At the end of the week, it will be cold. Of course, it’s winter. We will probably all have the same reaction when we leave our cottages, when the warm air in our homes changes to the icy air, like a small involuntary contraction of the body and the breath taken, the time we sit down. adjust. We’ll talk about the cold every time we meet someone: a salesman in a shop, a waiter in a restaurant, the bus driver, the friends we’re going to have dinner with (hoping there’s a steaming soup in the menu).
Not too often such a cold, please.
I have another solution to warm you up: the story of Grise Fiord, Aujuittuq in Inuktitut, or the place that never thaws. The history of this village of barely 130 people is fascinating.
Grise Fiord is located on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut. It was the northernmost village in Canada until the establishment of the military base of Alert a little further north, on the same island. The cold record in Grise Fiord is –62.2°C, without the wind factor (!). But it’s not so much about the weather that I want to talk to you, even if, when we talk about Grise Fiord, it becomes unavoidable.
Grise Fiord was founded by the Canadian government in 1953, in the midst of the Cold War. The government then wanted to assert its sovereignty over its territory, all of its territory. However, in the High Arctic, there was nobody. And what better way than to affirm that a territory belongs to us than to inhabit it? In the short history of this country, the government knows very well how to play this notion to its advantage. The problem is when precisely, no one lives in this territory.
The Canadian government then said to itself that Inuits to inhabit the High Arctic would do very well. After all, the Inuit know the cold, don’t they? The government then began a campaign to seduce families in Inukjuak, Quebec, promising them houses and plenty of game. They wouldn’t need to worry about anything, everything would be provided. But Grise Fiord, as the crow flies, is 2,000 kilometers from their village. To the north. Of course, no one showed interest.
The government then played more finesse by telling a family that another family, his cousins, had agreed to go there. He repeated the game several times. However, there was nothing more false. A plot.
Not wanting to be separated from their families, the families finally accepted without knowing the truth. Moreover, they were guaranteed that they could return after two years. All these beautiful people, seven families in all, therefore headed north.
To their surprise, when they arrived, there was nothing. Except cold. Grise Fiord is a polar desert and the Inuits (yes even them!) had no idea how to survive in such conditions.
No houses as promised by the government. The new arrivals only had their tents, totally inadequate for the climate. They had to resign themselves to burning their kayaks to keep warm. But without a kayak, there’s no walrus hunting.
There were a few rare animals like the musk ox, but the RCMP officers prevented the Inuit from killing them under penalty of a $5,000 fine. The obedient and penniless Inuit turned to the seal to stave off starvation. They ate seal until they were sick of it. They were hungry.
It is as if we had said to these same Inuits: we relocate you to New York, to the South, and you will be able to live there according to your customs. The Inuit obviously wouldn’t have known what to do in New York, 2,000 kilometers from their home, with all these different flora and fauna. This is exactly what happened in Grise Fiord.
Contrary to its oral promise, the government never wanted to let them go home, despite their pleas. An oral promise does not count in the eyes of the government.
Several Inuit died.
The government not only broke its promises, it cheated these Inuit. They have been abandoned. Their life has been stolen. Even today, the pain is perceptible among the testimonies that can be heard in the excellent podcast Immersionfrom Radio-Canada, Grise Fiord episode.
Some Inuit finally returned home to Inukjuak in the late 1980s, 35 years after the deportation.
Canada will eventually apologize in 2010.
Canadian history has been built on such promises, promises frozen in ice and melting away with the first light of spring. Luckily people remember.