In addition to the residential school era, Inuit leaders repeatedly raised other major traumatic experiences suffered by their communities. This was certainly the case in the 1950s, when the federal government relocated 19 Inuit families from Inukjuak, Québec, and three families from Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, 1,200 km away from their home community
In addition, the mass slaughter of sled dogs from the mid-1950s to the late 1960s was a direct attack on the Inuit’s nomadic lifestyle and rocked the foundations of Inuit culture.
At the request of Makivik Corporation, which represents the Inuit of Nunavik, the Québec government struck a committee to conduct an independent examination of the highly sensitive and contentious issue of the Inuit sled dog killings. Jean-Jacques Croteau, a former judge of the Superior Court of Québec, was appointed to lead the examination, which resulted in a report (Croteau 2010) that led to signing of a compensation agreement between Québec and the Inuit on August 8, 2011. Through the agreement, Québec acknowledged its responsibility for, and the injurious effect of, the historic slaughter of Inuit sled dogs on Inuit society and the Inuit way of life.
Unilateral Decisions
My grandfather went to sleep as a citizen of the Northwest Territories and woke up the next morning as a citizen of La Belle Province.
Those words, spoken by Inuit leader Zebedee Nungak during the constitutional conferences on Aboriginal rights
Sled Dogs were Essential to Inuit Survival
In winter, the dogs would pull us to distant hunting grounds. They also provided us with fur to make clothing. In summer, we used them to carry supplies. In winter, sled dogs can smell animals from far away and can also sniff out seals’ breathing holes in ice floes. And in bad weather, our dogs pulled us back to camp safely.
