Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

QIKIQTARJUAQ (Aug 02/99) - Two groups of Baffin residents will be experiencing a trip back in time, a return that will rekindle memories of both joy and betrayal.

This week and next the surviving members of two relocations to Qikiqtarjuaq (then known as Broughton Island) will return to the camps they were pushed out of in the 1960s.

"I dream about it all the time, I see it all the time," said Meeka Kakudluk of Pal-lav-vik Island, where she was raised.

Kakudluk was a member of one of seven families relocated from Padloping Island. Another six were relocated from a camp at Kivitoo, said reunion organizer Allan Angmarlik.

(Angmarlik said the correct Inuit spelling for both places is Pal-lav-vik and Qivittuu.)

Padloping Island is about 140 km southeast of Qikiqtarjuaq. Kivitoo is about 60 km north of the community.

"There was so much shock, nobody in my family talked about it," recalled Kakudluk when asked how people reacted at the time.

Most of the people from Padloping Island were familiar with Qikiqtarjuaq. Since there was no store near their camp, they made trips a few times a year to the community to trade for goods.

But Kakadluk said for people who relied on the land, Padloping was far superior to Qikiqtarjuaq. The two places were very different, she said. Fish, game and berries were plentiful at Padloping. Wild food was sparse at Qikiqtarjuak.

Iqaluit businessman, writer and historian Kenn Harper arrived at Padloping Island as a teacher about a year before the relocation occurred. He opposed the government decision.

"The first week I was there the manager from Broughton Island sent a crew with a boat down to dismantle houses and move them to Broughton Island," recalled Harper.

The occupants of the matchbox houses were away for spring hunt. Harper convinced the crew to leave without the houses.

The decision to relocate the camp at Padloping, said Harper, seemed to be based on administrative efficiency. The community, which had no airstrip, was administered out of Qikiqtarjuaq.

After about a year of teaching there, Harper, who also served as a the community nurse, was notified he was being transferred.

A meeting of the Padloping residents was held by Qikiqtarjuaq manager Bob Piolet and federal official Larry Elkin.

"The people were told there was no nurse, no fuel for the generator so no radio, and told their children would not receive an education and would not be able to get any jobs if they stayed," recalled Harper.

He said the federal government justified its decision to superiors in Ottawa with statistics showing people of Padloping had a much lower standard of living than those in Qikiqtarjuaq.

The statistics, he said, were deceptive. They were based on a wage economy. The people of Padloping relied on the land for their living.

Kakadluk, who feels the trauma has blocked out memories of her childhood, said she recalls travelling to Qikiqtarjuaq by dogteam with her family. Once they got there, the dogs were shot, she said, because dogs were not allowed in Qikiqtarjuaq.

Harper said the relocation of the camp at Kivitoo was quite a different matter. It was prompted, he said, by the freezing death of three hunters. A fourth lost his legs during the same ordeal.

The camp could not survive without the hunters.

"It was a humanitarian imperative," said Harper of the relocation.

Angmarlik first developed an interest in the relocatees when he was searching for a viking ship near Qikiqtarjuaq. An elder he was with during the search was among those who were relocated and spoke to Angmarlik of the experience during their stops along the way.

Angmarlik's version of the Kivitoo relocation differs from Harper's.

"The people of Qivittuu were picked up by an airplane just one day after they buried three of their hunters," he said.

"They were never given a chance to grieve. They were picked up and had only their clothing and sleeping gear. They left everything else behind because they were told they could come back whenever they wanted to.

"But as soon as the camp was evacuated, the DEW Line officials came in and burned all the Qammaqs, bulldozed them and buried them in the ground. Everything they had accumulated to that time, the very symbols of their wealth, were destroyed."

Kakudluk said the experience left her with a sense of confusion and homelessness that is with her to this day. She has hopes the healing sessions held in conjunction with the return, and seeing those she shared her youth with, will help lighten the load she has been carrying as a result of the experience.

"It's going to help me understand where I come from," said Kakudluk. "It's going to help me get answers to questions I have had, mostly questions of my relatives.

"I would also like to tell the government I have questions for them about why this happened."

Neither Piolet nor Elkin responded to inquiries from News/North.