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The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic
In 1922 an Irish-American adventurer named Robert Flaherty made a film about Inuit life in the Arctic. Nanook of the North featured a mythical Eskimo hunter who lived in an igloo with his family in a frozen Eden. Nanook’s story captured the world’s imagination.
Thirty years later, the Canadian government forcibly relocated three dozen Inuit from the east coast of Hudson Bay to a region of the high artic that was 1,200 miles farther north. Hailing from a land rich in caribou and arctic foxes, whales and seals, pink saxifrage and heather, the Inuit’s destination was Ellesmere Island, an arid and desolate landscape of shale and ice virtually devoid of life. The most northerly landmass on the planet, Ellesmere is blanketed in darkness for four months of the year. There the exiles were left to live on their own with little government support and few provisions.
Among this group was Josephie Flaherty, the unrecognized, half-Inuit son of Robert Flaherty, who never met his father. In a narrative rich with human drama and heartbreak, Melanie McGrath uses the story of three generations of the Flaherty family—the filmmaker; his illegitimate son, Josephie; and Josephie’s daughters, Mary and Martha—to bring this extraordinary tale of mistreatment and deprivation to life.
Thirty years later, the Canadian government forcibly relocated three dozen Inuit from the east coast of Hudson Bay to a region of the high artic that was 1,200 miles farther north. Hailing from a land rich in caribou and arctic foxes, whales and seals, pink saxifrage and heather, the Inuit’s destination was Ellesmere Island, an arid and desolate landscape of shale and ice virtually devoid of life. The most northerly landmass on the planet, Ellesmere is blanketed in darkness for four months of the year. There the exiles were left to live on their own with little government support and few provisions.
Among this group was Josephie Flaherty, the unrecognized, half-Inuit son of Robert Flaherty, who never met his father. In a narrative rich with human drama and heartbreak, Melanie McGrath uses the story of three generations of the Flaherty family—the filmmaker; his illegitimate son, Josephie; and Josephie’s daughters, Mary and Martha—to bring this extraordinary tale of mistreatment and deprivation to life.
268 pages, Hardcover
First published April 3, 2007
About the author
Melanie McGrath
17 books23 followersAka M.J. McGrath
Melanie McGrath was born in Essex. Her first book, Motel Nirvana, won the John Llewelyn-Rhys/Mail on Sunday award for Best New British and Commonwealth Writer under 35. She is also the author of Hard, Soft and Wet: The Digital Generation Comes of Age, and Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir. She writes for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Evening Standard and Conde Nast Traveller. She is a regular broadcaster on radio, has been a television producer and presenter. She lives and works in London.
Melanie McGrath was born in Essex. Her first book, Motel Nirvana, won the John Llewelyn-Rhys/Mail on Sunday award for Best New British and Commonwealth Writer under 35. She is also the author of Hard, Soft and Wet: The Digital Generation Comes of Age, and Silvertown: An East End Family Memoir. She writes for The Guardian, The Independent, The Times, The Evening Standard and Conde Nast Traveller. She is a regular broadcaster on radio, has been a television producer and presenter. She lives and works in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
January 1, 2009
For anyone who imagines, as I did before reading this book, that the forced relocation of indigenous people in North America was something that happened historically--but not now, not in our lifetimes--The Long Exile is an important wake-up call. The Inuit whose story McGrath tells here were finally allowed the option to leave their involuntary imprisonment on their "reservation" (my term, not hers or theirs) in the most inhospitable lands on Planet Earth other than Antarctica, in ... wait for it ... 1993.
Yes, 1993.
Beautifully and simply written, this essential chapter of North American history wasn't in any history book I'd ever read. McGrath reveals this history primarily through tracing a single family's experiences. That family, tellingly, includes the all-but-forgotten son of a famous white documentary maker, left behind in the Arctic before his birth to an equally forgotten Inuit mother. The family, along with six others, was forcibly moved from their native homeland to a location so near the North Pole as to be almost uninhabitable--but the white Canadians who wanted to strengthen their country's claim to their northernmost shores naively (and wrongly) insisted that the Inuit could thrive anywhere.
That action, taken in the early 1950's, wasn't even partially remedied until the 1993 hearings in which the voices of the Inuit involved were finally heard. And, although Canada has set up a fund to provide for the people it harmed through this ill-conceived action, the nation has yet to issue a formal apology for the misery and death they caused.
The story is heart-wrenching, but I'm very glad to have read it. It seems an important story to know, somehow, despite my certainty that it's not going to be included in any forthcoming history books, either. Since her writing's excellent, the descriptions vivid, the characters well-drawn, and the action continuous, McGrath's telling makes for good reading, too.
Visit your library and pick it up. You won't regret the time spent in the far North, learning a thing or two from the Inuit there.
OST NON-FICTION ADULT STK 305.897 MCG
Yes, 1993.
Beautifully and simply written, this essential chapter of North American history wasn't in any history book I'd ever read. McGrath reveals this history primarily through tracing a single family's experiences. That family, tellingly, includes the all-but-forgotten son of a famous white documentary maker, left behind in the Arctic before his birth to an equally forgotten Inuit mother. The family, along with six others, was forcibly moved from their native homeland to a location so near the North Pole as to be almost uninhabitable--but the white Canadians who wanted to strengthen their country's claim to their northernmost shores naively (and wrongly) insisted that the Inuit could thrive anywhere.
That action, taken in the early 1950's, wasn't even partially remedied until the 1993 hearings in which the voices of the Inuit involved were finally heard. And, although Canada has set up a fund to provide for the people it harmed through this ill-conceived action, the nation has yet to issue a formal apology for the misery and death they caused.
