There has been no time since the end of the Second World War when it could not have been said that the Canadian Eskimos were at a critical point in their history. The north has become a part of the world as a whole, and the Eskimos, caught in the course of world events, have become subject to changes that affect every aspect of their lives. This is inevitable, and all concerned recognize it as an inescapable fact. Some writers have simplified the current situation among the Canadian Eskimos as a struggle between the old and the new. They have pointed to the privation that was so often an unavoidable accompaniment to primitive life and have argued that there can be no return to such conditions. This approach does not lead anywhere, for nobody has seriously suggested a return to the primitive. It is true that the Eskimos may not be any happier now than they were in former times; in outward appearance they seem in fact to be markedly less happy. A return to the old days might therefore be appealing, but nobody, and least of all the Eskimos themselves, considers it to be either possible or desirable. To suggest the contrary is to set up snowmen only in order to knock them down.