Canada Issues Apology to Inuit Communities for Historic Sled Dog Mass Killings

Canada Apologizes to Inuit of Northern Quebec for 1950s-60s Sled Dog Slaughter, Offers Compensation

The Government of Canada formally apologized on Saturday to the Inuit of northern Quebec for the mass killing of sled dogs in the 1950s and 1960s. These actions devastated Inuit communities, depriving them of essential means to hunt and travel.

Gary Anandasangaree, Federal Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, delivered the apology in Kangiqsujuaq, located in the Nunavik region. Alongside the apology, Canada pledged C$45 million ($32.19 million) in compensation.

This apology follows a similar one issued in 2019 to the Inuit of the Qikiqtani region, including Baffin Island, for federal policies that inflicted trauma, including family separations and the slaughter of sled dogs, known as qimmiit.

“Today, the Government of Canada accepted responsibility for its role in a terrible historic injustice and expressed its deep regret and sincere apology for the harms inflicted by the slaughter of qimmiit in Nunavik,” said Anandasangaree.

Thousands of sled dogs were shot by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and other authorities in Inuit settlements from the mid-1950s onwards, said Pita Aatami, President of Makivik Corporation, which represents Quebec’s Inuit.

Sled dog teams were essential to Inuit culture and survival, enabling swift travel across vast Arctic landscapes and supporting seal and caribou hunting. Their systematic destruction caused severe food insecurity, economic hardship, and disrupted traditional ways of life. The government acknowledged the killings caused long-lasting emotional trauma and generational harm.

“Their independence was taken away—they could no longer go out on the land or hunt,” Aatami told Reuters, calling the apology and compensation overdue. “It’s been an intergenerational trauma and has taken 25 years of my life to get here.”

While the RCMP conducted an internal investigation in 2006 and cleared themselves of wrongdoing, stating the killings were for public safety, Inuit leaders argue otherwise. They believe the dogs were killed to force the nomadic Inuit into settled communities, likening this policy to other colonial injustices, such as family relocations and the residential school system.

In 2011, the Quebec government also apologized for its role in the Nunavik sled dog slaughter.