The story is heart-wrenching, but I'm very glad to have read it. It seems an important story to know, somehow, despite my certainty that it's not going to be included in any forthcoming history books, either. Since her writing's excellent, the descriptions vivid, the characters well-drawn, and the action continuous, McGrath's telling makes for good reading, too.
Visit your library and pick it up. You won't regret the time spent in the far North, learning a thing or two from the Inuit there.
OST NON-FICTION ADULT STK 305.897 MCG
June 19, 2014
For a people isolated not only by geography, social custom and economic development but also by language, the Inuit have had a remarkable amount of patience with the world changing around them. Unlike the other groups of Native Americans, who lashed out in retaliation at the invasive Europeans, the Inuit have always shrugged off the presence of the white men who visit their icelocked worlds. After all, they usually left.
But over time, that had to change at the hands of abuse. Melanie McGrath has documented one of the straws that broke the camel’s back. With meticulous research and loving detail on each of the characters, she has composed a human struggle from court documents and vague letters, throwing a little more light on the long road these people have walked to be recognized by the government that grew up beneath them.
The story follows a group of Inuit from the Ungava peninsula on the eastern shore of the Hudson Bay from the early 19th century through their relocation to barren Ellesmere Island in 1954 up through the struggle for official state recognition at the end of the century. At the time, few people knew the Inuit from anything except a box-office hit called Nanook of the North, filmed on Ungava by an American named Robert Flaherty, in the years after World War I. Even the Canadian government had few rules and regulations that worked with Inuit customs; it merely worked around them if it needed to involve them at all.
By the 1950s, the outside world had found the furs in the wilds around Inuit settlements useful and had set up trading camps on the coasts of the Hudson Bay. Inuit began using guns to hunt instead of the traditional spears and traps, which drastically reduced the animal population to the point of endangerment. Inuit men and women partook in excessive amounts of alcohol and had illegitimate children, breaking families and impoverishing individuals to the point of destroying what was left of the traditional culture. And still there was no social uprising against the presence of the traders.
But when the Canadian government decided to move a group of ten families to remote Ellesmere Island to allow them to live a more traditional lifestyle, the outside approach and destruction of ingrained Inuit values became apparent. Families were broken, siblings were separated for hunting convenience and communication was sparse. For a culture whose very roots depended on family bonds and close village community, moving families without any tie to their former lives was completely against nature.
McGrath begins strongly but fades into historical blur as she cities incident after incident, date after date, name after name in a rolling list of wrongs done to this people group. In truth, they have been gravely wronged and she has uncovered an incredible story that ended in the formation of the semi-autonomous territory of Nunavut, but she changes tone halfway through from literary fiction to nonfiction journalism. It’s a shame to lose that, because the opening is so human and powerful that it echoes through the rest of the book.
McGrath shows a keen eye for detail, but the book could have used an editor. Some tracks are tangential and we get away from the main thrust of the story. Paring down to just the essentials with the beautiful writing added to the most poignant moments would have slimmed the book to its most important, lasting elements.
However, with its faults, the book is still thought-provoking. For the Inuit, healthcare, social welfare, economics and education were all systematic failures, breaking family units into pieces. A culture knitted together by family bonds in an inhospitable frozen desert does not last when it must forget them to be accepted by a government that barely applies to it. Perhaps the most important takeaway from the story of the Ungava Inuit, who were unwittingly famous worldwide for Nanook and carvings brought back to major museums, is that we must forsake the most systematic efficiencies when human suffering is at stake. Governments should not do the most efficient thing when it damages the people it was originally meant to serve.
But over time, that had to change at the hands of abuse. Melanie McGrath has documented one of the straws that broke the camel’s back. With meticulous research and loving detail on each of the characters, she has composed a human struggle from court documents and vague letters, throwing a little more light on the long road these people have walked to be recognized by the government that grew up beneath them.
The story follows a group of Inuit from the Ungava peninsula on the eastern shore of the Hudson Bay from the early 19th century through their relocation to barren Ellesmere Island in 1954 up through the struggle for official state recognition at the end of the century. At the time, few people knew the Inuit from anything except a box-office hit called Nanook of the North, filmed on Ungava by an American named Robert Flaherty, in the years after World War I. Even the Canadian government had few rules and regulations that worked with Inuit customs; it merely worked around them if it needed to involve them at all.
By the 1950s, the outside world had found the furs in the wilds around Inuit settlements useful and had set up trading camps on the coasts of the Hudson Bay. Inuit began using guns to hunt instead of the traditional spears and traps, which drastically reduced the animal population to the point of endangerment. Inuit men and women partook in excessive amounts of alcohol and had illegitimate children, breaking families and impoverishing individuals to the point of destroying what was left of the traditional culture. And still there was no social uprising against the presence of the traders.
But when the Canadian government decided to move a group of ten families to remote Ellesmere Island to allow them to live a more traditional lifestyle, the outside approach and destruction of ingrained Inuit values became apparent. Families were broken, siblings were separated for hunting convenience and communication was sparse. For a culture whose very roots depended on family bonds and close village community, moving families without any tie to their former lives was completely against nature.
McGrath begins strongly but fades into historical blur as she cities incident after incident, date after date, name after name in a rolling list of wrongs done to this people group. In truth, they have been gravely wronged and she has uncovered an incredible story that ended in the formation of the semi-autonomous territory of Nunavut, but she changes tone halfway through from literary fiction to nonfiction journalism. It’s a shame to lose that, because the opening is so human and powerful that it echoes through the rest of the book.
