Their Beautiful Land

A confidential report that helped to settle past political and legal disputes over Inuit title and use of land has a new life, nearly thirty years after it was commissioned in 1996. Avanimiut: A History of Inuit Independence in Northern Labrador is a revised version of that document and the rare comprehensive account of Inuit on the far northern coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Avanimiut, taken from the Inuktitut word for “people of the North,” replaces the manuscript’s original title, The Northlanders, which made use of a term coined by missionaries from the Moravian Church in the late eighteenth century. Originally written by the anthropologist Carol Brice-Bennett, the book has been expanded and updated by Lena Onalik, an Inuk archeologist, and Andrea Procter, a historical anthropologist from St. John’s. This is an important account of those from north of Hebron, the former Moravian mission station and previously the northernmost...