canadajanes's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting read. A lot of details about an event that I knew little about. Would like to find a book on the same subject, written more recently by an Inuit author...
anneke_b's review against another edition
5.0
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
atticusmammy's review against another edition
2.0
Not only were these poor people screwed by the government, but what a number the missionaries pulled on them. Pitiful.
panxa's review
4.0
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.
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