Iqaluit (Sep 27/04) - A few years ago, David Serkoak was reading an article in Maclean's magazine that infuriated him so much he spent months crafting a letter in response.

When Serkoak's letter of complaint finally ran in the magazine, he never could have imagined what would soon follow.

One reader in Duncan, B.C. was so startled to see Serkoak's name and the letter he contacted him in Iqaluit. A few months later a box arrived in the mail.

Inside the box there was an ulu made from caribou antler, a fish hook on a long caribou-sinew line, a knife also of caribou antler, a soapstone pipe and carvings of caribou made from bone.

As well, there is a rattle made of wood with jingling pieces from an old tobacco can twisted up and hanging down from caribou skin. This was used to rouse a dog team and get them ready to go.

The items are of great sentimental value to Serkoak, reminding him of his father, Andy Micki, and mother, Mary Qahuq. They are works of Inuit art too.

The items mean many things to Serkoak. But mainly they are solid proof of trading that went on between non-Inuit, federal government weather station personnel -- the man was one of them -- at Ennadai Lake and the Inuit including Serkoak's family, who needed food.

In time, Serkoak hopes the artifacts will prove a strong case for his people: the Ahiarmiut, also known as caribou Inuit.

The man who sent Serkoak the items has explained that the Inuit he met in the 1950s, including Serkoak's father, had to trade for food. For all these years he kept those items he received.

"He told me, 'I never felt that you should have been moved,'" said Serkoak.

While the family survived being relocated many times, first from Ennadai Lake to Nueltin Lake, then Henik Lakes, then HBC Post Padlei, followed by Arviat, Whale Cove, Rankin Inlet and then back to Whale Cove, many Inuit did not.

According to Serkoak, the food source at his homeland of Ennadai Lake was always plentiful. Occasionally times were tough, but they managed.

When the Ahiarmiut were moved to Nueltin Lake the federal government told the people they should learn how to fish.

Beyond this, Serkoak says his people were moved repeatedly without explanation. The tents or new iglus that often greeted them when they arrived at their new camps did not take the pain out of the drastic moves.

How they survived

Serkoak said the move to Henik Lakes in 1957 was the worst of them all. The nearest trading post was three days walk away. Some Inuit died of cold, others of starvation.

Serkoak remembers his mother creating a net to catch ptarmigan. But that's a fonder memory than the times he had to eat part of his boots. He remembers cutting off part of caribou skin kamiks, frying it and eating it. He remembers chewing on bones, "to get the texture." You can eat caribou skin, he said, when you have to.

There was a severe stifling of culture, too. Serkoak is still angry, especially when he recalls one memory of an RCMP officer who burst in on a drum dance ceremony when his family lived at Eskimo Point (Arviat).

But acceptance has opened the door to action. Serkoak and a number of friends who are in his age group, born around 1952, have formed the Ennadai Lake Society.

They are gathering stories from elders in Arviat and have hired a lawyer in Yellowknife to look into what role the federal government and the RCMP had in the relocation of his people, the Ahiarmiut.