An RCMP officer watches an Inuit family build the Northern landmark, a sign of human activity on the vast arctic landscape.

In 1953 the Canadian government relocated Inuit families from Northern Québec to the High Arctic, promising an abundance of game and fish and assuring them they could return home after two years if things didn't work out. They would not see their ancestral lands for 30 years. Abandoned in flimsy tents, the Inuit were left to fend for themselves in the desolate settlements of Resolute Bay and Grise Fiord, where the sea was nearly always frozen and darkness reigned for months on end.