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1950 Caribou Inuit famine | |
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![]() A traditional Inuit caribou parka made from the skin of a caribou with the fur on the outside, which shows one of the ways caribou provided for Inuit | |
Country | Canada |
Location | District of Keewatin, now Kivalliq Region |
Period | 1950 |
Total deaths | ~60 |
The 1950 Canadian caribou famine happened when a change in caribou migration patterns caused widespread death in the southern interior of the District of Keewatin, Northwest Territories, now the Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, in the west of Canada's Hudson Bay. [1] The resulting famine wiped out half of the impacted Caribou Inuit communities.
The Caribou Inuit were hunters of caribou in these regions and relied on caribou to supply food, shelter and clothing for their communities. The Caribou Inuit used caribou skin to make parkas to keep themselves warm in frigid climates. [2] They were very careful to make use of every part of the caribou, which was known to be very durable. Due to overhunting and a combination of changing migration patterns and herd distribution, the population of caribou in this region declined vastly. [3] During this time period, the Caribou Inuit were blamed for the declining caribou population, being faced with allegations of being wasteful and overkilling. In the early 1950s the Canadian media reported the starvation deaths of 60 Caribou Inuit. [4] The government was slow to act but in 1959 moved the surviving 60, of around the 120 that were alive in 1950, to settlements such as Baker Lake and Eskimo Point, now Arviat. [4] This set off an Arctic settlement push by the Canadian government where those Inuit living in the north were encouraged to abandon their traditional way of life and settle in villages and outposts of the Canadian North. [4] It was this time that in the former community of Padlei Richard Harrington took his iconic photo of a starving Inuit mother, pressing her nose and lips to those of her youngest child. [5] On February 8, 1950 a few days before Harrington wrote in his journal:
Came upon the tiniest igloo yet. Outside lay a single, mangy dog, motionless, starving ... Inside, a small woman in clumsy clothes, large hood, with baby. She sat in darkness, without heat. She speaks to me. I believe she said they were starving. We left some tea, matches, kerosene, biscuits. And went on.
— Richard Harrington [5]
After being relocated, the Caribou Inuit population never recovered with only a fraction of what once was being alive today. As a result, they have joined movements that call for the protection of their lands against outsiders. [6]
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Inuit are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Yukon (traditionally), Alaska, and Chukotsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, also known as Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, and also as Eskaleut. Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate used in Nunavut.
Copper Inuit, also known as Inuinnait and Kitlinermiut, are a Canadian Inuit group who live north of the tree line, in what is now the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut and in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories. Most of them historically lived in the area around Coronation Gulf, on Victoria Island, and southern Banks Island.
The Inuit are an indigenous people of the Arctic and subarctic regions of North America. The ancestors of the present-day Inuit are culturally related to Iñupiat, and Yupik, and the Aleut who live in the Aleutian Islands of Siberia and Alaska. The term culture of the Inuit, therefore, refers primarily to these areas; however, parallels to other Eskimo groups can also be drawn.
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Traditional Inuit clothing is a complex system of cold-weather garments historically made from animal hide and fur, worn by Inuit, a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic areas of Canada, Greenland, and the United States. The basic outfit consisted of a parka, pants, mittens, inner footwear, and outer boots. The most common sources of hide were caribou, seals, and seabirds, although other animals were used when available. The production of warm, durable clothing was an essential survival skill which was passed down from women to girls, and which could take years to master. Preparation of clothing was an intensive, weeks-long process that occurred on a yearly cycle following established hunting seasons. The creation and use of skin clothing was strongly intertwined with Inuit religious beliefs.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the use of Inuit clothing extends far back into prehistory, with significant evidence to indicate that its basic structure has changed little since. The clothing systems of all Arctic peoples are similar, and evidence in the form of tools and carved figurines indicates that these systems may have originated in Siberia as early as 22,000 BCE, and in northern Canada and Greenland as early as 2500 BCE. Pieces of garments found at archaeological sites, dated to approximately 1000 to 1600 CE, are very similar to garments from the 17th to mid-20th centuries, which confirms consistency in the construction of Inuit clothing over centuries.
There is a long historical tradition of research on Inuit clothing across many fields. Since Europeans first made contact with the Inuit in the 16th century, documentation and research on Inuit clothing has included artistic depictions, academic writing, studies of effectiveness, and museum collections. Historically, European images of Inuit were sourced from the clothing worn by Inuit who travelled to Europe, clothing brought to museums by explorers, and from written accounts of travels to the Arctic.