In 1953, the Canadian government controversially relocated some of the area's inhabitants to Resolute and Grise Fiord—then in the Northwest Territories, but now part of Nunavut. The relocation has been described as a humanitarian gesture to save the lives of starving native people and enable them to continue a subsistence lifestyle and conversely described as a forced migration as part of a plan to establish a Canadian presence in the High Arctic and assert its sovereignty with human flagpoles. This relocation caused families to be split up and relocated persons faced hardships in the much more severe conditions of the far north.