Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63

Charlene Porsild is a visiting Fulbright Scholar at the University of
Colorado.

This book is a valuable tool both for northern historians and for
sociologists. Bringing together an impressive array of new archival
material (most of it from the Alex Stevenson Collection) and oral
interviews with government officials, the authors have produced a
comprehensive chronicle of the policies relating to the relocation of
Inuit people. The result is a well-written narrative on one of the
saddest chapters in northern history.

Despite its misleading subtitle, this book is not about the Inuit who
were relocated to the Eastern Arctic. It is about the government policy
that was responsible for this relocation. In fact, there is almost no
testimony from local people, and it is here that the most important
perspective is missing. This is rather ironic, since the authors accuse
the Canadian government of not consulting the Inuit about decisions that
would affect them. Yet this book only rarely allows the people of
Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord to speak on their own behalf or in their
own voice. This, and the complete absence of maps, are the book’s main
weaknesses.

Still, as a monograph on government policy, this is an important work.
The authors do an excellent job of tracing the policies that resulted in
the relocations to two separate but interlocking sets of circumstances:
Inuit poverty and disease on the one hand, and Arctic sovereignty on the
other. These, especially in the immediate post-World War II years, were
passing issues for the Canadian government, and the relocations were the
result.

Using testimony from a number of key policymakers, the authors examine
the debate over whether the relocations were undertaken with the
malevolence and cruelty of which they are so often accused. The authors
document the dovetailing of Canadian social programs with attempts to
assimilate the Inuit, and conclude that the policymakers were, as they
themselves have always claimed, well intentioned.

Tester and Kulchyski accept these claims, somewhat uncritically,
concluding that in the 1950s, colonialism and racism were cultural
baggage carried by most white-collar Canadians. Unfortunately, as the
authors do not hesitate to point out, the net result of such
well-intended and misinformed policies was a high rate of social
disruption, cultural disintegration, emotional hardship, and death among
the Inuit.