This podcast contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature.

Listener discretion is advised. The Inuit are the indigenous people of the Arctic regions of Greenland, Alaska and Canada.

They're known as hunters and gatherers. They're nomadic and agile, moving

seasonly as they need to. The Inuit are experts of their own environment with a vast knowledge of snow and ice, the

wildlife and their cycles as well as the weather. In Canada they can be found in

Quebec various parts of the Northwest Territories,

and in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

For thousands of years, the Inuit thrived independently in these regions.

Their history was largely unrecorded except for the passing down of stories from

generation to generation. They sustained themselves

through their own resourcefulness, experience and knowledge.

But all this changed the first time they came into contact with Europeans.

In the 18th century, European fur traders, fishermen, whalers and other business people started to visit the region to make money during the summer.

The Inuit were roped into doing fur trapping for Hudson's Bay Company,

an organization that went on to become an iconic Canadian retail business group.

Because the Inuit weren't familiar with the way Europeans did things, they were taken advantage of. Their complex way of life and

their equilibrium was disrupted. Along with new business practices, the Europeans also introduce them to alcohol and diseases like the flu and the measles that the Inuit had no experience with.

Large numbers of them died of resulting illness.

Over time, the Inuit found themselves becoming more and more dislodged from their culture, traditions and independence.

The seas had been fished and depleted of important resources.

The fur trade had ended. They were lost.

In the meantime, the Europeans decided that they were going to stay and settle. They had plans for this new land they'd

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