High Arctic monument unveiled in Grise Fiord

Canada's most northerly community has a new monument that pays tribute to Inuit who were relocated there by the federal government in the 1950s.

The stone monument by local carver Looty Pijamini was unveiled Friday afternoon in Grise Fiord, Nunavut, in a ceremony attended by Indian and Northern Affairs Minister John Duncan and various government and Inuit officials.

Some of the surviving relocated Inuit, commonly known as the High Arctic Exiles, also attended the ceremony.

Pijamini's sculpture depicts a woman overlooking the ocean, with a young boy and a husky beside her. A similar monument by Simeonie Amarualik, unveiled Wednesday in Resolute, shows a man staring out to sea.

About 87 Inuit from Inukjuak, Que., were relocated about 1,200 kilometres north to what is now Grise Fiord and Resolute as part of the federal government's High Arctic relocation program in 1953 and 1956.

It is widely believed that the Inuit were brought to those settlements to help the government assert Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic.

The government at the time had promised the Inuit new homes and plenty of wildlife to hunt. They were also promised they could return home after one or two years if they were not happy in the High Arctic.

'Like landing on the moon'

But many of the Inuit who were relocated to those settlements endured extreme hardship during their first years in their new home, said Martha Flaherty, whose family was transplanted to Grise Fiord.

"I wanted to go back home to Inukjuak and felt it was like landing on the moon here," Flaherty told CBC News.

John Amagoalik, who was five years old when his family was dropped off in Resolute in 1953, said they were greeted by a cold and barren landscape.

"My mother and father started asking 'Where's the vegetation … how are we going to put up our tents? What's going to happen to us?' That's when I started feeling that something was very wrong," he recalled.

"We had a hard time surviving, we got hungry, and we got very lonely. The first two years were very, very harsh."

The federal government has since acknowledged it did not equip the transplanted Inuit with adequate shelters and supplies. As well, it has admitted it did not fulfil its promise of sending the Inuit back to Inukjuak if they did not want to stay in Resolute and Grise Fiord.

Last month, Duncan issued a formal apology to the relocated Inuit in Inukjuak, saying "significant promises" had been made to them but not kept.

The two monuments were commissioned by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., the Inuit land-claims organization in the territory, to recognize the sacrifices the Inuit made under the High Arctic relocation program.

More could be done

Many of the High Arctic Exiles have since settled in Resolute and Grise Fiord, which have populations of 229 and 141, respectively, according to the 2006 census.

Amagoalik, who now lives in Iqaluit, said his experience in the High Arctic drove him to enter politics. He has been instrumental in the Inuit land-claims process that created Nunavut.

Amagoalik said while he welcomes the federal government's apology, he said it could further help the High Arctic Exiles and their descendants but lowering their extremely high costs of living.

As well, he said he wants to see a big wall monument showing all the names of those who had been relocated to the High Arctic, as well as engraved headstones for those who have since died.

Flaherty said she does not understand why modern Canadian governments have been sending military troops to the High Arctic for sovereignty exercises every year.

"It bugs me when people are talking about [the] military going up there [to] guard the island," she said. "We did the job already."