Robert (Bob) Williamson

  1. QTOT11EN
  • Robert (Bob) Williamson
  • Ottawa

Robert Williamson was born in Oxley, England in 1931. He received a Bachelors degree from Carleton University in Ottawa before going on to complete a PhD at the Royal University of Uppsala in Sweden. Robert worked at a research station in Fort Simpson and also was recruited to build houses at Pangnirtung. Robert discusses the importance of the family unit among the Inuit people and early changes in Inuit society. He also discusses the use of dogs as utiliatarian objects and mentions that they only became a topic of dispute among people who had not necessarily spent time living among the Inuit, especially among white government people who moved in to the North during the 1950s. From the 1950s onwards the issue of dog control grew in importance and the shooting of dogs was typically undertaken by the RCMP and local dog control officers appointed by the territorial government of the NWT. Robert also dicsusses the failure of the education system in the North and he blames this on the fact that it has failed to incorporate traditional knowledge in the curriculum.