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Arctic Exile

Arctic Exile is the story of an Inuit girl whose childhood ran aground on the sharp edges of a wasteland of  ice. Martha’s story begins in Inukjuak, on the Ungava peninsula in northeastern Quebec, the same place where Robert Flaherty shot his famous documentary, Nanook of the North. But the portrait of Inuit life in this film is very different from the idealized one in Nanook of the North.

Arctic Exile describes the difficult voyage of a child faced with  broken promises, hardships, and battles with the elements.  But it is also a story of courage and strength that will fill audiences with a sense of admiration for the Inuit families who suffered so greatly.

They were told that they would find heaven on earth. They were told that food would be abundant, game plentiful, and  that life would be easier for them. Instead, Martha and her family were tricked into moving to one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Martha was only five years old when hers and a few other Inuit families boarded an enormous icebreaker for a month-long journey from their village in northern Quebec to the North Pole. The Canadian government officials who displaced them told the Inuit they would settle together. But when the families reached their new home, they were divided into two groups and relocated on different islands.

They had been told they could return to their home in Quebec if they  wanted to… Instead, they had no contact with their loved ones for 34 years!

What the families were never told was the real reason for their displacement: The Arctic was disputed territory at the time, and the government needed settlers to help assure its land claim…

Today, global warming is once again raising the possibility of exploiting the riches of the high Arctic.... and old quarrels about the Nortwest passage and ownership of the region are reviving. Seen from that perspective, Martha's story, even fifty years after the fact, seems disturbingly relevant.

Arctic Exile is directed by Marquise LePage and co-produced by Virage, NFB (National Film Board of Canada), and CBC Radio-Canada.