Indigenous Writes

by Chelsea Vowel

  Inuit from many communities were moved from one area to another within the Arctic, and to the south – sometimes to act as human markers, staking Canada’s claim to the Arctic, sometimes because of famine, sometimes simply for bureaucratic ease. These decisions were not made in consultation with the Inuit, and it was fully believed that these relocations were in the best interests of the Inuit, who were being uprooted again and again.

  Qimmiijaqtauniq: The dog slaughter

  In 2000, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA) and the Makivik Corporation of Nunavik asked the federal government to launch a public inquiry into the mass killing of qimmiit, which are Inuit sled dogs.9 A “comprehensive review” by the RCMP in 2005 (who were tasked with investigating themselves) found the RCMP did not engage in organized slaughter of qimmiit between 1950 and 1970.10 The RCMP claims those qimmiit that were put down were killed for the sake of public health and safety.11

  The slaughter of qimmiit was part of the numerous relocations experienced by Inuit between 1950 and 1970. Unsatisfied with the RCMP report, the QIA and Makivik Corporation launched the Qikiqtani Truth Commission (QTC) in 2006.12 The QTC is Inuit-led and Inuit-sponsored, and it released its final report in 2010. The QTC report details the experiences of Inuit from the Qikiqtani (Baffin) region including relocations from illagiit nunagivaktangat (translated as a place used regularly or seasonally by Inuit for hunting, harvesting, and/or gather, including special places such as burial sites, or places with abundant game) to permanent settlements, the slaughter of qimmiit, and removal of Inuit children from their families for extended periods of time.13

  The QTC report is a breathtakingly comprehensive history of the Qikiqtani region during a period of great change and settler encroachment. It incorporates Inuit testimonies and examines the way in which Inuit life was altered and impacted during the Cold War period. Most important, the entire report is rooted in an Inuit world-view, rather than being translated through an outsider’s perspective.

  Take, for example, this quote by Pauloosie Veevee of Pangnirtung, discussing the importance of qimmitt:

  Not all Inuit men living in traditional camps had dog teams. If an Inuk man didn’t have a team of his own, it was interpreted that he was yet not quite a man…. An Inuk was judged in accordance with the dogs’ performance, appearance, health and endurance… [T]his is how significantly important dogs were to Inuit.14

  Movement into permanent settlements disrupted the relationship between Inuit and qimmiit. Many qimmiit died due to disease, while others were killed because they were not allowed in the settlements, as Qallunaat (settlers) were afraid of them. Ordinances were passed that gave the RCMP the “right” to shoot loose qimmiit, and qimmiit that became sick were also killed en masse, despite the fact that Inuit knew some of the dogs would survive illnesses and provide strong stock for dog teams. According to the report:

  The killing of qimmiit has become a flash point in Inuit memories of the changes imposed on their lives by outsiders. In community after community that we visited, Inuit told me, often through tears, “I remember the day my dogs were shot,” or “I remember when my father’s dogs were killed.” The pain still felt from these memories is a testament to the symbiotic relationship between Inuit and qimmiit, and to the fact that the loss of qimmiit was a stark challenge to their independence, self-reliance, and identity as hunters and providers for their family.15

  Despite the way the RCMP characterized their actions as being motivated by public health and safety concerns, Inuit saw the qimmiijaqtauniq (the dog slaughter) as being a method through which Inuit were forced to remain in permanent settlements, without the possibility of returning to their traditional way of life. Thousands of dogs were slaughtered, but because the RCMP had been given authority by Canadian officials to do this, no (settler) laws were broken, and, in the eyes of Canada, no wrongs were committed. The QTC acknowledges that the qimmiijaqtauniq went on for too long to have been “the result of a secret plan or conspiracy.”16 Nonetheless, the inability or unwillingness of Canadian officials to comprehend the importance of qimmiit to Inuit culture caused great harm to Inuit communities.

