Relocating Eden: The Image and Politics of Inuit Exile in the Canadian Arctic

In the early 1950s, a number of Inuit men, women, and children were loaded on ships and sent to live in the Canadian High Arctic. Spurred by government agents' promises of plentiful game and virgin land, these "voluntary migrants" found instead isolation, physical hardship and a government refusing to return them home. This author presents a cross-cultural study based on extensive fieldwork and archival research revealing that the relocation experiments were both an attempt in social engineering and a plan to solidify Canada's Cold War sovereignty in the far North.