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Tapeworms and the origins of Quaqtaq

JANE GEORGE

Quaqtaq, population about 300, is located on the eastern shore of Diana Bay, called Tuvaaluk - "the large ice field" in Inuttitut - on a peninsula that juts into Hudson Strait just before it meets Ungava Bay.

Up until the early 1930s, the peninsula was known as Nuvukutaaq or the long point. However, stories say a man who once came to the area to hunt beluga found live parasites in his excrement, so his hunting companions began to call the place Quaqtaq or "tapeworm," and the use of this new name spread rapidly.

An independent trader built the first trading post in 1927 at Iggiajaaq, a few kilometres southwest of Quaqtaq. It operated for 11 years. At that time, the site of present-day Quaqtaq was one of the Tuvaaluk Inuit winter campsites near the limit of land-fast ice.

In 1931, the French fur trading company, Révillon Frères, opened a second store at Iggiajaaq, which the Hudson's Bay Company took over in 1936.

A Baffin Trading Company post was established in 1939 in the same area, and the following year the Hudson Bay closed its post at Iggiajaaq. The post also closed 10 years later at which time the Inuit who normally wintered at Iggiajaaq moved to Quaqtaq. In 1947, a Catholic mission was established at Quaqtaq.

Only after a measles epidemic tore through the area in 1952 - killing 11 adults or what was then about 10 per cent of Quaqtaq's population - did the federal government begin delivering some basic health care to the region. A nursing station was built in 1963.

In the 1960s, the Quebec government opened a store and a post office equipped with a radio-telephone. In 1974, the store became a co-operative and, in 1978, Quaqtaq was legally established as a Northern Village.

With files from the Nunavik Tourism Association.

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