Life was always difficult for Inuit hunters in the far north where survival depended on the hunting of seals and whales at the dangerous edge of the ice.

After several years of poor hunting and famine in the early 1950s, the federal government decided to gather the nomadic Inuit families into communities where they could be fed, educated, and given medical care.

Unfortunately, the government settled many Inuit families on Arctic islands, far away from the mainland caribou herds they had always depended upon for food and clothing. The government moved the Inuit farther north to help it assert Canadian sovereignty over the Arctic.

For a few generations, the Inuit became entirely dependent on the Canadian Government for their most basic survival needs. The Mackenzie River suddenly became the vital lifeline for the Inuit communities. Food, fuel, building materials, appliances, and vehicles were shipped down the Mackenzie from Hay River on Great Slave Lake by barge companies hired by the Canadian government.

Eventually, competition reduced the barge companies to a single, government-owned Northern Transportation Company, Ltd.

Then, in the 1970s, Inuit leaders and some southern political leaders realized that the Inuit had to regain their self-sufficiency, and that they deserved compensation for the loss of their land and way of life. A government inquiry into the impact of oil and gas development in the Arctic led to an important recognition of Inuit rights to Arctic lands. As part of their land claims settlement, the Inuit were given ownership of the Northern Transportation Company.

The company operates a large fleet of tugs and barges that carry almost anything larger than a television set. Cargo arrives by truck or train at the companies main receiving terminal at Hay River, Canada's most northern railhead.

There, the cargo is loaded onto barges for the long trip across Great Slave Lake and down the Mackenzie River to Tuktoyaktuk. The barges are coupled into 'trains' for the river journey. In several places the river is too shallow and twisty for the barge trains. They are decoupled, taken downstream one at a time, and reunited below the obstacle.

From Tuktoyaktuk, the barges are towed by sea-going tugboat to the Inuit communities along the coasts of Canada's Arctic islands.

A large shipyard at Hay River maintains the fleet of tugs and during winter months. There is a floating dry dock in Tuktoyaktuk for emergency repairs during the short, hectic navigation season.

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