  The rest of the QTC report provides a thorough exploration of the stated intentions of the federal government with respect to settlement, relocation, and the removal of Inuit children for health and education reasons, along with the impact of all of these actions on Inuit people themselves.17

  High Arctic Relocation

  You may not be familiar with Nunavik; I wasn’t until I moved to Quebec. I kept hearing it as Nunavut for some reason. Nunavik is an Inuit territory in the northernmost part of Quebec, home to about 11 000 Nunavimmiut.

  In 1953, 87 Inuit were relocated from Inukjuak in Nunavik, to Grise Fiord (Aujuittuq) and Resolute Bay (Qausuittuq) in what is now Nunavut. Before we delve into the whys, and what happened, you need to understand the distances involved. Inukjuak sits on the 58th parallel. The families that were relocated ended up in either Resolute Bay, which is on the 74th parallel, or Grise Fiord (Ausuittuq), which is on the 76th parallel. In terms of how much farther north the Inukjuak families were, this is the equivalent of moving someone from Toronto to Whitehorse.

  Three families from Pond Inlet (Mittimatalik, on the 72nd parallel) were sent to live with those from Inukjuak, ostensibly to teach them how to survive in the High Arctic.

  Although the Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands) are all fairly northern, the differences between life in Inukjuak and life in Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay is markedly different. Inukjuak has 1333 hours of sunlight per year (compare that to 2024 hours a year in Toronto), ranging from 50 minutes of sunlight per day on average during the month of December to six and a half hours of sunlight per day in July.18 Average temperatures are -29 degrees Celsius in December and 16 degrees Celsius in July.19

  In contrast, Grise Fiord experiences 24 hours of darkness from October to early February, and 24 hours of sunlight from May to August! Resolute Bay has similar periods of complete darkness and 24-hour sunlight. Average temperatures are -31 degrees Celsius in January to three degrees in July.20 All northern places are certainly not created equal!

  It is easy, then, to imagine the despair one would experience being suddenly dropped into such a different and hostile environment. It was as unfamiliar and daunting to the Inuit of Inukjuak as it would be to families from Edmonton.

  The relocation was seen as a “rehabilitation” project by the federal government, and represents the most extreme relocation experienced by Inuit. There was growing concern Inuit were becoming too reliant on welfare payments, despite being pushed to join the wage economy. The truth of the matter was that no able-bodied Inuit men in Inukjuak were the beneficiaries of government relief at the time of the High Arctic Relocation. After a bust cycle in the fur trade a few years previous, things were booming again. The cycle was related to weather and migrations, not to the presence or relocation of Inuit.21

  Another goal of the relocation was to assert Canadian sovereignty in the High Arctic – a recurring theme between the 1950s and 1970s. Left without adequate supplies, the relocated families experienced harrowing conditions. They had been told they could return home after two years, but it wasn’t until 1989 that 40 Inuit finally left Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay to return to their home communities. Others stayed behind, further fracturing kinship ties that had already been damaged by the initial relocation.

  A $10 million trust fund was set up in 1996 for relocated individuals and their families, after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples released a full report on the High Arctic Relocation in 1994.22 Families, moved in 1953, had to wait until 2010 for an apology from the federal government.23

  Seeking saimaqatigiingniq

  Saimaqatigiingniq means a new relationship when past opponents get back together, meet in the middle, and are at peace.24 A much more nuanced term than reconciliation, the QTC report offers this Inuit concept as a process that could heal old wounds, create better understanding between Inuit and Q
allunaat, and set a path for a healthier and more respectful relationship. Although the QTC specifically excluded the High Arctic Relocation, as it had already been addressed by RCAP, the process of saimaqatigiingniq can be as inclusive as the parties need it to be.

  Unfortunately, relocation of Indigenous communities continues to be offered as a solution to a panoply of ails, everything from evacuations from natural disasters, to a cure-all for social ills. Saimaqatigiingniq cannot begin when one of the parties insists relocations are still a viable option, despite repeated experiments – all of which have had adverse impacts on Indigenous peoples. Perhaps the only way relocation will cease to be offered as a solution to the “Indian or Inuit problem” is if non-Indigenous Canadians learn about this history and recognize that abandoning a failed tactic is in the best interests of all peoples living in this country.