McGrath shows a keen eye for detail, but the book could have used an editor. Some tracks are tangential and we get away from the main thrust of the story. Paring down to just the essentials with the beautiful writing added to the most poignant moments would have slimmed the book to its most important, lasting elements.
However, with its faults, the book is still thought-provoking. For the Inuit, healthcare, social welfare, economics and education were all systematic failures, breaking family units into pieces. A culture knitted together by family bonds in an inhospitable frozen desert does not last when it must forget them to be accepted by a government that barely applies to it. Perhaps the most important takeaway from the story of the Ungava Inuit, who were unwittingly famous worldwide for Nanook and carvings brought back to major museums, is that we must forsake the most systematic efficiencies when human suffering is at stake. Governments should not do the most efficient thing when it damages the people it was originally meant to serve.
March 7, 2021
A tragic look at a lost piece of history, the continued uncovering of many skeletons in Canadian history. This one the mishandling, mismanagement and abuse of the Inuit people's in the far flung reaches of the north. I was drawn in by my loose familiarity with the film Nanook of the North and found myself similarly having an idealized notion of it's 'truth-telling'. Certainly a fascinating and important story. I was lost a bit in the central passages but by the end it's disparate strands were pulled closer to home. Worth the journey for the curious. Hope to see more dignity and light shed on this part of history that has been so often cast to the outer margins.
August 11, 2008
Absolutely absorbing and beautifully written, this book relates the experiences of a group of Inuit who were relocated by the Canadian government from their community on the Eastern shore of Hudson Bay, to the remotest and most uninhabitable islands in the Arctic Circle in order to bolster Canada’s claim on those lands.
August 14, 2022
i stumbled upon this book after finishing the book about Inuit boy Minik, who was brought to new york city in the early 20th century (written by kenn harper). harper’s narrative and storytelling was far from perfect, but Minik’s story was definitely better written than McGrath managed with the Inukjuak story.
this book tells the story of film and documentary maker robert flaherty, his Inuit son josephie and his daughters and to a larger extent all Inukjuak Inuit families living at the northern arctic settlements.
the beginning and (especially) the end of the book were enjoyable, interesting and often painful to read. sadly, McGrath seemed to have lost the point of the story after a while, resulting in the middle part of the book being one big chaos constantly diverting away from the main characters in favour of (to me uninteresting) canadian officials stationed in the northern arctic.
however, overall the story of Josephie and his fellow Inukjuak Inuit is another important page in the history of European oppression, violence and complete disregard (and all the other bad words) of indigenous peoples. apparently there was nobody (at least, no canadian official or anyone with influence) who raised the alarm of what was going on with the “exiled” Inuit at the northern settlements. the canadian government used these families as tools and didn’t even supply them with efficient food or equipment, only to barely survive thanks to their own actions.
i think it’s super important for books like this to be written and read, by people of all ages and cultural backgrounds. i’d gladly read more of the treatments of indigenous peoples across the world and continue to educate myself more and more about these topics.
i really enjoyed the epilogue, where McGrath succeeded in sketching the overall atmosphere of the legal procedure concerning the wrongs done to the Inukjuak. of course, it is bizarre that the horrendous situation of the Inukjuak Inuit only became widely known through media in the 90s and its court case only took place in 1993. also bizarre (and #!*&) that the canadian government never apologised for its treatment of these families (first claiming that they are not responsible for the consequences of their actions. sorry, what?).
alas, the story needed to be told and though it could have been told better than McGrath managed, i would rather read it like this than not know the story at all.
this book tells the story of film and documentary maker robert flaherty, his Inuit son josephie and his daughters and to a larger extent all Inukjuak Inuit families living at the northern arctic settlements.
the beginning and (especially) the end of the book were enjoyable, interesting and often painful to read. sadly, McGrath seemed to have lost the point of the story after a while, resulting in the middle part of the book being one big chaos constantly diverting away from the main characters in favour of (to me uninteresting) canadian officials stationed in the northern arctic.
however, overall the story of Josephie and his fellow Inukjuak Inuit is another important page in the history of European oppression, violence and complete disregard (and all the other bad words) of indigenous peoples. apparently there was nobody (at least, no canadian official or anyone with influence) who raised the alarm of what was going on with the “exiled” Inuit at the northern settlements. the canadian government used these families as tools and didn’t even supply them with efficient food or equipment, only to barely survive thanks to their own actions.
i think it’s super important for books like this to be written and read, by people of all ages and cultural backgrounds. i’d gladly read more of the treatments of indigenous peoples across the world and continue to educate myself more and more about these topics.
i really enjoyed the epilogue, where McGrath succeeded in sketching the overall atmosphere of the legal procedure concerning the wrongs done to the Inukjuak. of course, it is bizarre that the horrendous situation of the Inukjuak Inuit only became widely known through media in the 90s and its court case only took place in 1993. also bizarre (and #!*&) that the canadian government never apologised for its treatment of these families (first claiming that they are not responsible for the consequences of their actions. sorry, what?).
alas, the story needed to be told and though it could have been told better than McGrath managed, i would rather read it like this than not know the story at all.
September 24, 2023
Have you seen the documentary "Nanook of the North"? This was footage produced by Robert Flaherty in the 1920's. It was meant to show the life of the Inuit but it was, essentially, fiction. While Robert was filming this he had an affair with his lead female Inuit girl. This produced a male child, Josephie Flaherty; a child that Robert Flaherty knew about but never acknowledged, and Robert Flaherty never returned to the Arctic.
