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Photo Friday | Eskimo Children on Baffin Island (1957)

Photo Friday | Eskimo Children on Baffin Island (1957)

Photo Friday | Eskimo Children on Baffin Island (1957)

November 20th marks United Nations Universal Children’s Day. The date commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, in 1959, and that of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989.

The Convention, which is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in the world, sets out a number of children’s rights including the right to life, to health, to education and to play, as well as the right to family life, to be protected from violence, to not be discriminated, and to have their views heard.

In this spirit, enjoy these stunning pictures from Douglas Wilkinson’s Eskimo Children on Baffin Island, part 1, a filmstrip released in 1957.

The filmstrip isn’t viewable online at this time, but two of Wilkinson’s classics, How to Build an Igloo and Land of the Long Day, are yours to stream on NFB.ca.

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All photos: Doug Wilkinson

See also:

Photo Friday | Young, Wild and Free: Hanging Out with Fogo’s Children

Add a new comment
  1. When (approx) were these photos taken?

    — M loranger,
    1. The above photos are from a filmstrip released in 1957.

  2. How quickly life has changed for those in the far north. Just since I was a child, the first photos of a people we hardly knew of back in the 1950’s.

    — Karen,
  3. When I see pictures like these of the Inuit I think of a peoples surviving for somewhere between 10,000 to 40,000 years in this bleak but wonderful climate that we are now trying to eradicate. Still hopeful.

    — Hyman Hops,
  4. Lovely, the life of rather natural People. Reminds me of my childhood on the farm in winter. That huge open boat is pretty impressive. And the handmade jackets, fur inside, tough leather to the wind.

  5. Thank you for bringing me that much closer to those Inuit children.

    — Adrienne,

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