  NOTES

  1.John Duncan, “Apology of the Inuit High Arctic Relocation” (2010), last modified September 15, 2010, http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100016115/1100100016116. Minister of Indian Affairs, John Duncan, offered an official apology on August 18, 2010.

  2.Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, “Volume 1: Looking Forward, Looking Back,” Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1997), accessed November 16, 2015, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/webarchives/20071124125856/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ch/rcap/sg/sgm11_e.html. Here, you will find more on the history of some of these relocations, as well as their impacts.

  3.Ibid.

  4.Ibid., 415–416 (my emphasis).

  5.Re: Eskimos, 1939, SCR 104.

  6.See note 2, page 456.

  7.See note 2, pages 454–466.

  8.Kikkik, https://vimeo.com/18742945. In 1958, an Inuk named Kikkik was charged with murder and criminal negligence leading to the death of her child after she defended herself from the man who killed her husband, and then attempted to flee the place where she and other Inuit had been relocated to. This documentary was made by Kikkik’s daughter who only learned of these events as an adult.

  9.I continue using the Inuktitut word for Inuit sled dogs because the Qikiqtani Truth Commission makes a point of not using the English terms for certain things of great importance to Inuit people.

  10.“Final Report: RCMP Review of Allegations Concerning Inuit Sled Dogs” (2006), accessed November 17, 2015, http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2011/grc-rcmp/PS64-84-2006-eng.pdf.

  11.Jim Bell, “RCMP: Dogs Killed for Health and Safety,” nunatsiaqonline.ca, last modified December 8, 2006, http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/archives/61208/news/nunavut/61208_03.html.

  12.Qikiqtani Truth Commission, “The Commission About Us,” qtcommission.ca, accessed November 17, 2015, http://www.qtcommission.ca/en/about-us/the-commission.

  13.Qikiqtani Truth Commission, “QTC Final Report: Achieving Saimaqatigiingniq” (Qikiqtani Inuit Association, 2010), 14, http://www.qtcommission.ca/sites/default/files/public/thematic_reports/thematic_reports_english_final_report.pdf.

  14.Ibid., 38.

  15.Ibid., 42.

  16.Ibid., 45.

  17.Sheila Watt-Cloutier, The Right to Be Cold: One Woman’s Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet (Toronto: Penguin, 2015).

  18.“Sunshine and Daylight Hours in Inukjuak, Quebec, Canada,” inukjuak.climatetemps.com, last accessed November 18, 2015, http://www.inukjuak.climatemps.com/sunlight.php.

  19.“Average Weather for Inukjuak, Quebec, Canada,” weatherspark.com, last accessed November 18, 2015, https://weatherspark.com/averages/28324/Inukjuak-Quebec-Canada.

  20.Lisa Gregoire, “Grise Fiord,” Canadian Geographic Magazine, October 2008, http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/magazine/oct08/feature_grisefiord.asp.

  21.René Dussault, and George Erasmus, “The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953–55 Relocation,” Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Toronto: Canadian Government Publishing, 1994), last accessed November 18, 2015, http://www.iqqaumavara.com/en/conclusion/. This online document highlights the conclusions of the High Arctic Relocation Report; for a summary of the Commission’s conclusion see pages 135–146.

  22.Ibid.

  23.Melanie McGrath, The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic (New York: Vintage, 2009); Zacharias Kunuk, Exile, directed by Zacharias Kunuk (Igloolik Isuma Productions, 2009), film, http://www.isuma.tv/isuma-productions/exile-0; Marquise Lepage, Martha of the North (National Film Board of Canada, 2009), https://www.nfb.ca/film/martha_of_the_north. These sources provide additional information on the High Arctic Relocation.

  24.See note 12.

  23

  From Hunters to Farmers

  Indigenous Farming on the Prairies

  What do you know about farming among the Prairie nations?

  Here’s what I know. I know that after the annihilation of our main economic base, the buffalo,1 Indigenous peoples in the Prairies were encouraged to become farmers. I know “experts” were sent by Indian Affairs to teach on-reserve populations how to farm. I know there were specific provisions in the treaties to provide the people with farming implements and seeds:

  The following articles shall be supplied… four hoes per family… two spades… one plough for every three families… one harrow… two scythes and one whetstone, and two hay forks and two reaping hooks [etc.]….