When Josephie was a man, in 1953, the Canadian government, for reasons complex and unreasonable, decided to move Inuit "volunteers" and their families to the High Arctic. This is not normal Arctic. This is like a massive ice sculpture, with severe winds, crashing ice bergs in the water, very close to no vegetation, and almost no land animals to hunt making it necessary to go on to the very unstable and dangerous sea ice to hunt sea mammals. The people had never lived in such an environment, they were used to the Arctic, not the High Arctic which was a different world entirely. They were severely under equipped in every way: clothing, shelters, stoves, lighting, sleds, dogs, building materials etc. And it was completely dark for 5 or 6 months of the year.They were simply expected to be able to handle this because they were Inuit. There were small children, even babies. The people had been told they could return after a year if they didn't care to stay up there. That didn't happen, they were not allowed to return to their homeland. All suffered, a significant number died.
Josephie was one of the people who, with his wife and kids, went to the High Arctic. It is Martha, his six year old who was hunting with her father at that age as he had no other helper or partner to hunt with, who later went south and became an activist for her people.
This story is very important; historically, politically, socially and ethically. In my opinion, everyone should read this book.
When Josephie was a man, in 1953, the Canadian government, for reasons complex and unreasonable, decided to move Inuit "volunteers" and their families to the High Arctic. This is not normal Arctic. This is like a massive ice sculpture, with severe winds, crashing ice bergs in the water, very close to no vegetation, and almost no land animals to hunt making it necessary to go on to the very unstable and dangerous sea ice to hunt sea mammals. The people had never lived in such an environment, they were used to the Arctic, not the High Arctic which was a different world entirely. They were severely under equipped in every way: clothing, shelters, stoves, lighting, sleds, dogs, building materials etc. And it was completely dark for 5 or 6 months of the year.They were simply expected to be able to handle this because they were Inuit. There were small children, even babies. The people had been told they could return after a year if they didn't care to stay up there. That didn't happen, they were not allowed to return to their homeland. All suffered, a significant number died.
Josephie was one of the people who, with his wife and kids, went to the High Arctic. It is Martha, his six year old who was hunting with her father at that age as he had no other helper or partner to hunt with, who later went south and became an activist for her people.
This story is very important; historically, politically, socially and ethically. In my opinion, everyone should read this book.
July 9, 2013
A good and easily read insight into how native people have been treated even recently. Using the film "Nanook of the north" as an entry point this looks at the filmmaker the film and his illegitimate son and his family. Effectively conned into moving to a remote spot where life is barely sustainable. Moving and interesting.
July 21, 2018
This book made me question some of my most fundamental assumptions about history writing. It's powerful and compelling and conveys a lot of important information about the Inuit and their treatment by the Canadian government, which basically tricked/forced several families to move from the Ungava peninsula in northern Quebec to Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic, a far less hospitable region where they were lucky to survive the first winter. To the decision-makers in the south, anything above the tree-line was basically equivalent; it didn't matter that the High Arctic didn't get enough snow to build igloos before the onset of winter, or that the southern Inuit had no experience of the endless night, or that fresh water and even the most basic plant life was scarce. It would be convenient to have people living in the farthest reaches of the Arctic to establish Canadian sovereignty there, and the Inuit already lived in the Arctic, and so it was decided. Officials told the Inuit that they didn't need to bring much in the way of supplies because they would receive all the help they needed, and also that they could go home after a year if they didn't like it, but of course both of those things turned out to be lies. All this in the 1950s.
I could go on and on with the horrors: a two-year-old girl is diagnosed with tuberculosis, so she's immediately taken away from her family and sent to a southern sanatorium. The parents have no option to accompany her and over the ensuing years they receive zero communication about whether she's still alive. At the sanatorium, there's no one who speaks Inuktitut, so the child is just strapped to the bed and left to cry.
This was an eye-opening book that taught me a huge amount about life in the Arctic. Even beyond the political issues, I learned about the terrain and the people and the various techniques and tools of survival.
This is also a book that provides almost zero documentation for its claims. There are no footnotes or endnotes, not even the hidden endnotes by page number that you often see in popular works. There's no real discussion of sources, though the acknowledgements do thank some of the protagonists and their descendants for participating in interviews. The bibliography has only sixteen entries.
And yet I was surprisingly unbothered by that. I appreciated the readability of this work, and I'm confident that the core elements are true. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples issued a report on the topic in 1994; there was a ten million dollar settlement in 1996, and an official government apology in 2010. I'm sure I could use the report as a starting point if I wanted more serious history on the topic, but I don't know that I needed more serious history. This book opened my eyes to an important topic that was unfamiliar to me, and did so in a way that was enjoyable to read. I don't know what it says about me as a historian that I found a lot of value in that.
I could go on and on with the horrors: a two-year-old girl is diagnosed with tuberculosis, so she's immediately taken away from her family and sent to a southern sanatorium. The parents have no option to accompany her and over the ensuing years they receive zero communication about whether she's still alive. At the sanatorium, there's no one who speaks Inuktitut, so the child is just strapped to the bed and left to cry.
This was an eye-opening book that taught me a huge amount about life in the Arctic. Even beyond the political issues, I learned about the terrain and the people and the various techniques and tools of survival.
This is also a book that provides almost zero documentation for its claims. There are no footnotes or endnotes, not even the hidden endnotes by page number that you often see in popular works. There's no real discussion of sources, though the acknowledgements do thank some of the protagonists and their descendants for participating in interviews. The bibliography has only sixteen entries.
