Frobisher Bay is a relatively large inlet of the Labrador Sea located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island. The bay owes its name to Sir Martin Frobisher, the English seaman who discovered it during his 1576 expedition in search of the Northwest Passage to China (source). Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, lies in Koojesse Inlet near the innermost end of Frobisher Bay. The area had long been regarded as a fishing place by the Inuit, hence the name Iqaluit, which means “place of many fish” in Inuktitut. In the early 1940’s it was selected by the US Air Force to be the site of a major air base, which brought an influx of Canadian and American military specialists, scientists, and engineers. Over the following twenty years, several Canadian and American joint defence projects were constructed in the area, and the city of Iqaluit was transformed from a relatively insignificant fishing place to the administrative hub of the eastern arctic. Inuit groups from the surrounding areas moved to the base to take part in the local economy, thereby increasing connections between the Inuit of the High Arctic and the government officials from the south. The 1939 Re: Eskimo Supreme Court decision had increased the Canadian governments’ constitutional responsibilities to the Inuit and necessitated the adoption of new policies regarding the administration of relief. As the Inuit were brought more thoroughly into the Canadian polity, the government began implementing housing and welfare programs aimed at incorporating them into formal systems of education, healthcare and wage labour. The implementation of housing and welfare programs in Iqaluit throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s was a result of a progression of policy decisions that involved elements of defence, sovereignty, human capital development, and constitutional responsibilities, which were initiated by military activity in the Second World War.
Canadian/American military cooperation formally began with the Ogdensburg Declaration, which occurred on August 18th, 1940 when Prime Minister Mackenzie King and President Franklin Roosevelt agreed to collaborate on the construction of defence projects. Major General Henry “Hap” Arnold of the US Army had been pushing for more investment in the arctic area, which he called “vital in the scheme of national defence”. In 1942, a team of US Army specialists were sent out to survey the arctic tundra in search for suitable airfield locations, and they were directed to Iqaluit by Nakasuk, a local Inuit guide. This large, flat area of land at the head of Frobisher Bay was found to be an ideal location, and construction of the airbase began shortly thereafter. The airbase acted as a nucleus of development, but various other types of infrastructure such as an army base and shipping facilities were also built within a few years. The development of arctic defence projects expanded rapidly, and by 1943, there were over 30,000 American service men stationed across the Arctic. The base at Frobisher Bay was part of a series of bases and depots established across the Arctic to facilitate the transportation of aircraft and materials across the trans-Atlantic polar route to Europe dubbed the “Crimson Route”. The government required both permanent and seasonal sources of labour, so Inuit began to develop a nearby community in order to take part in the local economy. Initially, they chose to live a few kilometres away from Iqaluit in a settlement called Apex. The living conditions of the military personnel at Frobisher Bay stood in stark contrast to those of the nearby Inuit, and American servicemen began to criticize the Canadian government’s perceived neglect of Inuit. The technological advances made during the war proved the possibilities of naval and aerial operations in the Arctic. Following the war, the UK was financially ruined and the US rose to the summit of global power. There was an increased recognition of the Arctic’ strategic significance, and even more investment in Canadian/American military infrastructure in the Arctic. Hugh Keenleyside, the Deputy Minister of the Mines and Resources, Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, and chairman of the Arctic Research Advisory Committee, worked to promote the spread of “industrial civilization” across the Arctic. The Canadian government had taken formal control of Frobisher Bay, and it became a major transhipment point for materials used in various construction projects. The Inuit continued to congregate nearby and the government began to roll out programs to provide employment such the Canadian Rangers, in which Inuit would use traditional survival skills and knowledge to assists defence personnel in arctic operations. The Arctic was recognized as the most likely route of a Soviet Attack during the Cold War, and several radar lines such as the Pinetree Line and Mid-Canada Line were constructed across Canada as part of a coordinated system designed to detect incoming Soviet bomber attacks. In response to the Soviet Union’s development of a working hydrogen bomb in 1954, Canadian and American forces initiated the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line, which was significantly more advanced and further north than previous lines. It was situated along the 69th parallel, approximately 300 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, and spanned the vast distance between Inuvik and Iqaluit. The surveillance of Arctic airspace was coordinated through the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD), which was a binational arrangement established in 1958 between Canada and the United States. The construction and operation of joint defence systems such as the DEW Line provided economic growth to various areas throughout the Arctic, along with momentum for further development through new communications and research of the area, which strengthened connections between the south and the High Arctic.
