Yet another conspiracy theory

What happened to the Inuit of the Clyde River and Sam Ford Fiord area? Did they witness an explosion of some sort?

Inuit elders tells stories of one night the night sky lighting up as if it was daylight. Seven elders claim that this explosion occured and they also claim that after the explosion there were many metal strips all over the land.

The areas hit mostly were lakes and shores where there were villages.

What happened? Who did this? Why did they do it? Were they trying to eradicate the Inuit? Were they doing experiments of some sort?

I want to see some answers to these questions. We the Inuit never did anything to anybody and yet we get this. That same year, people started dying of TB. Half of my father’s family died off down south. All his brothers got sent down as well. Why did all these incidents happen around the same time (dog slaughters, relocations, this explosion)? I wish somebody can tell me what happened, otherwise I consider the Canadian government was trying to kill us off.

Nick Illauq
Clyde River

Editor’s note: This question was mostly answered nearly 20 years ago, when MLAs asked questions about it in the NWT legislative assembly. The sudden lighting of the night sky was caused by “flash bombs,” used by U.S. air force crews experimenting with night-time aerial photography in the 1950s. The flash bombs worked just like the flash devices used with with most cameras, illuminating a huge area long enough for it to be photographed from an aircraft.