The Ihalmiut ᐃᐦᐊᓪᒥᐅᑦ, Caribou Inuit people, are Inland Inuit who were also "known as the or Ahiarmiut. Until 1957, their home was in the region of Ennadai Lake. Ihalmiut were Caribou Inuit, inland-dwelling people in the Barren Lands region whose subsistence centered on hunting barren-ground caribou. The Ahialmiut "subsisted almost entirely on caribou year-round, unlike other Inuit groups that depended at least partially on harvest of animals from the sea."
History
During Joseph Tyrrell's Barren Lands expeditions of 1893 and 1894 on behalf of the Geological Survey of Canada, he reported that there were approximately 2,000 Caribou Eskimo. By 1934, Ihalmiut numbered 80, with 11 considered as heads of families. Their contact with Europeans was limited, but included Hudson's Bay Company's post managers, at the company's Windy Post, located in 1936 on a portion of Windy River called Simmons Lake, and later moved to Nueltin Lake. Ihalmiut traded their outer parkas, deerskin boots, and fur pelts at the post for guns, ammunition, and tea. Chipewyan and Metis traded here, too. In their 1994 publication, Tammarniit, Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63, F.J. Tester and Peter Kulchyski accessed archival documents, including the Alex Stevenson Collection, which had been in storage in the Archives of the Northwest Territories archives, many of which had not been previously available to researchers. They wrote that the Inuit whose camp was located on the Kazan River near Ennadai Lake and hunted caribou between Kazan River and Nueltin Lake, were known as Ennadai Lake Inuit. They hunted caribou between Kazan River and Nueltin Lake. In the summer of 1956 there were 30 men and women and 25 children. Twelve of the children were under five years old.
Relocation
In the late mid-20th century, the Ihalmiut began a series of federal government sponsored relocations in order to clear the land for government operations and to centralize Inuit populations under government control and surveillance.
1949, Ihalmiut were relocated against their will from Ennadai Lake to Nueltin Lake, but the relocation did not last as hunting was poor, precipitating the band's return to Ennadai Lake.
Later in 1957, Ihalmiut were moved to Whale Cove where some began carving figurines for income.
In 1958, 29 Ihalmiut went to Padlei because of its trading post, 39 were at Yathkyed Lake, and the majority were brought to Eskimo Point by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In 1959, the Padlei trading post closed, and the remaining Ihalmiut were relocated.
In 2018 The Ahiarmiut and the Canadian government came to a settlement agreement of $5 million for forced relocations of the Ahiarmut between 1949 and 1959.On January 22nd, 2019, the Canadian Government formally apologized to 21 survivors and their families in Arviat, Nunavut. Minister of Crown-Indigenous RelationsCarolyn Bennett delivered the apology in the community, saying the forced relocations were because of a "colonial mindset" and caused "indignity, starvation and death." "This apology is a tribute to their spirits and their memories. It is also an opportunity for all Canadians to learn about and reflect upon a dark chapter in our history. I humbly and sincerely offer these words to all Ahiarmiut past and present. We are sorry." Bennett also apologized for the amount of time it took to get an apology — when the legal claim was first filed, 27 relocated Ahiarmiut were still alive, at the time of the apology there were only 21.
Media coverage
A photo of Stephen Angulalik and his wives appeared in Life magazine, in October 1937. An Ennadai Lake family were on the cover of the February 27, 1956 issue of Life magazine, with the caption "Stone Age Survivors", selected by the magazine as representing the most primitive of the Canadian Inuit.. Decades later, Ihalmiut again gained attention in Ihalmio Elisapee Karetak's 2000 and 2002 documentaries about her people's struggle and starvation during their 1950s relocation and the story of her mother Kikkik at Henik Lake.
Four of Farley Mowat's books were inspired by the Ihalmiut. He wrote the first, People of the Deer in 1952, shortly after a field trip to the Canadian Arctic while attending the University of Toronto. He wrote The Desperate People in 1959,Death of a People-the Ihalmiut in 1975, Walking on the Land in 2001, and No Man's River in 2004. Mowat, who advocated for the Ihalmiut, was a controversial, popular figure, who admitted that facts were not as important as the story itself. In their book Tammarniit , F.J. Tester and Peter Kulchyski acknowledge contributions to Ennadai Lake people's history by Farley Mowat, but they note that although some of his statements may be accurate, his books cite no sources and therefore they use only archival material for their book.
