Muskox Land
Ellesmere Island in the Age of Contact

Lyle Dick

About the Book

Historian Lyle Dick analyses relations between Native People and Europeans in the Ellesmere Island region of Canada's High Arctic during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is a revealing work on both polar exploration and the sensitive issue of cultural contact. Muskox Land is a comprehensive study of European-Inuit contact in the High Arctic, including the roles played by the natural environment, culture, circumstance, and historical change arising during the era of exploration. Highlighted are discussions of material exchanges and adaptations, coupled with the many stresses precipitated by natural forces, the dynamics of contact and the progression of events during this period.

". . . definitely makes a significant contribution to Arctic history and anthropology. I am sure that the Inuit of Canada and the Inughuit of Greenland will be pleased to see that their voices are finally being heard! There is no other work which delves with such depth into the subject matter." óRick Riewe, University of Manitoba

About the Author

Lyle Dick has been a historian with Parks Canada for many years. He lives in Vancouver, B.C., where he is currently the West Coast Historian for Parks Canada's Western Canada Service Centre. He has written, researched, and published extensively in the fields of Arctic history, western Canadian history, and historiography.

Table of Contents

PART ONE
CONTINUITIES: The Natural Environment, Culture, and Human History

1: Geography and Climatic History of Ellesmere Island
2: High Arctic Ecosystems and Human History
3: Inughuit Culture in the High Arctic, 1800-1900
4: The Inuit on Ellesmere Island and Exchanges with the Inughuit in the 19th Century
5: European Cultures in the High Arctic, 1818-1940

PART TWO
CIRCUMSTANCE: History of Events on Ellesmere Island, 1818-1940

6: Early Exploration of the High Arctic by Europeans, 1818-90
7: "Mine at Last": Robert E. Peary's Polar Expeditions, 1890-1909
8: Assertion of Canadian Sovereignty over the High Arctic, 1895-1940
9: Adventurers, Big-Game Hunters, and Scientists on Ellesmere Island, 1934-40

PART THREE
CHANGE: The Interplay of Cultures and the Environment, 1818-1940

10: Material and Technological Exchanges of the Contact Era
11: Intercultural Relations in the Contact Era
12: Cultural Contact and High Arctic Ecology, 1818-1940

PART FOUR
CIRCUMSTANCE, CHANGE, AND CONTINUITY: Inuit on Ellesmere Island, 1951-2000

13: Circumstance: Inuit Relocations to the High Arctic, 1951-2000
14: Change: Adaptation to New Natural and Cultural Environments, 1951-2000
15: Continuity Reasserted: Inuit, the Seasons, and the Land, 1951-2000

Conclusion: Ellesmere Island and the Times of History

Endnotes
Bibliography

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