Note
Originally produced in 1985.
Anne Budgell, Nigel Markham, directors; Kent Martin, producer.
Summary
An influenza epidemic, brought to Labrador aboard a missionary supply ship, devastates the Inuit community of Okak in 1918. Only grass-covered ruins remain of the once-thriving town of Okak, an Inuit settlement on the northern Labrador coast. Moravian missionaries evangelized the coast and encouraged the growth of Inuit settlements, but it was also a Moravian ship that brought the deadly Spanish influenza during the world epidemic of 1919. The Inuit of the area were decimated, and Okak was abandoned. Through diaries, old photos and interviews with survivors, this film relates the story of the plague, with its accompanying horrors and, as well, examines the relations between the natives and the missionaries.