The Ahiarmiut "subsisted almost entirely on caribou year-round, unlike other Inuit groups that depended at least partially on harvest of animals from the sea.
"[13]: 27 [14] During Joseph Tyrrell's Barren Lands expeditions of 1893 and 1894 on behalf of the Geological Survey of Canada, he reported that there were approximately 2,000 Caribou Inuit, then known as Eskimo.
Ahiarmiut traded their outer parkas, deerskin boots, and fur pelts at the post for guns, ammunition, and tea.
[15] In their 1994 publication, Tammarniit (Mistakes), Inuit Relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63, F.J. Tester and Peter Kulchyski accessed archival documents, including the Alex Stevenson Collection[clarification needed], which had been in storage in the Archives of the Northwest Territories, many of which had not been previously available to researchers.
Decades later, Ahiarmiut again gained attention in Ihalmio Elisapee (née Nurrahaq) Karetak's 2000 (English) and 2002 (Inuktitut) documentaries about her people's struggle and starvation during their 1950s relocation[22] and the story of her mother Kikkik at Henik Lake.
"[23][24] Mowat, who advocated for the "people of the deer", was a popular, though controversial figure, who admitted that facts were not as important as the story itself.
He wrote the first, People of the Deer in 1952,[26] shortly after a field trip to the Canadian Arctic while attending the University of Toronto.