Book explores the Inuit knowledge that helped find Franklin expedition ships

 By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter Inuit interaction with the Franklin expedition is the thread that runs through The Land Was Always Used: An Inuit Oral History of the Franklin Expedition, but it’s the life of the Inuit in Qikiqtaq (King William Island) that is the heartbeat of the story. “(The Inuit) used everything: the ocean, the air, the land. Our life was so interconnected with our environment, and we didn’t come along just because we heard that there were strange men stumbling across (King William) island,” said Edna Ekhivalak Elias. She conducted interviews for the book with Inuit in Gjoa Haven on King William Island, now part of Nunavut. Gjoa Haven is the community closest to the Franklin shipwrecks. “It was just populated by sparse groups of Inuit…

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