“Vanishing races” was how bureaucrats and academics in the south throughout most of the 20th century viewed the people of the north. The Inuit and Crees of the southeastern Hudson Bay coast would have been included in this category because important food resources such as beluga whales, caribou and beaver were depleted in the early part of the century. Despite this and the many other significant changes that took place in the wake of European contact, the Inuit and the Crees found ways to adapt. In fact, the first two decades of the 1900s were very prosperous years for both groups, as they were for the English and French companies whose fur trade posts quickly dotted the coastline. More recent government involvement in administration of the region and the entry of the military were further grave challenges to the way of life and wellbeing of the Inuit and Crees of southeast Hudson Bay.