And yet I was surprisingly unbothered by that. I appreciated the readability of this work, and I'm confident that the core elements are true. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples issued a report on the topic in 1994; there was a ten million dollar settlement in 1996, and an official government apology in 2010. I'm sure I could use the report as a starting point if I wanted more serious history on the topic, but I don't know that I needed more serious history. This book opened my eyes to an important topic that was unfamiliar to me, and did so in a way that was enjoyable to read. I don't know what it says about me as a historian that I found a lot of value in that.
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March 4, 2022This book tells the tragic and inhumane story of the forced relocation of Inuit families to the Arctic north, and the very sad ripple effect of these acts on many. I value the learnings from this book, from the stories to the descriptive environmental settings and way of life. This is important history!
Three stars are only because of the author constantly interrupting the story telling to shove another story and timeline inside another and another. It was often hard to follow the point, especially if/when you set the book down, and was disengaging to me. The author also presented the mindset or thoughts of some of the book characters without citing how she derived that information. The citations at the end are very short, and my amateur opinion is that the book should have been better annotated.
Personal note: I recently moved from Canada, and this is book 3/3 I’ve read to commemorate the personal life milestone.
Three stars are only because of the author constantly interrupting the story telling to shove another story and timeline inside another and another. It was often hard to follow the point, especially if/when you set the book down, and was disengaging to me. The author also presented the mindset or thoughts of some of the book characters without citing how she derived that information. The citations at the end are very short, and my amateur opinion is that the book should have been better annotated.
Personal note: I recently moved from Canada, and this is book 3/3 I’ve read to commemorate the personal life milestone.
March 28, 2017
Heartbreaking and well written. My main complaint with this wonderful book is that it lacked endnotes. (It seems strange for a work of history written in 2006 to only have a partial bibliography, yeah?) But an important and great read nonetheless - definitely worth your while.
February 13, 2024
This is a true story about what happens when governments take it upon themselves to do what they think is best for indigenous people without the input of the people themselves.
It was a bit dry in places but is worth a read.
It was a bit dry in places but is worth a read.
August 9, 2020
An incredible research project rendered with clarity and heart. McGrath manages to get her arms around a story that spans generations, and reading it never feels like a slog. The story itself is heartbreaking, and one that needs to be told. I've learned more about the Inuit and the Arctic from this book than any other single source. Thank you for a great read.
February 20, 2009
This is an excellent book about a terrible topic. McGrath takes the first half of the book to set the scene in Inukjuak in the early 20th century, how the Inuit traditionally lived and how they had adapted to the incursion of the whites. The second section deals with the forced relocation of Inujuak families to the inhospitable and nearly uninhabitable Ellesmere Island in the 1950s, the lies told to the Inuit by the RCMP and the Arctic government, the near starvation conditions they lived in, and the eventual human rights hearing they received in the 1990s. The descriptions of how they were forced to live on Ellesmere Island were terrifying, but McGrath clearly held back, allowing the chapter about the hearing to express the full horror of the abuses. Also throughout the book were moments of terrible irony, such as when Nanook of the North was playing to packed houses and the star was starving to death in a blizzard, or when there was a European exhibit of Inuit art and the most esteemed carver was starving to death on Ellesmere.
This book was beautifully, and the sections on living in the Arctic were very informative, but it was too painful to call it a truly enjoyable read.
This book was beautifully, and the sections on living in the Arctic were very informative, but it was too painful to call it a truly enjoyable read.
March 21, 2012
Oh dear. Another book which gets me riled. Well researched non-fiction about the despicable forced movement of Inuit peoples from their homes on the eastern coast of Hudson Bay to the inhospitable northern Ellesmere Island resulting in starvation. Political decisions made to ensure that Greenland, USA and any Scandinavian country could not go in and claim the land. Justified because the Inuit' it was thought, could survive without support, and the government did not want them to become dependent on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police camps and trading posts. Unscrupulous traders at the camps swapped alchohol with fox pelts leading to problems with drunkeness. But the perpetrators got their just desserts - eventually. Reparation made and a self-governing area, Inuvik, created for Inuits.
March 30, 2015
Beginning in 1953, and continuing throughout the remainder of that decade, the Government of Canada forcibly removed scores of Inuit some 1,200 miles away from their families and ancestral lands to the harsh, desolate High Arctic.
McGrath's excellent research, including interviews with survivors and government officials as well as a thorough document review, combines with her strong storytelling skills to tell a grim tale of wanton, unnecessary cruelty conducted in the name of Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic. This informative, heartbreaking, and devastating indictment of the Government of Canada, should be required reading for all Canadians, as well as anyone interested in the struggle of indigenous peoples in their dealings with European settlers and/or the history of the Arctic.
McGrath's excellent research, including interviews with survivors and government officials as well as a thorough document review, combines with her strong storytelling skills to tell a grim tale of wanton, unnecessary cruelty conducted in the name of Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic. This informative, heartbreaking, and devastating indictment of the Government of Canada, should be required reading for all Canadians, as well as anyone interested in the struggle of indigenous peoples in their dealings with European settlers and/or the history of the Arctic.
July 7, 2010
I loved this book! Before reading this book I had just learned that the Inuit people are the same as the Eskimo. I felt pretty clueless about these people and also intrigued by them. This book is about the relocation of Inuit families by Canadian law enforcement to the high Artic where the environment is essentially uninhabitable. Four months out of the year, there is complete and utter darkness. This was done to supposedly allow the Inuit to live their traditional lifestyle of living off then land, when fur trading was not providing them with enough income. This a heartbreaking true story that is simply unforgettable!
