By Arty Sarkisian, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunatsiaq News Sometime in the spring of 1970, eight-year-old Jonasie Emikotailuk along with a dozen other kids was taken on a trip from one end of the Belcher Islands to the other. The group, accompanied by several adults, didn’t have enough food or drinking water for the 70-kilometre journey. “One of my buddies, he was so dehydrated his tongue turned black,” Emikotailuk said. The Belcher Islands are an archipelago in the southeast of Hudson Bay. There used to be two main Inuit hubs on the islands — South Camp (Emikotailuk’s home) and North Camp (modern-day Sanikiluaq). In the late 1960s, the federal government decided to shut down the South Camp and relocate its roughly 50 residents, including Emikotailuk, to the north. Sanikiluaq was…
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