I started “The long exile” by Melanie McGrath a couple of days ago, and have found this book to be very interesting. The Plot takes place in 1923, when the Government forcibly removes Inuit people from their homes in Hudson Bay to the artic landscape of Ellesmere Island. The story follows “white” man Robert Flaherty, who has lived in the middle of the Inuit people for a couple of years, working on his mission to make a sellable movie of the life in the Artic. He finds a lover there, and soon he has a half-Inuit son, Josephie Flaherty, son to him and to Maggie Nujarluktuk. Josephie takes over as the main character, but I have yet to find out how his story continues.
“Displays of rage, frustration or depression are so disapproved of among the Inuit that many grow up without any conscious sense of having these feelings. “
I chose this sentence because I think it represents well what the book has mostly been about: to teach about the different and alternative lives that the population far up in the north leads. Between the fur trades with the southern Canadians, their main contact to southern civilisation, the Inuit people live very differently from other nations, living with unique and unusual nature conditions. They have adapted to that live style, but as Robert found out when he was living with them and experiencing their way of life; what makes people stay alive in harsh times and conditions is learning to live together, all as one, caring as much for your neighbour as you would for you.