Qaanaaq (2012)

• 74%
• 2012
• Documentary
• Nicole Paglia

At the height of the Cold War, Greenland became strategically significant to the United States in its proximity to the USSR. Plans were made to establish a new American military base to monitor incoming missiles. The only problem was what to do with the sixty five indigenous Greenlandic families who lived at the site. In 1953, the local Inughuit were forcibly relocated from their homes by the foot of Mount Dundas to make way for the base. Given less than a week's notice, they were moved 100 kilometers to the newly created town of Qaanaaq. Now more than 50 years on, we talk to some of the people who remember their old village and the homes and traditional lifestyle they were forced to abandon.