July 26, 2009
This is a compelling book about the Inuit in Canada and their cruel treatment by the government, who 'relocated' them to the northernmost reaches of the land with promises of abundant game, when in reality there was nothing but ice. Few survived, and few officials cared or would own up to any responsibility.
It is a shocking history. For me it highlights the arrogance of governments. The Inuits were used as political pawns, to inhabit the vast reaches of the arctic in order to claim the land. The descriptions of the harsh life the Inuits endured are horrifying. Recommended.
It is a shocking history. For me it highlights the arrogance of governments. The Inuits were used as political pawns, to inhabit the vast reaches of the arctic in order to claim the land. The descriptions of the harsh life the Inuits endured are horrifying. Recommended.
March 6, 2013
This book describes the forcible relocation of a number of Inuit families to the high Arctic in the early 1050s in order to lend support to the Canadian claims of sovereignty to the region, including the Inuit/Caucasian son of the documentary filmmaker who made Nanook of the North. The fact that anyone survived is astonishing. The book is well written with one weakness in the lack of better maps and the somewhat confusing geographic references.
July 29, 2011
A tale of the Eskimos, including the Eskimo son of the man who filmed “Nanook of the North”. A Fascinating look into the lives of the Inuit, and how the misguided policies and interferences by the Canadian government and white people have resulted in enormous suffering and displacement over generations.
June 24, 2026
This prompted me to watch Nanook of the North (1922) which I had neither seen before nor knew of the global fame and impact it had when released. What happened was that director Robert J. Flaherty had an affair with actress Maggie Nujarluktuk (also known as Alice Nevalinga, Maggie Nuvalinngaq, or Nevalinga), an Inuk woman starring as Nyla, the wife of the title character. Flaherty left before the birth and never acknowledged or met his son who was swept into government relocations with geopolitical motivations:
Not only was this native population disrupted with forced locations, but their society was eroded by the introduction of alcohol which came out in later public hearings.
In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty (granddaughter to Robert) and her family lived through one of Canadian history's most somber and little-known episodes. She later became a prominent figure in publicizing these wrongs. That is not covered in this book, but there is a documentary Martha of the North (2009) .
The breakdown of norms extended to the extreme case of Qimmingajak. Cannibalism featured in that family's descent into depravity during a period of extreme starvation and isolation in a traditional snow house (qarnaq). Qimmingajak consumed his campmates and ultimately his own son.
This book needed an Inuktut glossary, IMHO. Carefully, each native word was defined when first used, but that often was not enough help for me when reading further on.
Henry Larsen gave instructions for the ship's helicopter to go on ahead to scout out a possible route through the pack to Alexandra Fiord, forty miles to the north. He was particularly keen to position Inuit at Alexandra or at least on the Bache Peninsula which had long been of considerable strategic importance to Canada. From the tip of the peninsula to the northwest coast of Greenland was a journey of only thirty miles. For most of the year the channel between the two countries was frozen and it acted as an ice bridge for Greenlandic Inuit wanting to hunt polar bear and musk ox on northern Ellesmere in the region of Hazen Lake. The weather conditions at Bache were so severe that a formal border post would never be established there, but Larsen felt that the presence of Canadian Inuit in the area would at least discourage the Greenlanders. Their presence would also serve as an effective rebuttal if ever Denmark, Greenland or the United States made a claim for Ellesmere.
Not only was this native population disrupted with forced locations, but their society was eroded by the introduction of alcohol which came out in later public hearings.
Inuit women began to appear at the Arctic Circle bar to reclaim their men, and soon enough, they also began to drink. The airmen quickly discovered these women could be bought for booze, cash or promises and the women were often too drunk to say no, or did not know how to say no to white men. When the first group of women had been used up, there were plenty more, and younger, down in the camp. And so it went on. A great many half-breed babies were born during that time, a good number of them with the tiny, shrivelled bodies indicative of foetal alcohol syndrome.
Fights broke out between jealous men and their wives, between husbands and between older and younger women. Inuit stumbled out of their huts into freezing nights high on rage and booze and too drunk to be able to feel frostbite setting in. There were a lot of amputations in those years.
By the mid-sixties almost every Inuit family in Resolute Bay had been affected by alcoholism. Things got so bad at the Inuit settlement that in some homes there was nothing to eat for days except the chewing gum the airmen handed out to the children to keep them quiet while they had sex with their mothers. A whole generation of Inuit children were left to bring up themselves while their fathers and mothers descended into squalor and depression. In the absence of any help, the children dealt with all this in the only way they knew how. Some learned to dissemble and lie, others sunk into states of apathy and denial. In the nine years from 1953 to 1962, fifty Inuit girls and boys were born in Resolute Bay. Thirty years later, nearly a third of them were already dead. Remembering it all brought Martha to tears. It gave her no comfort at all to know that, when it came to raw despair during those years, Resolute Bay had probably had the edge on Grise Fiord.
The testimony continued, and when the Commission broke for lunch, many of those who had heard the morning's witness simply sat in their seats, no longer able to trust their legs to carry them anywhere...
In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty (granddaughter to Robert) and her family lived through one of Canadian history's most somber and little-known episodes. She later became a prominent figure in publicizing these wrongs. That is not covered in this book, but there is a documentary Martha of the North (2009) .
The breakdown of norms extended to the extreme case of Qimmingajak. Cannibalism featured in that family's descent into depravity during a period of extreme starvation and isolation in a traditional snow house (qarnaq). Qimmingajak consumed his campmates and ultimately his own son.
