Reading Larry Audlaluk’s What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile

To walk in the kamiik of a High Arctic dweller is not practical, for that Inuk would be soulless, soleless and freezing. However, to listen while walking beside one who wears kamiik, who bears witness to the truth, and the pain, along with the warmth and support of family, friends and community, especially a community in exile, is an experience that I highly recommend.

In his 2020 autobiography, What I Remember, What I Know: The Life of a High Arctic Exile, Larry Audlaluk exposed this Qallunaaq to the life-threatening lies and promises the Canadian government told his family, friends and community, forcing them to relocate, survive and thrive in a foreign environment, known as Grise Fiord, now Aujuittuq (Inuktitut for “place that never thaws”) 2,200 kilometers northeast from their home in Inujjuak.

While Larry was only three at the time of their forced exile in the 1950s, the collective memories and stories from living witnesses provide some of the weathered material for his early childhood experiences. The seven families from Inujjuak who were forced into exile were victims of a multi-purposed, inhumane, experiment: to populate an area against the invasion of Greenland hunters’ to “rehabilitate” the Inuit to become less dependent on government handouts by moving them to less populated areas to “follow the native way of life”; “to determine if Eskimos can be induced to live on the northern islands”; to use them as human flagpoles for Canadian sovereignty.

The human flagpoles became thin and battered in their desolate new environment. Given empty promises of “a land of plenty” and provisions to be provided, they arrived to a stark reality of a barren land and no provisions. They lacked basic necessities: food, shelter, heat. They arrived in August in a land that lacked some of their usual food sources. On their first day, three large families and at least six dog teams had to survive on one harp seal some of the men caught. The only shelter they had were tents because they were expected to build igluit, but the snow required to build them does not arrive until December in that region. Due to the lack of vegetation, they had to heat with moss they collected kilometres from the site. They weathered their first winter wearing their clothing day and night. That winter of near-freezing survival led to lifelong arthritic problems for some of the displaced people.

The aptly named “Prison Island” chapter of his autobiography recounts the imposed incarceration of Larry’s family in the new environment. They lacked medical services. Tuberculosis and starvation plagued them. If, due to hunger, they foraged for leftover scraps in the base dump at the Department of Transportation six kilometers away, they were reprimanded. Despite the government’s promises to return the deportees back to their homes from where they were taken, if requested, after two years, multiple requests were repeatedly denied. In addition, the northern bureaucrats lied in their reports to their southern counterparts about what a positive success the relocation was, in accounts generally being accepted by the exiles.

By the 1960s, the deportees were coping and surviving. Larry says they were the best years of his childhood, and in general, those of his whole family. Their homemade shacks were replaced with houses from the south. Radio and television were enabling them to experience new sounds and sights, even in their Inuktitut language. Although he wrangled with the notion that “the world is much smaller now,” due to the report of the new Russian and American space race, he enjoyed listening to musical shows such as The Max Ferguson Show, Gilmour’s Albums, Wolfman Jack, Kalaallit (western Greenlandic comedy).

I felt in step with Larry, for we were born but 10 days apart. As he grew in his teens, we shared similar experiences of teen crushes, taste in music, hairstyling, clothing. But he was torn being in two worlds, forced from his family to attend distant boarding school and abandoning the hands-on learning of his traditional life skills.

Larry had to endure loneliness and separation from his family, not only leaving for school but also numerous times for medical treatment, crossing swaths of the country and staying in new cultural settings. He had an adventurous spirit, which allowed him to marvel at his new encounters, yet he missed his family, country food and being on the land. The notes he wrote on his experiences provided the wealth of material for this autobiography.

Larry’s family’s story of forced deportation, separation, death, survival, adaptation and resilience is as well-sculpted as the sculptures he and his father have produced. Their sacrifices have enabled this Qallunaaq to live in peace in the sovereign nation of Canada.

Nakurmiik Larry!

kamiik—a pair of seal/caribou boots;

Qallunaaq—a white person

igluit—snow houses [previously mispronounced and spelled “igloos”]

nakurmiik—thank you in one of the Inuktitut dialects