Beyond Neglect: Building Colonial Rule in the Kitikmeot, 1916–52

• Published in: Canadian Historical Review
• Main Author: McLean, Scott
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress) 2020
• Subjects: Religious studies; History; Arctic; inuit; Kitikmeot
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/chr.2017-0135; https://utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/chr.2017-0135

This article refutes official and scholarly accounts of the history of relationships between Inuit and the Canadian state that suggest that the state neglected its Arctic citizens in the period prior to 1950. Instead, the article argues that the early decades of contact between state representatives and the Inuit witnessed the construction and deployment of a distinctive form of colonial rule. Materially, such rule involved the articulation of subsistence and mercantile modes of production, meaning that Inuit livelihoods came to depend upon blending quasi-traditional hunting and fishing practices with the trapping and trading of fox furs. Symbolically, such rule assigned Canadian state representatives the noble task of protecting the Inuit – first, from the incursion of civilization and, later, from their own putative deficiencies. Grounded in archival research focused on the area now known as the Kitikmeot, this article narrates three phases in the early evolution of colonialism, phases that can be summarized as protecting Inuit, disciplining Inuit, and defending colonial rule. Through critically re-interpreting archival documents, this article presents a robust critique of official discourses regarding early Inuit–state relationships, thereby constructing a stronger foundation for postcolonial research that gives prominence to Inuit experiences of, and responses to, those relationships.