Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Yatsushiro, Toshio (1963) Frobisher Bay 1958, NCRC-63-6, Northern Research Co-Ordination Centre, Ottawa

Keywords: employment, Iqaluit (Frobisher Bay), Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre, shack housing, social housing, tuberculosis

Yatsushiro conducted a material cultural survey in Frobisher Bay during the summers of 1958 and 1959. Inuit were living in two areas: Ikhaluit and Apex Hill.

Approximately 1/3 of the Inuit population of c. 800 occupied government subsidized social housing of the 512-type in Apex Hill. The remainder (Ikhaluit) lived in tents, though Yatsushiro reported that this was a summertime phenomenon. During winter, the tent dwellers moved into wooden “shacks” which they had constructed from scrap materials. The shacks were regarded by non-Inuit as poorly insulated, crowded and “fire traps.” According to Yatsushiro’s survey most “shack-dwellers” desired to occupy the government-supplied housing, with a group employed by the Dept. of Transportation requesting that they be supplied with government houses. According to Yatsushiro, lack of government housing was experienced as a form of discrimination by those who did not have such access. He reports that the shacks were, in fact, “superior to traditional Eskimo dwellings” in that they were larger and could be heated with a space heater. Some were electrified until 1959 when the Government had the power disconnected (p. 2).