The Ahiarmiut ᐃᓴᓪᒥᐅᑦ or Ihalmiut ("People from Beyond") or ("the Out-of-the-Way Dwellers") are a group of inland Inuit who lived along the banks of the Kazan River, Ennadai Lake, and Little Dubawnt Lake (renamed Kamilikuak), as well as north of Thlewiaza River ("Big River"), in northern Canada's Keewatin Region of the Northwest Territories, now the Kivalliq Region ("Barren Lands") of present-day Nunavut.
Through three decades of research by David Serkoak, an Ahiarmiut elder, who was a child when his family was repeatedly relocated from Ennadai Lake by the federal government under then-prime ministers Louis St. Laurent and John Diefenbaker, the story of the Ahiarmiut and their search for justice has been shared. For ten years, starting in 1949, as part of a northern policy regarding Inuit communities, the Ahiarmiut were relocated to Nueltin Lake, then Henik Lake, and Whale Cove, among other places. In 2018, the Ahiarmiut and the Canadian government came to a settlement agreement of $5 million for forced relocations.
Inland Inuit
The Ahiarmiut, Caribou Inuit, are inland Inuit who were also "known as the ("People from Beyond" or "the Out-of-the-Way Dwellers").
Until 1957, their home was in the region of Ennadai Lake. Ahiarmiut were Caribou Inuit, an inland-dwelling people in the Barren Lands region, whose subsistence centred on hunting barren-ground caribou. The Ahiarmiut "subsisted almost entirely on caribou year-round, unlike other Inuit groups that depended at least partially on harvest of animals from the sea."
History
During Joseph Tyrrell's Barren Lands expeditions of 1893 and 1894 on behalf of the Geological Survey of Canada, he reported that there were approximately 2,000 Caribou Inuit, then known as Eskimo.
By 1934, Ahiarmiut numbered 80, with 11 considered as heads of families. Their contact with Europeans was limited, but included Hudson's Bay Company's post managers at the company's Windy Post, located in 1936 on a portion of Windy River called Simmons Lake and later moved to Nueltin Lake. Ahiarmiut traded their outer parkas, deerskin boots, and fur pelts at the post for guns, ammunition, and tea. Chipewyan and Métis traded here as well.
In their 1994 publication, Tammarniit (Mistakes), Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63, F.J. Tester and Peter Kulchyski accessed archival documents, including the Alex Stevenson Collection, which had been in storage in the Archives of the Northwest Territories, many of which had not been previously available to researchers. They wrote that the Inuit whose camp was located on the Kazan River near Ennadai Lake and hunted caribou between Kazan River and Nueltin Lake, were known as Ennadai Lake Inuit. They hunted caribou between Kazan River and Nueltin Lake. In the summer of 1956 there were 30 men and women and 25 children. Twelve of the children were under five years old.
Relocation
In the late mid-20th century, the Ahiarmiut began a series of federal government sponsored relocations in order to "clear the land for government operations and to centralize Inuit populations under government control and surveillance".
1949, Ahiarmiut were relocated against their will from Ennadai Lake to Nueltin Lake, but the relocation did not last as hunting was poor, precipitating the band's return to Ennadai Lake. In May 1957, Ahiarmiut were airlifted from Ennadai Lake to Henik Lake, from the Padlei trading post, a distance considered reasonable by the Government of Canada. Many Ahiarmiut starved. Later in 1957, Ahiarmiut were moved to Whale Cove where some began carving figurines for income. In 1958, 29 Ahiarmiut went to Padlei because of its trading post, 39 were at Yathkyed Lake, and the majority were brought to Eskimo Point, now Arviat, by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In 1959, the Padlei trading post closed, and the remaining Ahiarmiut were relocated to Arivat.
