ᑎᑭᕋᕐᔪᐊᖅ Whale Cove

History

Inuit in the Whale Cove area traded whale oil, baleen, furs, leather and walrus tusks with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) since the mid-18th century when the HBC established their trading post at Churchill, Manitoba. In the 1950s and 1960s Inuit were relocated in a series of moves from one hamlet to another, some of them arriving in Whale Cove, a hamlet created by the federal government for these Inuit groups. Some came from Ennadai Lake via Arviat to Whale Cove, other came from Back River via Garry Lake then the Baker Lake area to Whale Cove. By the 1970s Inuit living in Whale Cove represented both coastal Inuit from Rankin Inlet and Arviat and different Caribou Inuit, hunters of barren-ground caribou from the Barren Grounds west of Hudson Bay, including the Ahiarmiut ("the out-of-the-way dwellers") or Ihalmiut ("people from beyond"), or on the banks of the Kazan River, Ennadai Lake, Little Dubawnt Lake (Kamilikuak), and north of Kugjuaq (officially Thlewiaza; "Big River"), had been relocated in the 1950s Whale Cove and Henik Lake. by the Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources (now Crown–Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada). Their hunting experience was based almost entirely on "inland caribou herds that had thinned by the 1950s and left many families hungry. Coastal dwelling Inuit from Rankin Inlet and Arviat were relocated to Whale Cove from nearby coastal communities in order to aid the inlanders in adapting to a marine subsistence economy." In the late 1960s a famine swept the land. Inuit were forced to walk towards places like Arviat to escape the desperation. Survivors who couldn't walk were airlifted to Whale Cove, Baker Lake and Rankin Inlet.