Canada 150 | ‘We called it ‘Prison Island’: Inuk man remembers forced relocation to Grise Fiord:
This story is part of a series from CBC North looking at Canada 150 through the eyes of northern families.
Larry Audlaluk was two years old when he and his family were uprooted from their home in Inukjuak, Que., and dropped off 2,000 kilometres away, on Ellesmere Island.
They are High Arctic exiles; part of a group of 87 Inuit who, in 1953 and 1955, were persuaded by the Canadian government to leave their homes with promises of better hunting and the option to return to Inukjuak in two years.
But promises were broken, and Inuit were forced to stay and form the communities of Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay.
Audlaluk says the government’s relocation plan was billed as an opportunity for Inuit of northern Quebec to live more traditional lives in the High Arctic.
But there were underlying motivations, such as stopping Greenlandic hunters who were poaching polar bears, and exerting Canadian sovereignty.
“It was the time of the Cold War, and Americans were getting a little bit too close,” says Audlaluk. “They wanted a civilian component up here.”