This book needed an Inuktut glossary, IMHO. Carefully, each native word was defined when first used, but that often was not enough help for me when reading further on.
May 29, 2017
Wow. Just wow. I often pick books at random off the shelf--sometimes they're duds, mostly they're good, and sometimes they're like this book: an absolute stunner.
Maybe it's because I'm American, and I've grown up hearing about how horrifically we treated our natives, but I feel like Canada's treatment of their natives goes largely unremarked upon. Perhaps it's the stereotype of (white) Canadians in general being so nice and polite? Anyway, this is why I read--so I can learn about these things I'm so ignorant about.
But this book--wow. I cannot even begin to fathom the idea of living in a place as desolate, remote, and unforgiving as Ellesmere Island. And that's in 2017, with all the technology available! Imagine being forced, against your will, in the 1950's to move to a place where temperatures--at the warmest part of the year!!--rarely reach above freezing. Imagine living in a place where the sun does not shine--not even for a minute--from October to February. Now, imagine all this in a culture that subsists largely on hunting. Pretty hard to do in absolute darkness, in temperatures of about -25 F, on an island that hosts little to no huntable game.
Anyway. I seriously very highly recommend this book--it was riveting and incredibly informative and heartbreaking and just served to remind me how insanely lucky I am to have been born a white American who has never really had to deal with any sort of adversity.
Maybe it's because I'm American, and I've grown up hearing about how horrifically we treated our natives, but I feel like Canada's treatment of their natives goes largely unremarked upon. Perhaps it's the stereotype of (white) Canadians in general being so nice and polite? Anyway, this is why I read--so I can learn about these things I'm so ignorant about.
But this book--wow. I cannot even begin to fathom the idea of living in a place as desolate, remote, and unforgiving as Ellesmere Island. And that's in 2017, with all the technology available! Imagine being forced, against your will, in the 1950's to move to a place where temperatures--at the warmest part of the year!!--rarely reach above freezing. Imagine living in a place where the sun does not shine--not even for a minute--from October to February. Now, imagine all this in a culture that subsists largely on hunting. Pretty hard to do in absolute darkness, in temperatures of about -25 F, on an island that hosts little to no huntable game.
Anyway. I seriously very highly recommend this book--it was riveting and incredibly informative and heartbreaking and just served to remind me how insanely lucky I am to have been born a white American who has never really had to deal with any sort of adversity.
October 28, 2019
Amazing story of Inuit life on Ungava Peninsula on Hudson's Bay. Robert Flaherty shot Nanook of the North here in 1920. And he left behind and ignored a son he fathered with a native woman. Things get worse as Josephie Flaherty grows up. Fox and caribou grow scarcer. Then in the early 1950s Cold War politics change Canadian policy in far North. Siberia is just a guided missile away over the polar cap. To assert sovereignty beyond the Arctic Circle Canada decides to move some families 1,500 miles north to the desolate dark Ellsmere Island, not far across the ice from Greenland. Josephie is one of the relocated and he falls apart. His daughter Martha becomes a noted advocate. Another one resettled was Josephie's stepfther, Paddy Aqiatusuk, a noted soapstone carver who continued his work by seal oil lamp during the four months a year the sun never rose. Moving story beautifully chronicled by Melanie McGrath. Since then Nunavut has become a province, the formerly disenfranchised Inuit have parliamentary representatives, and supply planes and ships visit the remote settlements much more often than once a year. The book brims with fascinating detail on coping with daily life, the minutia of picking a safe path over pack ice, the best harnessing schemes for sled dogs in different terrain, the search for willow sprouts to use as lamp wicks. It is indeed a rejoinder to the happy mythologizing of Nanook.
October 27, 2020
An excellent, enlightening read. McGrath gives a balanced, well-researched history of the Inuit, Canadian forays into the Arctic, and the tragedy and triumph of Inuit families' forced transfer to the high Arctic in the 1950s.
It's a very readable work in spite of the sheer amount of fascinating and often tragic history it relates. This is one of those books that stay with you--I ended up relating most of it to my family evening after evening at the dinner table. It's a nice balance between personal, relatable stories and the bigger picture of national and international politics and general treatment of indigenous peoples in Canada. One of the people we get to know best is Josephie Flaherty, whose mother is Inuit and whose absent father is filmmaker Robert Flaherty, known the world over for Nanook of the North, the film which gave the world the picture of the smiling, happy-go-lucky Eskimos we all grew up with. We follow Josephie as he grows up in traditional Inuit culture, tries to make a living and support his family as the Mounties and Hudson Bay Trading Company make it difficult to maintain those traditions or support families, and eventually finds himself fighting starvation, bitter cold, and broken government promises, becoming a different, broken person in the process. The book follows the transplanted families through the creation of Nunavut and eventual hearings on the forced moves in the late 1990s. It's definitely worth a read.
It's a very readable work in spite of the sheer amount of fascinating and often tragic history it relates. This is one of those books that stay with you--I ended up relating most of it to my family evening after evening at the dinner table. It's a nice balance between personal, relatable stories and the bigger picture of national and international politics and general treatment of indigenous peoples in Canada. One of the people we get to know best is Josephie Flaherty, whose mother is Inuit and whose absent father is filmmaker Robert Flaherty, known the world over for Nanook of the North, the film which gave the world the picture of the smiling, happy-go-lucky Eskimos we all grew up with. We follow Josephie as he grows up in traditional Inuit culture, tries to make a living and support his family as the Mounties and Hudson Bay Trading Company make it difficult to maintain those traditions or support families, and eventually finds himself fighting starvation, bitter cold, and broken government promises, becoming a different, broken person in the process. The book follows the transplanted families through the creation of Nunavut and eventual hearings on the forced moves in the late 1990s. It's definitely worth a read.
