| Ennadai Lake | |
| Pushpin Map: | Canada Nunavut |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location in Nunavut |
| Location: | Kivalliq Region, Nunavut |
| Coords: | 60.9667°N -121°W |
| Outflow: | Kazan River |
| Basin Countries: | Canada |
| Cities: | Ennadai (ghost town) |
| Reference: | [1] [2] |
Ennadai Lake is a lake in the Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is long, and wide. It is drained to the north by the Kazan River. A section of the Kazan River from the outlet of Ennadai Lake to Baker Lake, was designated as a part of the Canadian Heritage Rivers System in 1990.
A weather station was located in the area at Ennadai.
Until 1957, Ennadai Lake was home to the Ahiarmiut (Ihalmiut) Inuktitut syllabics ᐃᐦᐊᓪᒥᐅᑦ in Inuktitut pronounced as /ihalmiˈut/, Caribou Inuit. Inland Inuit were also "known as the ("People from Beyond") or Ahiarmiut ("the Out-of-the-Way Dwellers"). The Ahialmiut "subsisted almost entirely on caribou year-round, unlike other Inuit groups that depended at least partially on harvest of animals from the sea."
The ancestors of present-day Inuit in the area along with ancestors of the Dene, who later left the area "used the Kazan River during summer for more than 5,000 years, retreating to the treeline or the coast for the rest of the year."
"The ancestors of the Ahialmiut had moved inland from coastal areas in what is now the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. When the Dene joined the fur trade, and stopped following caribou onto the tundra each summer, the Ahialmiut moved farther inland, pushing south to the treeline by about 1850. They spent spring and summer inland, where they intercepted caribou travelling north in the spring, and camped in summer on the calving grounds."
These inland Inuit also lived along the banks of the Kazan River, Little Dubawnt Lake (renamed Kamilikuak) and north of Thlewiaza ("Big River")
The Ihalmiut were successful inland hunters. However, they experienced years of famine "when caribou wintered primarily in the southern forest, rather than on the tundra, or when they were unable to cache sufficient food supplies in the fall."
In the early 1890s the Caribou Inuit began trading with Canadians of European descent. They maintained trap lines for white fox along their caribou hunting trails. They continued to depend on the Qamanirjuaq caribou. "But after years of hardship in the late 1940s and 1950s, many people started moving into communities. Government encouraged them to do so to allow their children to attend school, and to have access to medical care at nursing stations."
Ihalmiut were Caribou Inuit, inland-dwelling people in the Barren Lands region whose subsistence centred on hunting caribou. Caribou meat was dried for the winter months.
On March 17, 2000, two pilots perished in an aviation accident while landing a Douglas DC-3 at Ennadai Lake. The plane departed Points North Landing, Saskatchewan with of cargo on board for building materials for the construction of a lodge.
The Ihalmiut were relocated by the Government of Canada in May 1957 to Henik Lake. The caribou were scarce in the Henik Lake area and starvation soon set in. They were later relocated again to Whale Cove.
The relocations to Nueltin Lake and Henik Lake were complete failures. "The Ahiarmiut themselves maintain that Ennadai Lake was an excellent hunting area and failed to understand why they were relocated."
On September 7, 1985, 36 elders returned to Ennadai Lake from where they had been relocated in the 1950s.
In an article in Inuktitut, David Serkoak, who was a child at the time of the relocation, attempted to understand the reasoning behind decision to move the Ahiarmiut.
A workshop was held in Arviat in 2003 with Ahiarmiut elders on 'Survival and Angakkuuniq' in which "Ahiarmiut elders Job and Eva Muqyunnik, Luke and Mary Anautalik often reflected on the events that almost fifty years ago had disrupted their lives and still affected them." This was followed by a second workshop in 2006 held at Ennadai Lake with Ahiarmiut originally from Ennadai Lake, including Eva Muqyunnik, Job Muqyunnik, Mary Anautalik, John Aulatjut, Silas Ilungiyajuk, Geena Aulatjut then living in Arviat, Andrew Alikashuak living in Whale Cove, and Mary Whitmore from Churchill, Manitoba. Annie Seewoe and Luke Anautalik from Arviat and David Serkoak from Iqaluit were unable to attend.
In 2013 the Ennadai Lake Society filed their final submission in their special claim against the federal government. One of their requests was an official apology from the federal government "for the unbelievable hardship the Ahiarmiut suffered" during the repeated relocations from Ennadai Lake. In 2018 the federal government reached an agreement with the survivors of the forced relocation for a $5 million settlement.[3] In January 2019, the federal government announced that Carolyn Bennett, at the time Minister of Crown–Indigenous Relations, would deliver the formal apology on behalf of the Canadian government in Arviat, Nunavut on January 22.[4]
Ennadai Lake is within the Hearne Domain. This lake is of the few weather stations in Nunavut to report a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc) as opposed to a tundra climate (Köppen ET).
At Ennadai Lake's Kazan River outflow, the forest includes sparse black spruce and tamarack that grow approximately high, stunted because of harsh winds and cool summers.
Ennadai Lake is part of the "annual migration route of the almost 500,000 strong Qamanirjuaq barren-ground caribou herd, and the occasional route of the 275,000 member Beverly herd." Beverly Lake is the area where the Beverly herd regularly bears its young. The Qamanirjuaq herd regularly bears its young near Qamanirjuaq Lake. Both herds historically migrate into Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. According to Arviat elders, for the first time since the late 1960s Qamanirjuaq caribou began their spring migration where the Seal River flows into the Hudson Bay."] Since the 1960s, Qamanirjuaq caribou have been moving out of their winter range in northwestern Manitoba, northeastern Saskatchewan, southeastern NWT, and southwestern Nunavut into staging areas[5] near Cullaton Lake, Seal Hole Lake and Ennadai Lake." In late March / early April when tens of thousands of caribou occupy these areas just before their spring migration "east as far as the Hudson Bay coast, then north to their calving grounds." In April large groups of yearlings and cows begin their traditional migration corridors back to the calving areas and in May the bulls leave their winter range and begin their migration.
Luke Anowtalik (1932-2006), an Ihalmiut, was a first-generation Inuit artist with work in major galleries including the National Gallery of Canada, the Marion Scott Gallery and Spirit Wrestler Gallery in Vancouver, Inuit Galerie in Mannheim. He was born in the Ennadai Lake area where he began carving his small swivel figures in caribou antler and sold his first carvings to Ministry of Transport employees working there. The federal government relocated him first to Whale Cove, then to Arviat where he continued carving often using the hard stone that was available there. His wife Mary Ayaq Anowtalik is also a well-known carver.
Elisapee Karetak, an Ihalmiut, was an infant when her father Hallauk, her mother Kikkik and Elisapee's three young siblings were relocated from Ennadai Lake to Henik Lake in 1957. In 2000 Karetak with Montreal-based filmmaker Ole Gjerstad, produced a one-hour documentary entitled Kikkik about her mother. After her husband was murdered by a man delusional from hunger, Kikkik stabbed the man and began a long journey from Henik Lake to get help. Kikkik trekked for days across the Barrens carrying one-and-a-half-year-old Elisapee in her amauti and with three other children in tow.
Farley Mowatt wrote a series of books about the Inuit from the Ennadai Lake region including People of the Deer in 1952, The Desperate People in 1959, Death of a People, Walking on the Land in 2001, and No Man's River in 2004.