  For each Band, enough of wheat, barley, potatoes and oats to plant the land … also for each Band four oxen, one bull and six cows; also, one boar and two sows, and one hand-mill….2

  I know many people considered us “wholly unsuited to farming,” believing us lazy, shiftless, and much too nomadic to prosper in such civilized pursuits. This sentiment in particular was hammered into my head and soul via a thousand comments from teachers, brief textbook descriptions, and newspaper articles that mentioned us at all. Although I believed Indigenous peoples are perfectly capable of farming (just look at the many nations that were doing this, long before settlers came along to “teach them how it’s done”), I, nonetheless, half-accepted the idea that, here on the Prairies, perhaps we just weren’t capable of shifting from a buffalo/trapping/fishing lifestyle to a farming lifestyle with any great ease.

  Perversely, the above knowledge existed alongside my familiarity with the farming prowess of any number of Métis and First Nations families in the Treaty 6 area and beyond.3 In fact, many Métis families pride themselves on coming from hard-working, self-sufficient, and talented farming stock, so the stories are not hard to find.4 In addition, there is good archaeological evidence and oral history that First Nations in the Prairies were not wholly unfamiliar with farming precontact.

  However, I never once read about this or any of these farming families in the textbooks, nor did I hear any “expert” admit their existence. Thus, I suppose, I felt our own understandings carried less weight. The official story supplanted my own family’s history. Maybe these families were merely exceptions to the rule.

  Cui bono (to whose benefit)?

  An important fact that gets lost or distorted when Indigenous peoples are discussed by settler texts and educators is the issue of “to whose benefit”?

  For many years, it has been asserted that virtually every government program designed and enacted by Indian Affairs was “for the benefit of the Indians.” This has been the position for everything from the creation of the Gradual Civilization Act, to the creation of the reserve system, to the institution of residential schools. Clearly, as facts emerge and become more widely known, this official position has been altered. Officially, Canada no longer asserts that residential schooling was a positive endeavour, nor that the High Arctic Relocations were carried out in the best interests of those who endured them. Nonetheless, the belief that Canada did its best for Indigenous peoples – good intentions always at the forefront – remains deeply entrenched in the sociopolitical consciousness.

  It is one thing to disbelieve this, and it is another to understand exactly to what extent
“for the benefit of the Indians” is a lie. We are still taught the Numbered Treaties were signed for our benefit, to address the desperate situation so many Indigenous peoples found themselves in when the buffalo were brought to near extinction over a few decades. And if you read correspondence from First Nations leaders at that time, such as the statement of Chief Sweetgrass below, our need is absolutely evident:

  Our country is getting ruined of fur-bearing animals, hitherto our sole support, and now we are poor and want help – we want you to pity us. We want cattle, tools, agricultural implements, and assistance in everything when we come to settle – our country is no longer able to support us.

  Make provision for us against years of starvation. We had a great starvation the past winter, and the smallpox took away many of our people, the old, young, and children.…5

  Nonetheless, the Numbered Treaties undeniably benefited the Canadian government far more than they have ever benefited us. These treaties opened up unimaginably vast tracts of land for settlement in return for a pittance.

  I do not belabour this point without reason. The question, “To whose benefit?” cannot be pushed aside or believed to be of secondary importance. Keeping this in mind, I want to turn to the push to create farmers out of the people of the Plains nations.

  Lost harvests

  As with so many issues facing Indigenous versus non-Indigenous peoples in this country, the level of control the government has, and had, over the lives of each must be contrasted to see a clear picture.6

  The Prairie reserves were created in the 1870s. At that time, settlers who chose to farm had very little in the way of legislative regulation to contend with. In contrast, the Indian Act micromanaged reserve life to a level incomprehensible to those who have not experienced it. This micromanagement, of course, included all facets of reserve agriculture. Who benefited from this extreme control? History stands witness to the fact that it did not benefit First Nations.