“Marth of the North” is a documentary that focuses on the relocation of Inuit families from Northern Quebec, to the High Arctic, namely, Grise Fiord, Resolute Bay, Ellesmere Island and Cornwallis Island in 1953. The documentary primarily focuses on Martha and her family, but it does touch on the other families and how they were affected as well. The Canadian government's reasoning for the relocation was because due to international law they needed to have permanent settlements to maintain their land claims (Canadian Sovereignty) , however, what they told the Inuits was much different, the government had blatantly lied. Robert J. Flaherty's movie, “Nanook of the North” which was not a documentary in any sense, but a movie that idolized the Inuits …show more content…
The Canadian government did not consider that the Inuit people survive in the harsh climate due to their culture being heavily about community and working together (as they splintered the groups), nor did the Canadian government consider that the Inuit had over time greatly learned their land and the migration patterns of the local fauna which made hunting considerably easier. The Canadian government lied to the Inuit about the populations of fauna in the North, while also restricting the amount of hunting which practically doomed the Inuit to starvation. Even worse, the Canadian government assumed the Inuit were used to constant snow and constant “Winter”, however, Northern Quebec had its warmer weather, it had plant life and it was possible to farm to an extent, the Northern islands are almost constantly covered in snow, hardly go above freezing and there are three months of no sun at all. The ludicrous assumptions and single-minded focus of the Canadian government led them to send the Inuit up north without a way to get