Intergenerational trauma has been described by those impacted by it as “Russian dolls” of inherited historic trauma locked within one’s psyche. 

Defining Intergenerational Trauma

The broader impacts of settler-colonialism has caused intergenerational trauma within Indigenous populations across Turtle Island (North America).[1] The “root” source of intergenerational trauma is found in Indigenous peoples’ dislocation from their traditional lands, hunting grounds, and food subsistence strategies; loss of Indigenous languages, traditions, culture, and world views; destruction of Indigenous kin networks, communities, and family supports; and loss of forms of Indigenous education, Elder knowledge, and traditional stories.[2] Symptoms of intergenerational trauma, according to Peter Menzies, constitute “anxiety disorders, mental health issues, alcohol and substance abuse, depression, suicide, low self-esteem, criminal activity, sexual abuse, loss of identity and culture, homelessness, child abandonment, misogyny” as well as several other very serious social dysfunctions “that are significantly higher in [Indigenous] communities than that of the general population of Canada.”[3]

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(Photo: “Sunset over the Arctic circle” I. Curtis – University of Alberta)

The Land and Deep History

The Canadian North is an immense tract of land that stretches from the northern tip of the Ungava peninsula of Quebec and Labrador in the east, across Hudson Bay proper, through the Northwest Territories, over to the Yukon, and up into Nunavut to the Arctic Circle.[1] Despite southern misconceptions, the North is a diverse collection of environments that consist of marshes and muskeg, boreal forest, tundra, and lower and high arctic terrains.[2] The North, however, can be separated into two main ecosystems which are divided by the treeline (where trees stop growing)—subarctic boreal forest and arctic tundra.[3] The treeline marks a rough territorial line between the Indigenous peoples who call the North home: the Dene traditionally south of the treeline, while the Inuit reside north of it.[4] The Dene live mainly in the boreal forest and their diet consists of berries, fresh water fish, ducks, ptarmigan, beaver, muskrat, muskox, moose, and caribou.[5] Dene will seasonally hunt caribou on the open tundra but will travel back and live below the treeline yearly.[6] The Inuit diet also consists of tundra muskox and caribou but it relies more heavily on the northern arctic marine staples of fish (arctic cod and char, and capelin), seaweed, coastal bird eggs, walrus, seal (ringed and bearded seals), and whale (mainly beluga and bowhead whales).[7] Typically, the higher in the arctic an Inuit community lives the more reliant they are on marine subsistence. Recently a shift away from traditional foods has occurred in both the Dene and Inuit communities to a more southern store-bought diet of imported processed foods, beef, chicken, and dairy products due to climate change and colonization.[8]

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(Pond Inlet, Nunavut – Photo Credit: Jeeteeta Merkosak)

When Tanya Tagaq posted on Facebook on February 11, 2016, “Pond Inlet… My ancestral homeland previous to the government’s relocation of our families to Resolute Bay,” she was referring to a project Canada initiated in 1953 and 1956 that saw Inuit from Inukjuak, northern Quebec—her family among them—forcefully moved to Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay in the High Arctic.[1] The logic Canada used to justify the 1500 km-move north was that the Quebec Inuit had become impoverished to the Hudson Bay Company which left them in a constant state of welfare dependency to the government of Canada.[2] In reality, however, assert historians Tester and Kulchyski, Canada used Quebec Inuit as “human flagpoles”[3] in an effort to assert its sovereignty over the North in the face of competing arctic claims from the US, Norway, Denmark, and Russia during the 1950s.[4]  Furthermore, Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay had far different ecosystems than Inukjuak in northern Quebec. The former two were High Arctic landscapes, without large terrestrial game or sunlight through the winter months; while the latter was a tundra ecosystem where Inuit had hunted caribou for millennia.[5] What is more, Canada had promised Inuit families that their community would remain intact once they moved north, but upon arrival in Grise Fiord the core community was divided—some stayed behind in Grise Fiord, while the others were shipped further north to Resolute Bay.[6] The first winter in the High Arctic was extremely tough for the relocated Quebec Inuit as they spent it in thin tents without enough food or supplies.[7] Lastly, beginning in the mid-1950s RCMP began slaughtering Inuit sleigh dogs believing they were a financial drain and security risk for RCMP and Canadian soldiers stationed at various arctic postings, Resolute Bay among them.[8] The loss of their dogs was devastating for the Inuit, and represented a further loss in traditional hunting and livelihood, which again impacted their dire situation in the High Arctic.[9]  

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“Inuit videography is no less Inuit because it is created with electronic machinery. It is no less art because it is shown on television. It is art, and it is important because it represents a sincere human effort to communicate what goes beyond surface messages to embrace deeper and more profound truths.”[1]

Michael Robert Evans

Historians have long relied on the written word as the basis of their historical evidence. While textual traces of the past still hold much value and potential for insight, it is critical for scholars to challenge both the hegemony of the written word as well as of particular cultural viewpoints. This week’s examination of histories of the north in Canada provides an excellent foundation upon which to do just that. Through an exploration of Inuit oral histories of the land it is clear that these narratives constitute a valuable source of knowledge for historians as well as for contemporary society’s concern over climate change.

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