Television's competition with traditional activities and influence on them have been studied in various contexts including well-developed areas such as France or Great Britain. Unfortunately, most studies are not really relevant because they are not contemporary with the appearance of the phenomenon (television sociology emerged in the late sixties). For instance, how can television be opposed to traditional activities in 1999 France, i.e. in a society in which television has gradually become a traditional activity? In this respect, Gail Valaskakis's or Linvill Watson's results for Lake Harbour and Rankin Inlet are particularly interesting, first because they were contemporary and second because they reach very similar conclusions.
    Fishing and hunting were certainly the most traditional activities because they were still the only ways to get food fifty years ago and thus, the most essential activity for Inuit males. With life in modern settlements, fishing and hunting became leisure activities since food could be bought from the local grocery store. However, elders had succeeded in maintaining the tradition, and hunting skills were highly-valued qualities especially among the young males for whom they were expressions of manliness. In their universe, the hunter was still the example they wanted to model themselves upon.
    When this particular example was juxtaposed with the southern images of the young man as it appeared in fiction (e.g. the "rebel" like James Dean or Marlon Brando, the successful "yuppie" like Dick York in the sitcom Bewitched or the "unruly cop" like Clint "Dirty Harry" Eastwood), its attributes got more and more confused. There was among young adults a "hyper-masculine" identification to fiction heroes' behaviour while at the same time the image of the hunter who demonstrates skills and control on the land remained a major model. However, this confusion (Inuit and Qablunait role models) dates back to the first contacts with the "White Man" (mostly fur-trade). Guns, Bombardier snowmobiles and unfortunately alcohol had already dramatically altered the image of the Inuit hunter long before the introduction of live satellite television. As Gail Valaskakis notes:

Young men frequently announce a "hunting trip" or a "trip on the land" or an intention to "be a real Inuk today", and then leave the settlement in jeans, black leather jacket and boots, carrying a rifle and driving a Honda.(4)

    In Rankin Inlet, as Linvill Watson reports, net-fishing, excursions on the land or even casual visiting between households declined dramatically and became irregular whereas they used to be typical weekend outings. Hence, the younger generation grew less and less familiar with Inuit traditions and, the only cultural framework they were offered was the one television conveyed, i.e. mainstrean Euro-Canadian in content as long as television was not reflecting the culture, the reality of their elders.

    Traditional Inuit activities were not the only casualties of technology. In fact, all the other forms of leisure that the Inuit used to enjoy were greatly disrupted, most of them being social activities the role of which was essential in remote communities.
    The first activity we can think of is family life (a fortiori when it concerns an ethnic group with a strong oral tradition such as the Inuit). Family interaction had to suffer a great deal for two reasons: first because watching television is an individual experience and second because it forces silence upon those who do not participate. According to Nelson Graburn, the rooms where the screenings would take place were "large enough in many houses for conversation to be carried on at the back of the room by those who [did] not want to concentrate on the show, but a lot of shushing and commands to keep quiet [could be] heard when those watching the tube [were] disturbed"(5). The same thing happened when at the very beginning those who did not own a TV set were invited to join the others, even though what could have been an opportunity for socialising lasted a few months only.
    Television did not only make Inuit families less social when watching, it also became more influential than many other regular community events which were consequently drastically disrupted. Linvill Watson reports that attendance both at school and at work fell off in the morning during the first weeks. Children coming to school would appear drowsy and listless because of their watching television through the night with their parents.
    The first cultural activity to suffer was the weekly movie. The Inuit had for many years been fans of action movies or rather as Canadians say, "check-your-brain- at- the -door" movies in which the thrills are easily accessible without understanding much of the dialogue. Now, this type of movies was available at home via CBC with a perfect image and above all for free. From that period on, movies at Rankin Inlet's recreation hall (the Rec Hall) never got the audiences they used to get and disappeared with the democratisation of home video systems. Rankin Inlet's Rec Hall would also house very popular bingo evenings and this game also had to go through a period of "eclipse" and only partial, shaky recovery when the new competitor arrived.
    The public library was badly hit whereas it had succeeded to gradually expand its service to the Inuit, and saw its frequenting and number of borrowers drop tremendously. Due to this decline, youngsters' work-groups during which an old woman used to tell stories in Inuktitut had to be abandoned for want of participants.

    Hockey is the Canadian sport par excellence and there is no exception to the rule. It has to be said that televised hockey had been one of the strongest motivations for television service in the Arctic but also for the choice of the satellite feed during the "Halifax vs. Vancouver" debate. Strangely enough, the sharp falling-off in social activities that was attributed to the stronger pull of television-viewing spared hockey (and other sports) and at the same time television broadcasts of hockey contributed to more socialising between Inuit and Qablunait.
    Whereas there had been a radical curtailment of activities such as bingo, active participation in scheduled events at the gym or at the arena was still more attractive than any television program except Molson's Hockey Night in Canada, one of CBC's oldest show. The idea of watching hockey was quite new for young Inuit males for whom it meant above all playing; there were always more people on the ice than on the steps. Conversely, in southern Canada hockey was a show, almost a ceremony with its rituals such as music, cheers, hot-dogs and nachos.
    Television, representing sport as something you watch, a spectator experience, brought an increasing polarisation towards the spectator role in sport (a southern feature). Consequently, hockey began to attract more and more supporters and came to be regarded both as a participant activity and as a show you watch just like the NHL (National Hockey League) on Molson's Hockey Night in Canada.
    As a result, local hockey games had become important events, beyond the Inuit-Qablunait cleavage. Outside the arena, there was a shared enthusiasm about local hockey or the NHL, that really promoted communication between the Inuit and the Euro-Canadians. Some studies also suggest that televised hockey helped the Inuit to solve community problems such as juvenile delinquency as the children would watch hockey at home on television or go to the arena rather than hang about the streets with their friends.
    All things considered, television is not a completely antisocial medium. That is why we have to make a distinction between the activity (watching television), an antisocial individualistic experience on the one hand, and on the other hand, the content, that can prove to be federative in a social group (e.g. hockey) but can also be very noxious to ethnic identity, the more so when it has nothing that comes remotely close to one's cultural traditions and is conveyed by another language.

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