As the American and Canadian armed forces worked to defend the Arctic frontier against Soviet aggression during the Second World War, the Canadian government grew increasingly concerned about what was perceived as an American threat to Canadian territorial sovereignty. During the Cold War, these sovereignty concerns continued with the threat of potential incursions into Canadian Arctic territory at various levels – airspace, surface and sub—surface. The assertion of sovereignty used to be based on the discovery doctrine, but it has since evolved to require effective occupation. The definition is still somewhat ambiguous, with varying emphasis given to the elements of control, authority and perception.
Sovereignty claims in the Arctic are complicated by the fact that it is essentially an ocean
The 1939 Re: Eskimo Supreme Court decision found that Inuit were indeed Indians according to Section 91(24) of the BNA Act. This meant that the federal government had a fiduciary responsibility to Inuit that went beyond those it had to ordinary citizens. In order to control the land occupied by the Inuit, it would have to accept responsibility for them. While the government would have preferred to unburden itself of this responsibility, it recognized that accepting this responsibility would aid in their efforts to assert a national presence in the arctic. The government set out on developing various initiatives to provide federal government services, along with the expansion of Arctic infrastructure and communities, would both improve Inuit living conditions and strengthen Canada’s claims to Arctic sovereignty. The number of RCMP posts in the Arctic increased to keep pace with the construction of the DEW Line, bringing increased police presence to Inuit communities. RCMP members were frequently the only government employees in the region, and in addition to ensuring compliance with Canadian law they also performed tasks such as mail delivery. Beyond the provision of services and policing in the Arctic, one of main strategies used by the government to strengthen sovereignty claims was the relocation of Inuit families to remote areas. The 1953 relocation of Inuit families from Port Harrison and Pond Inlet (northern Quebec) to Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord (in the high arctic) was arguably the most controversial. By actively exercising their responsibilities to the Inuit in these remote areas, the government was demonstrating supreme legitimate authority within that territory. Supporting the social and economic development of the Inuit through the administration of welfare services was one of many ways in which the government of Canada asserted authority over the north.
Throughout the 19th century, Inuit subsistence became increasingly and irrevocably tied to European economic forces. The 1914 establishment of a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in Frobisher Bay diverted their attention from subsidence-oriented activities to fur-producing activities and increased their reliance on foreign consumer goods. After a market surplus caused the collapse of fur prices in the 1930s, the Inuit were left destitute and suffered from widespread starvation. The failure of the traditional economy, combined with the inability of private sector interests and the churches to meet the welfare needs of the Inuit were significant contributing factors to the government’s decision to roll out housing and welfare. The government explored various methods of raising the Inuit standard of living while remaining as fiscally conservative as possible. The arrangements for handling relief in the early 1940s often involved the HBC and the RCMP issuing credits to be used at the nearest trading post. Local Inuit were also hired as special constables with the RCMP and with the Canadian Rangers patrol group. Special constables would receive wages and housing in return for sharing their knowledge of survival skills and acting as translators to ensure peaceful relations. New resource and administrative towns offered more possibilities of wage employment in the federal and territorial civil service, as well as in the mining, construction and transportation industries. The government provided incentives that encouraged employers to hire Inuit workers. However, it quickly became apparent that a more effective education system was required to develop human capital among the Inuit and facilitate their transition into the wage economy. In 1947, the Department of Mines and Resources, through the Bureau of Northwest Territories and Yukon Affairs, assumed responsibility for Inuit education. The dispersed nature of the Inuit population created difficulties for government administrators, and the solution was to encourage migration into permanent, government-administered housing communities. This ‘encouragement’ came in several forms. For example, the 1944 Family Allowances Act was altered to limit eligibility to Inuit families who agreed to move and send their children to schools located in larger communities. The encouragement of Inuit migration into permanent settlements was amplified by Cold War defence activity and major resource developments after the Geological Survey of Canada undertook “Operation Franklin” in the mid 1950’s, which demonstrated the geological potential for oil the Arctic. Social policy initiatives aimed at increasing Inuit participation in the wage economy were seen as a cost effective alternative to welfare dependancy.
