Abstract: Inuit contemporary mobility in Northern Canada is usually understood as either traditional travelling “on the land” (as the Inuit say) or the decision to move from one settlement to another or to a non-Arctic town, a change of residence which is at least partly surveyed by Canada's regular Censuses.
But an important part of Inuit contemporary mobility is ignored: their travels to un-familiar or less familiar places, i.e.: all the trips that an increasing number of Inuit take either to other Inuit communities or to Southern Canadian towns, or even to places abroad. These trips are taken for a number of very different reasons such as health treatment (including childbirth), meetings, sports tournaments, festivals and local jamborees, temporary job, training, visiting, but also Christmas shopping and holiday breaks.
This form of mobility has greatly increased and has become more complex in the last 20 years, in terms of range and network. It is also an important part of Inuit lives in Northern communities, for those who do travel as well as for those who do not, or very rarely. Yet, there is hardly any data available on these movements, which appear to be overlooked by anthropologists, cultural geographers and demographers alike.
Based on first hand geographic and ethnographic information collected formally in Feb-March 2013 and informally during various field-work campaigns since 1986 in Western Nunavut and the NWT I will present an overview of these travels as experienced in that area and discuss how this new form of ordinary mobility is reshaping family networks, gender relations and local politics in Inuit communities. I will also argue that mobility is part of Inuit well-being and how economic development programs as well as wellness programs could, and should, take it into account.