Gibson's new boss, Corporal Fred Webster, was one of these semi-permanent Arctic fellows and a hopeless dipsomaniac. He had been stumbling around the north for a number of years in the hope, perhaps, that his drinking would go unnoticed back in Ottawa and he would reach pensionable age without getting fired.
Nineteen fifty-two is a bad year to pitch up in Inukjuak. After all the strictures of the war, most Westerners have grown used to dressing modestly, and the pre-war fashion for fox-fur muffs and trims has all but evaporated. In 1950 the price of Arctic fox pelts goes into freefall. Only seven years before, when losephie Flaherty was first settling into
his piliriji's
hut, an Ungava trapper could expect to sell a good fox pelt for C$35. By the beginning of the 1950s, the same pelt is worth C$3.50. To make matters worse, the collapse in the price coincideswith the cyclical downturn in the fox population so trappers cannot make up for the fall in the price per pelt by trapping more fox. At the same time the price of flour, lard, tea and other trade goods in the north doubles, leaving the Inukjuamiut in an impossible situation. Most have no savings. The Hudson Bay store pays them for their pelts in store credits, and those who have any surplus credits see them quickly gobbled up by rising prices on ammunition and fishing line. The Hudson Bay Company policy is to advance credit only on future earnings from fox pelts. Families, like the Aqia-tusuks, who have previously been encouraged to give up their hunting in favour of trapping, have to return to hunting for their food, but with no credit at the store, they cannot buy ammunition and other hunting supplies. The concentration of camps around the fur post makes the situation trickier still. Many of the areas close by have already been heavily hunted, so the hunters have to travel long distances, taking their families with them. Some Inuit are moving inland to trap otter, whose pelts now fetch more than fox. Everyone is hoping that the situation is temporary. A report by Alex Stevenson, head of the Eastern Arctic Patrol, in the summer of 1953 notes an increase in the population of snowy owls and lemmings that year, signalling that the fox is likely to be plentiful in the year to follow. But the Inuit cannot eat reports and for now, the situation is tough. Ninety-five families, consisting of 124 men, 122 women and 218 children, are living in and close by to Inukjuak. Those with heavily pregnant wives, elderly parents, new babies or sick children who cannot make the long trips begin showing up at the settlement, hoping the police will issue them with destitution rations: a few pounds of rolled oats, a block of lard, some flour and several pounds of useless beans. (The beans take up too much precious cooking fuel and, in any case, the Inuit find them indigestible.) For months at a time, whole families survive on a daily diet of gruel supplemented by the odd piece of seal fat or walrus skin offered up by a neighbour. The more needy they become, the less willing Corporal Webster, who is now responsible for deciding who gets destitution rations, seems tobe to help them. His instructions are to discourage requests for welfare and disperse Inuit who come into the settlement looking for it, so as not to encourage what HQ in Ottawa describes as “vagrancy.”
The moment Constable Gibson steps down from the ski-plane he is entering a world of trouble, though he does not know it. Webster is not the end of it. By 1952, Inukjuak has gathered to it a tribe of well-meaning bossyboots each of whom has their solution to the problem. First is Margery Hinds, the welfare teacher, a woman of stout morals and stouter methods. Since September 1951, Hinds has run Inukjuak's first school, teaching English, arithmetic, natural science, social studies, singing, hygiene and handicrafts. She has drafted a report to the Department of Northern Affairs protesting the policy of sending Inuit out of the
Nineteen fifty-two is a bad year to pitch up in Inukjuak. After all the strictures of the war, most Westerners have grown used to dressing modestly, and the pre-war fashion for fox-fur muffs and trims has all but evaporated. In 1950 the price of Arctic fox pelts goes into freefall. Only seven years before, when losephie Flaherty was first settling into
his piliriji's
hut, an Ungava trapper could expect to sell a good fox pelt for C$35. By the beginning of the 1950s, the same pelt is worth C$3.50. To make matters worse, the collapse in the price coincideswith the cyclical downturn in the fox population so trappers cannot make up for the fall in the price per pelt by trapping more fox. At the same time the price of flour, lard, tea and other trade goods in the north doubles, leaving the Inukjuamiut in an impossible situation. Most have no savings. The Hudson Bay store pays them for their pelts in store credits, and those who have any surplus credits see them quickly gobbled up by rising prices on ammunition and fishing line. The Hudson Bay Company policy is to advance credit only on future earnings from fox pelts. Families, like the Aqia-tusuks, who have previously been encouraged to give up their hunting in favour of trapping, have to return to hunting for their food, but with no credit at the store, they cannot buy ammunition and other hunting supplies. The concentration of camps around the fur post makes the situation trickier still. Many of the areas close by have already been heavily hunted, so the hunters have to travel long distances, taking their families with them. Some Inuit are moving inland to trap otter, whose pelts now fetch more than fox. Everyone is hoping that the situation is temporary. A report by Alex Stevenson, head of the Eastern Arctic Patrol, in the summer of 1953 notes an increase in the population of snowy owls and lemmings that year, signalling that the fox is likely to be plentiful in the year to follow. But the Inuit cannot eat reports and for now, the situation is tough. Ninety-five families, consisting of 124 men, 122 women and 218 children, are living in and close by to Inukjuak. Those with heavily pregnant wives, elderly parents, new babies or sick children who cannot make the long trips begin showing up at the settlement, hoping the police will issue them with destitution rations: a few pounds of rolled oats, a block of lard, some flour and several pounds of useless beans. (The beans take up too much precious cooking fuel and, in any case, the Inuit find them indigestible.) For months at a time, whole families survive on a daily diet of gruel supplemented by the odd piece of seal fat or walrus skin offered up by a neighbour. The more needy they become, the less willing Corporal Webster, who is now responsible for deciding who gets destitution rations, seems tobe to help them. His instructions are to discourage requests for welfare and disperse Inuit who come into the settlement looking for it, so as not to encourage what HQ in Ottawa describes as “vagrancy.”
The moment Constable Gibson steps down from the ski-plane he is entering a world of trouble, though he does not know it. Webster is not the end of it. By 1952, Inukjuak has gathered to it a tribe of well-meaning bossyboots each of whom has their solution to the problem. First is Margery Hinds, the welfare teacher, a woman of stout morals and stouter methods. Since September 1951, Hinds has run Inukjuak's first school, teaching English, arithmetic, natural science, social studies, singing, hygiene and handicrafts. She has drafted a report to the Department of Northern Affairs protesting the policy of sending Inuit out of the
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