As the widespread and deep impressions left on the Canadian North by the residential school system come to light, it is also important to continue examining educational policies alongside the experiences of students throughout a range of schooling sites and forms. Such research on Inuit schooling has been insufficient. I argue that more detailed educational histories of the federal and early territorial school systems should feature local and regional variability in imple­mentation of policy and in student experience. Illuminating the inconsistent and multifaceted ways education affected communities in the past, particularly for teachers new to the North, serves to illustrate the ways education in the present necessitates decolonizing.