Researching Your Aboriginal Ancestry at Library and Archives Canada

Part I: Researching Your Aboriginal Genealogy at Library and Archives Canada

Inuit

Inuit loading their belongings onto sleds before leaving the igloo village, Coronation Gulf, Northwest Territories, 1931. Photographer: Richard S. Finnie. Library and Archives Canada, PA-101188.

The Inuit are aboriginal people of Arctic Canada. The federal government did not exercise its constitutional responsibilities for the Inuit until the courts ruled in 1939 that "Eskimos" fell within the definition of Indians as written in the Constitution. Records in the Northern Affairs Program sous-fonds (RG 85) may be useful for genealogy research. A search in the Government of Canada Files database can be done by using the keywords "Eskimo$" and "Inuit$" or the name of a person or a place.