Since 1922, healthcare in the Arctic was provided by the Eastern Arctic Patrol, a group of civil servants, RCMP officers, and medical personnel that made annual tours of the Arctic coast. Then, in the 1930s and 1940s, several ailments such influenza, paratyphoid fever, and tuberculosis began ravaging Inuit communities in epidemic proportions. The death rate from tuberculosis was at least 700 per 100,000 annually, and this figure was more than 11 times higher for those who were institutionalized in residential schools. Another major cause of concern was the high incidence of infant mortality, which was partially caused by inadequate nutrition and housing. It became clear that the current system was unable to provide an adequate response due to the lack of facilities, equipment and healthcare professionals. American medical personnel stationed at defence projects throughout the Arctic were also very critical of the lack of healthcare services provided to the Inuit. The Department of National Health and Welfare was created in 1945 to ensure the availability of medical services in areas where no provincial healthcare was available. Members of the RCMP and the Arctic Service Division of the federal government’s Northern Administration Branch put forward proposals to convert some of the vacant Air Force buildings in Iqaluit into hospitals, but it was rejected because of the difficulties involved in fully staffing northern medical facilities. When treatment was deemed absolutely necessary, Inuit were transported to sanatoria and hospitals in southern Canada. Powdered milk and cereals were distributed throughout communities and residential schools in an attempt to alleviate under-nourishment. Government officials would organize educational programs in larger communities to teach mothers about nutritional practices, but again, the dispersed nature of the Inuit population made the administration of health and welfare extremely difficult. In 1955, Jean Lesage, the Minister of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, announced a new policy for Inuit administration that would involve a large-scale construction and home rental program designed to organize Inuit into sedentary communities that would simplify the administration of welfare, healthcare, and education. The rationale was that government-administered housing communities would enhance sanitary conditions, lower the incidence of disease and infant mortality, encourage children’s school attendance, improve access to healthcare, and facilitate Inuit participation in wage labour. In the late 1950s, the government began testing a housing structure called the “rigid digit” in Iqaluit. Made from a combination of plywood sheeting, rock wool insulation and a polyethylene vapour barrier, it was designed to be cost-efficient and similar in size to traditional Inuit tents. Finally in 1959, the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources rolled out the Eskimo Housing Loan Program, which provided approximately 1,200 housing units to the eastern Arctic communities of Frobisher Bay and Baker Lake. While Inuit settlement in government-constructed homes was in many ways difficult transition, it did ensure that Inuit had access to health and welfare services. In the years following the initiation of the program, there was a significant decrease in the rates of digestive, respiratory and skin disease according to a study by the Department of National Health and Welfare.
During the period of 1940 to 1960, Iqaluit went from being a relatively insignificant Inuit fishing place to becoming the one of the first Canadian Arctic cities. The awakening general interest in the Arctic was a result of defence considerations, and subsequent research of the area led to a new appreciation of its economic possibilities. The transformation of the physical landscape was accompanied by drastic changes in government policies for Inuit administration. While the 1939 Re:Eskimo case increased the governments’ legal responsibilities to the Inuit, it was also recognized that the provision of government services to the Inuit in the remote areas of the Arctic would help strengthen sovereignty claims in those areas. The economy of Iqaluit flourished with the construction and operation of various joint defence projects, some of which were situated in Iqaluit while others used the city as a transhipment point for materials. Economic growth provided new opportunities for Inuit employment, which coincided nicely with the government’s goal of improving their standard of living while minimizing the financial burden of welfare. Incorporating the Inuit into formal systems of education was seen as a way to facilitate their transition into the wage economy, but the dispersed nature of the Inuit population made it difficult to provide these services. After a tuberculosis epidemic highlighted the inadequacies of the Arctic healthcare system, the decision was made to implement a new policy for Inuit administration that would involve the large-scale construction of government administered housing communities in various main areas of the Arctic such as Iqaluit.