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Relocated communities mend old wounds Inukjuak group visits Pond Inlet for healing workshops and monument presentation
Myles Dolphin
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 17, 2013
MITTIMATALIK/POND INLET
When 19 Inuit families from Inukjuak, Que. were relocated to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay in the early 1950s, the consequences were disastrous.
Poor planning on the federal government's part meant the relocatees suffered significant hardship in the unfamiliar climate, struggling with the constant darkness and limited wildlife.
The federal government asked three families from Pond Inlet - the Amarualiks, the Arnakallaks and the Akpaliapiks - to assist the Inukjuak families with the relocation and help them develop the skills to live in the High Arctic.
Six decades later, residents of Inukjuak took it upon themselves to travel to Pond Inlet and officially thank the descendants of those three families for their support and guidance.
Twenty-nine of them traveled to the North Baffin hamlet to take part in healing workshops over a three-day period, June 5 to 7.
Pond Inlet councillor Eleanore Arreak said the emotional visit was an important step in the healing process.
"They wanted to come here from their own will to thank us, as it was realized that healing needed to take place between the two communities," she said.
"Some of them mentioned that their parents probably wouldn't have survived there if it wasn't for the help that was provided."
Inukjuak's mayor first contacted the Pond Inlet hamlet office in November, saying a group of residents would likely travel in April. A planning committee was created and Arreak was appointed to lead it, but a lack of funding forced the Inukjuak group to postpone its visit until the beginning of June.
On the second day of the healing workshops, residents from both communities were split into two groups: those who relocated and their descendents. Facilitators and elders from Pond Inlet and Clyde River led the discussions and everyone was encouraged to share their thoughts and memories of the experience.
Later that day, a monument was presented to members of the three Pond Inlet families, with the names of the original relocatees engraved on it. A community feast and square dance preceded an emotional farewell on June 8.
"It was hard for some because the descendants became so close," Arreak said.
Titus Arnakallak's family relocated to Grise Fiord in 1953. Six members of his family lived there until they returned to Pond Inlet in 1957, and he was born shortly after.
He said he is extremely grateful for the opportunity to meet the Inukjuak residents and the fact they acknowledged his family's help.
"Whenever we hear about the High Arctic relocation it's always kind of negative," he said.
"Finally we can start to see some positive closure in all of this."
It was something of a reunion for Arnakallak and some of the Inukjuak residents. He met a few of them in 1980 at the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Certain Activities of the RCMP, held in Ottawa.
On Aug. 18, 2010, John Duncan - then minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development - travelled to Inukjuak to issue an official apology on behalf of the federal government for the hardship and suffering caused by the relocation.
"The relocation of Inuit families to the High Arctic is a tragic chapter in Canada's history that we should not forget, but that we must acknowledged, learn from and teach our children," he said at the time.
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