An Exercise in sovereignty: the government of Canada and the Inuit relocation of 1953 ...

• Main Author: Lowther, Keith
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: University of Calgary 1989
• Subjects: E 92 L68 1989; Inuit - Canada - Government relations; Inuit - Canada - Social conditions; Arctic Archipelago; Arctic; Baffin Island; Baffin; inuit; Inukjuak; Pond Inlet
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.11575/prism/10803; https://prism.ucalgary.ca/handle/1880/21651

Bibliography: p. 127-140. ... : In August 1953, the government of Canada relocated fifty-three Inuit from the established communities of Inukjuak, Quebec, and Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, to Cornwallis and Ellesmere Islands in the Arctic Archipelago. The government of Prime Minister St. Laurent stated that Inukjuak families were selected to reduce hunting pressures in their home area, while Pond Inlet Inuit would assist their southern counterparts adjust to High Arctic conditions. The government argued that this scheme would permit the participants to continue a hunting and trapping lifestyle, and repopulate areas which had once supported Inuit. An examination of surviving documentary evidence, however, suggests that additional considerations played a role in the decision to implement the project. Canada's long-term concern over its Arctic sovereignty, which had re-emerged in the early 1950s because of American requests to construct numerous defence facilities, had considerable influence in the final decision. ...