Mike's grieving just wouldn't stop after her son drowned nine years ago, and eventually she sought counselling. Mike came to realize that her emotions stemmed from three years starting in 1962 when she was plucked from her family in the Nunavut community of Pangnirtung. Federal bureaucrats sent her to a foster home in rural Nova Scotia as part of an experiment to see if Inuit children could function in the white Canadian mainstream.

Her unending grief over her son was the upwelling of the long-repressed sadness, loneliness and longing she had felt as a seven-year-old girl a world away from her home.

"It brought me back to questioning the time that we went to Nova Scotia," Mike says.

Now she's one of seven Inuit taking the federal government to court in a lawsuit that seeks acknowledgement and redress for a little-known and officially unrecognized chapter of Canada's residential schools saga.

"(We were ) the unwitting guinea pigs of an experiment," said Peter Ittinuar, who at age 12 was sent to school in Ottawa.

"Our parents were never asked. We were just simply taken without any hesitation whatsoever."

Ittinuar says the term "Experimental Eskimo" was coined by one of the Inuit boys who was originally taken to Ottawa, based on language used in a government document from the time.

Mike and Ittinuar's stories are products of a time when Canada was still trying to figure out how to administer the Inuit, who had only recently left their nomadic lives for communities.

The Experimental Eskimos were an attempt to see how easily Inuit children could be assimilated, say academics. Promising children from locally prominent families in Pangnirtung, Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet and Povungnituk, Quebec, were selected, cut off from their families and flown south to white foster homes and middle-class schools.

The bureaucrats also hoped to develop Inuit role models that would lead the way into the wage economy, said Peter Kulchyski at the University of Winnipeg.

"This was a pilot project. They were looking at developing leadership."

Unlike children at residential schools, the Experimental Eskimos were not subject to religious indoctrination. Nor do they complain of mistreatment and most say they grew fond of their temporary guardians. Mike came to know hers as "Aunt Helen."

But all complain of loneliness and cultural dislocation suffered not once, but twice - first when they moved south and again when they returned to the North.

"We had become so different from Inuit children," said Mike.

The living conditions, the language, even the food that had once been familiar and comforting now seemed strange.

Other Inuit never treated the Experimental Eskimos the same. To this day, some of Mike's neighbours express surprise that she knows such cultural basics as how to skin a seal.

"I used to get called pro-white, and not quite accepted in the white society up here because of my looks. It was like trying to live in both worlds but not quite accepted in either."

If leadership was the goal, the experiment was a success.

Ittinuar became the first Inuk member of Parliament. Zebedee Nungak eventually headed Makivik Corp., which manages the Nunavik land claim money. Eric Tagoona came to lead the national Inuit group Inuit Tapirisat Kanatami.

Still, said Ittinuar, the experience has left a sour taste.

"You feel like you've been had. We're a different story (than residential school students), but no less an attempt at assimilation."

The lawsuits ask for an apology and $350,000 for each plaintiff.

"Canada treated the plaintiffs as experimental subjects to be used for Canada's benefit, rather than as individuals deserving of respect and fair treatment from Canada," they read.

The federal government, pouring through its archives for information on the project, has yet to file a statement of defence.

"The government is still in its discovery process," said Indian Affairs spokeswoman Margot Geduld. "Limited information is available."

The goal of the lawsuit, however, is not primarily money.

"I'd be happy with just finding information," said Mike.

"Even today, I hope it's not true, that we were used as experimental Eskimos. But it's looking more and more like that.

"I can't see any other reason."