The Northern Copper Inuit : A History

In Canada's far north, on the western coast of Victoria Island, the Copper Inuit people of Holman (Uluk-Haktokmiut) have experienced a rate of social and economic change rarely matched in human history.

Owing to their isolated and inaccessible location, 300 miles north of the Arctic Circle, they were one of the last Inuit groups to be contacted by Western explorers, missionaries and fur traders.

Since contact, however, they have been transformed from a nomadic and independent, hunting-based society to one dependent upon southern material goods, such as televisions, radios, snowmobiles, ATVs and permanent residential housing provided by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Anthropologist Richard G. Condon witnessed many of these social, economic and material changes during his 18 years of research in the Holman community.

With translator/research associate Julia Ogina and the Elders of Holman, Condon chronicles the history of the Holman region by combining these direct observations of community change with extensive archival research and oral history interviews with community elders. This chronicle begins with a discussion of the prehistory of the Holman region, and moves to early and late contact periods, and concludes with a description of modern community life.

The interviews represent first-person accounts from Holman residents, including elders, as well as artists now famed for their printmaking.

Each chapter opens with a reproduction of one of the striking Holman prints, depicting scenes from traditional Copper Inuit life.

From abstracts of polar bear tracks on the ocean ice to the sadness on the face of an old woman for whom starvation was a frequent companion, these drawings reflect bravery, stoicism and the enjoyment of simple everyday pleasures.

Richard G. Condon is the author of "Inuit Behaviour and Seasonal Change" and "Inuit Youth: Growth and Change in the Canadian Arctic".