PamBooks

13. The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic. (298 pp.) by Melanie McGrath. I had to force myself to keep reading this because it is probably one of the most heart-wrenching and depressing books I've ever held in my hands. In the 50's the Canadian government decided it was important to settle the High Arctic. God forbid Greenland or Norway might claim a windswept ice cube with few resources for its own use. The government told incredible lies to Inuit people happily settled elsewhere and put them in a situation where they couldn't really say, 'No' and then relocated them to the ice cube where they lived in complete misery if they didn't die first. There is a tiny bit of justice in 1994 when the Canadian government admitted that maybe it wasn't the most well thought-out plan they could have come up with.

It's well written and worth reading. It starts with Robert Flaherty who made Nanook of the North. Remember Nanook? Did you know the actor who played Nanook starved to death? I know, there isn't a lot of good news in this book. Flaherty jumped under the caribou robes with a local and fathered a child that he never saw or had contact with. That child was one of the poor bastards relocated to the ice cube.

His daughter (filmmaker's Granddaughter), my new personal hero, Martha Flaherty has made it her life's work finding some justice for the Inuit.

I found tons of amazing photos of some of the places in the book on Flickr. The landscape is incredible:

High Arctic Set

Another High Arctic Set

Inuit

Inukjuak (the Inuit's home before relocation.)

Resolute Bay

posted by Pamela at 9:26 PM Friday, March 21, 2008

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posted by Pamela at 9:26 PM Friday, March 21, 2008