TOWN AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD

This is the story of the dark and painful birth of Grise Fiord, North America's northern most civilian community, The Town at the Top of the World. It's a town like no other with a history that most Canadians are unaware of…and would be ashamed of.

In 1953 the Government of Canada picked up seven Inuit families in northern Quebec and dropped them two thousand kilometres farther north, in an unforgiving and isolated landscape. It was the height of the cold war and they were to be living flagpoles, Canada's claim to sovereignty over the high arctic. Everything was alien. They knew nothing of musk ox, polar bears and walrus. The sea was frozen ten months of the year and twenty-four hour darkness settled in for many months. They were given canvas tents and a few meagre supplies. The government recanted on the promises of housing and return trips.

The leader of this small band of original families was dead within the first year. His surviving son, Larry Audlulak says his father suffered under the burden of leadership and he died of a broken heart. Larry is the last of the original exiles. He has much to be bitter about, but Audlulak doesn't want his children to grow up with the anger he felt. He has become a fiercely proud Canadian and Grise Fiord's unofficial flag bearer and ambassador.

Today there are 145 residents in what is arguably the most isolated town in North America. There's an RCMP detachment, a school, the Grise Fjord Co-op, a post office, and an airstrip. For a brief time when the ice breaks each summer, there are visits from tourists who ply the Artic in cruise ships. The biggest event of the year in Grise Fiord is the arrival of the community's lifeline, the re-supply ship. Larry's story is interwoven with the story of the annual sealift (re-supply) and takes the viewer inside the daily life of an impossible place that few of us can imagine, the Town at the Top Of The World.

The Town at the Top of the World is a CBC Winnipeg/Newsworld in hour production narrated by Reg Sherrin, and produced by Terry Stapleton.

The Executive Producer is Renée Pellerin.