February 8, 2025
Where to begin?! I had read other books on this subject, particularly Whit Fraser’s “True North Rising”, a CBC reporter's 50 years of reporting in the Canadian Arctic about the struggles and heroicism of the Inuit as they began to find a way to deal with the white man’s world. And then Larry Audiluk’s “What I Remember, What I Know”, the memoir of one of the exiles himself. But Melanie McGrath’s well-researched and empathic account tells the unvarnished story, of how it came about, and what actually happened to the exiled families through deception, broken promises, and willful neglect, and how they managed to survive (at least most of them) in a most inhospitable environment through resilience, determination, and innovation, and how they managed at last to get their story heard. Her account also includes the story of three generations of Flahertys, from Robert, the producer of the famous film “Nanook of the North”, through his abandoned son Josephie, and Josephie’s determined daughter Martha, who worked tirelessly for recompense for the families involved and for them to be able to speak their truth to power. Despite the difficult subject matter, McGrath manages to weave a compelling story of real people, their ingenuity, perils, struggles, and daily lives, and the surprising, breathtaking beauty of the North: the sky, the land, the ice, the flora and the fauna. Highly recommended to every Canadian who doesn’t, or maybe does, know this shameful history. On another note, Paddy Aqiatusuk, one of the exiles, became a world-renowned carver before dying essentially of a broken heart from loneliness for his home and for his step-son, Josephie.
March 19, 2018
DNF at 33%
McGrath writes well and the topic is important as well as gripping. What drove me away was the scholarship.
Flahtery and forced "relocation" have been covered, a lot, in nonfiction, and McGrath's account differs in many cases. Given that, she should have footnoted or otherwise defended or at least explained differences from previous accounts.
There are many crucial ethical questions in this story. They should be identified as such and then evaluated from the perspective of European, Inuit, and Canadian ethics at both ends of the 20th century. Applying solely 2007 Canadian ethics to the problems from documentary veracity to government action creates heroes and villains where the past is much grayer.
And you can use "half-breed" once sarcastically, but around the 20th time, you're a racist.
McGrath writes well and the topic is important as well as gripping. What drove me away was the scholarship.
Flahtery and forced "relocation" have been covered, a lot, in nonfiction, and McGrath's account differs in many cases. Given that, she should have footnoted or otherwise defended or at least explained differences from previous accounts.
There are many crucial ethical questions in this story. They should be identified as such and then evaluated from the perspective of European, Inuit, and Canadian ethics at both ends of the 20th century. Applying solely 2007 Canadian ethics to the problems from documentary veracity to government action creates heroes and villains where the past is much grayer.
And you can use "half-breed" once sarcastically, but around the 20th time, you're a racist.
December 3, 2018
I am an immigrant to Canada, and I had not heard of the forced exile of Inuit families to Ellesmere island. It is heartbreaking. This book does such a good job in telling their stories, and showing how little they ever had anything to say in their own destinies. The betrayal, the lies, the broken promises. They were a pawn in Canada's ideal to have Ellesmere island populated, so no Greenlander (and therefore Denmark) could ever claim it as their land. There was no consideration about why Ellesmere island was unpopulated, or whether or not you can just pick up Inuit families and place them in other Arctic climates, where they would supposedly just thrive, because they were Inuit.
It is an embarrassment. It really is, and then we wonder why so many Inuit communities struggle.
Recommended. Highly recommended
It is an embarrassment. It really is, and then we wonder why so many Inuit communities struggle.
Recommended. Highly recommended
November 11, 2024
This book was a bit of a disappointment. The back blurb makes it sound like you will follow the life of Josephie Flaherty, but it was much more a story about the re-location of the Inuit to the far north. That, in and of itself is an interesting and challenging story to read, but I found it wasn't told well. A few chapters in the author was making assumptions about different people saying things like "they likely would have been doing this or that." I don't love when a book is written like this because it loses some credibility. So, while the rest of the book told some interesting tales, it is hard to know what was fiction and what was not.
June 14, 2019
A well overdue examination of the effect of the ill conceived “High Arctic Relocation” of southern Inuit families in the 1950’s. The author deftly ties in a connection with the descendants of the “actors” profiled in Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, the idealistic view that it represented and the eventual their eventual sad conclusions. Ignorant is no excuse and we should learn from this horrid tale, particularly in light of recent MMIWG Final Report, itself again highlighting ignorance and blindness to First Nations issues.
October 5, 2019
A grim look at just one way in which the Canadian government seriously damaged (and even killed) the Inuit. I only wish it had been written by an Inuk. Also, she gave a very brief mention of the "disc" system, by which the Inuit were each assigned a number as their legal "last name", because the government (1) needed people to have a first and last name for their records - which was not a traditional naming system among the Inuit and (2) the government could not be bothered to learn Inuit names. Look up "Project Surname" for a more complete explanation.
April 17, 2018
In 1952, the new Northern Affairs department decided to move 87 northeastern Quebec Inuit to Ellesmere Island - and uninhabited island in the polar desert. One of them was the illegitimate son of Robert Flaherty - the director of the movie 'Nanook of the North'. The author ties the romantic, unrealistic story of the movie with the decision made in the early 1950's and it's results.
Like residential schools, it is another unhappy (and unknown) chapter in Canadian history.
Like residential schools, it is another unhappy (and unknown) chapter in Canadian history.
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