Examines government involvement in Northern Canada which led to relocation of Inuit from the east coast of Hudson’s Bay to the high Arctic, the Henik Lake and Garry Lake famines, the establishment of Whale Cove in response to inland famines in the Keewatin, and the second wave of state expansion in the 1950’s.
Tammarniit begins with an account of the debate over which branch of government should be responsible for the Inuit and whose budget should cover the costs for providing relief. This debate was resolved in 1939 when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal government was responsible. The following chapters cover the first wave of government expansion in the north, which coincided with the evolution of the postwar liberal welfare state; the policy debate that resulted in the decision to relocate Inuit from relatively southern communities on the east coast of Hudson Bay to the high Arctic; and the actual movement of people and materials.
The second half of the book focuses on conditions following relocation. A great deal of attention is paid to the Henik Lake and Garry Lake famines, both of which occurred in the Keewatin district in the late 1950s, and to the subsequent establishment of the community of Whale Cove. The book concludes with an examination of the second wave of state expansion in the late fifties and the emergence of a new dynamic of intervention. Description from publisher (first paragraph), and an unknown source).