Northern health services.

Health services in the Arctic territories of Canada on any organized basis are of relatively recent development. The reasons for this seeming "neglect" are not too difficult to understand. Not so very long ago the only permanent population was some 10,000 Eskimos and possibly 5,000 Indians, living in perpetual enmity at a stone-age level of culture and literally hunting each other down as dangerous big game. The inhospitable climate discouraged European settlement and apart from a few explorers, whalers, traders and missionaries there was actually little contact between these people and other Canadians, little genuine knowledge of them and rather less interest in them as human beings.