FRANK J. TESTER and PAULE MCNICOLL

The University of British Columbia, School of Social Work and Family Studies

Housing and health in the eastern arctic, 1955-1966: writing, practice and lived experience

In 1958, the Arctic Division of the federal Department of Indian and Northern Affairs developed its first attempt to address the housing needs of the Inuit, who were increasingly migrating to Arctic settlements in the eastern Arctic. This paper examines the evolution of housing policy for Inuit between 1958 and the early 1970s.

Inuit housing policy during this period illustrates values seriously contested in Canadian society at the time. It also illustrates the struggle between a generation of civil servants who saw housing as a market commodity, and others willing to recognize that the provision of housing in the eastern Arctic carried with it notable implications for Inuit physical and mental health, as well as social well-being. The climate for policy development was, therefore, affected not only by themes common to Canadian culture at the time, but by difficult circumstances impinging on the development of Inuit settlements.

The first housing policy was a dismal failure. Conflicts developed between the Northern Health Service and the Department of Northern Affairs over Inuit housing policy, with the former putting pressure on the latter to appreciate housing as a social necessity. In their campaign to achieve this, the Health Service initiated the production of a book containing little text, but many historically important pictures. These showed the deplorable state of Inuit housing at the time. Eventually it was co-published with the Department of Northern Affairs. These efforts led to a major re-writing of Inuit housing policy and attempts to take a community development approach to meeting the housing needs of Inuit through the 1960s. The paper examines these developments through texts found principally in the National Archives of Canada, and interviews conducted with Inuit elders.