"So with the white man came easier
times, mental and bodily, ammunition (a good thing). Tea, rifles, biscuits, tobacco,
yards of material . . . boats, white ... real genuine Nordic blood, tuberculosis,
. . . and a lot of meddling in such incidental things as child-birth, marriage,
counting the people, . . . ." Dr. Jon
A. Bildfell, Letter to Mother, 1933-1934
Bildfell was critical of the white man’s
influence on the Inuit, an influence he called “benevolent exploitation.”
He was concerned about the growing Inuit dependence upon flour, tea, and biscuits;
their concentration upon trapping foxes to the neglect of sealing; the adoption
of European textiles at the expense of more superior furs; and the use of expensive
coal oil in the place of seal oil for light and heat.
Pangnirtung
Dating to 1940-1942
Filmed by Dr. Jon A. Bildfell
Dr. Jon A. Bildfell and Mrs. Muriel Bildfell Collection 997.84.137
Dr. Jon A. Bildfell (second from the left)
Dating to 1933-1934
Photographer unknown
Dr. Jon A. Bildfell and Mrs. Muriel Bildfell Collection 997.84.135.16
