Karen Mackenzie
Northern News Services
Published Monday, September 24, 2007
NUNAVUT - A three-member truth commission will investigate issues related to Inuit relocation and the slaughter of dogs, the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (QIA) announced on Sept. 18.
Sheena Machmer has recorded stories from elders who were affected by dog slaughter and relocation issues in the 1950s, '60s and '70s. - Karen Mackenzie/NNSL photo |
Nunavut Tunngavik's board of directors approved $601,000 for the project.
Members of the QIA, along with many Inuit, have long alleged that the RCMP systematically killed up to 20,000 dogs as part of a plan to relocate Inuit from outpost camps to communities.
The RCMP released a report in 2006 which concluded that dogs were culled, but only if they posed a public health or safety hazard.
The commission's investigative team will include Jim Igloliorte, a retired Labrador Inuk judge; NTI legal researcher Madeleine Redfern and Iqaluit lawyer Paul Crowley. Igloliorte is chief commissioner, Redfern is executive director and Crowley is special adviser. The group will compile what QIA executive director Terry Audla said he hopes will be a comprehensive account of the events from an Inuit perspective.
"If you look at the rest of Canada, they have a clearer idea of their history in the '50s, '60 and '70s, whereas here, the Inuit don't necessarily have that. The administrators were keeping the records and the Inuit perspective is not that known," Audla said. "It's not just going to be on the dog slaughter issue."
The QIA has already sent out a number of its members into the field in the past few years to collect the stories of elders from that era.
Geela Kooneeliusie, a community liaison officer (CLO) for Qikiqtarjuaq, interviewed elders in Qikiqtarjuaq as well as some of her own family members in Panniqtuuq about three years ago. Some of her family members were relocated to Pang from Tuappait.
"Both my dad and my uncle were out hunting as usual, and the RCMP had come to camp and took my mother, my aunt, the kids, with no choice, and brought us to Pang," recounted Kooneeliusie, who was a baby at that time in the '60s. "RCMP had left a message back at the camp for my father and uncle, giving them two choices: either they come to Pang with their family, or they stay. So they were shocked and didn't know where their wives or kids were."
It was February or March at the time, and the family was left in a tent, "which was very cold," she said.
Others she interviewed had similar stories of relocation from outposts like Kivitoo and Padloping to Qikiqtarjuaq. Also, many had tales of dogs being slaughtered, and hunters left with no means to travel on the land, she said.
In Pangnirtung, community liaison officer Sheena Machmer interviewed one elder who told the story of a father and daughter who travelled from their camp to the community to trade, only to discover their dogs were destroyed while they were indoors.
"They couldn't make it home," she said.
Johnny Appaqaq, a community liaison officer for Sanikiluaq, collected similar stories from the Belcher Islands.
"One guy was given a snowmobile for one day to go hunting, and when he returned all his dogs were shot," he said.
"In another main camp there were dogs that were tied up, and when (the people) were told to leave to go to another community there was a boat to take them, and they had to leave the dogs. Most of them died, starved right out on the rocks and you can still see the bones where they were on the rocks."
These interviews will likely be taken into account while the commission conducts its investigation, along with fieldwork and public hearings, Igloliorte said.
He will travel to Iqaluit in mid-October to meet with the other two team members to formalize their mandate and decide how to proceed, he said.
Audla said he hopes to make the commission's findings publicly known, and perhaps circulated in schools.
"Depending on the substance, we hope to have it available to everyone," he said. "Hopefully this will bring about a sense of identity, and closure to that era."
