The government of Canada on Saturday apologized to the Inuit of northern Quebec for the mass killing of sled dogs in the 1950s and 1960s, which devastated communities by depriving them of the ability to hunt and travel.

More than 1,000 of the dogs that Inuit relied on for their livelihoods were shot to death by Mounties, employees of the Hudson's Bay Company and other authorities from the mid-1950s until late 1960s across Nunavik,

A 2010 report from found Quebec provincial police officers killed more than 1,000 dogs in Nunavik ‘without any consideration for their importance to Inuit families’

The federal government has apologized for its role in the killing of sled dogs in Nunavik between the mid-1950s and the late 1960s.