and Knopf for believing in the project and to David Godwin for supporting me through the long process of writing it. Carol Anderson meticulously copy-edited my inconsistencies and went beyond the call. As ever, Dr. Tai Bridgeman provided unfailing support and invaluable advice.
Finally, I am indebted to the High Arctic exiles of Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay and Inukjuak, especially to Madeleine Alakariallak, John Amagoalik, Larry Audlaluk and Martha Flaherty, Gailey and Geela Iqaluk, Anna Nungaq, Markoosie Patsauq, who submitted themselves to long interviews on what was for most a painful subject. Thank you.
Copyright © 2006 by Melanie McGrath
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The long exile: a tale of Inuit betrayal and survival in the high arctic / Melanie McGrath
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Inuit—Relocation—Arctic regions. 2. Inuit—Government policy. 3. Indians, Treatment of—Arctic regions. 4. Wilderness survival—Arctic regions. 5. Racism—Political aspects—Canada. 6. Canada—Race relations. 7. Flaherty, Josephie. I. Title.
E99.E7 M473 2007
305.897'12–dc22 200606046852
eISBN: 978-0-307-53786-7
www.vintagebooks.com
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