Inuit People Before And After the High Arctic Relocation Program

Before contact with the Western world, the Inuit were a nomadic people but Canadians of European ancestry found that lifestyle primitive and sought to make the Inuit "modern."

In 1950 during the Cold War the USSR began to contest Canada’s sovereignty over its Arctic territory.  In an attempt to exert their own sovereignty and to do what they thought would improve Inuit life, the Canadian government forcibly relocated 87 Inuit people as part of the High Arctic Relocation Program.

This gallery of 41 Photos  from Library and Archives Canada tells the story of the Inuit before and after the relocation.