Who Owns the Arctic?

The trials of Nunavut: Lament for an Arctic nation

Patrick White, Globe & Mail, April 2, 2011

Crime has doubled in Nunavut since the territory was founded 12 years ago this week, raising a critical question: Is Nunavut a failure of Canadian nation building? And if so, what must be done for history’s scars to heal?

PART I

Inside the dead man's house, Elisapee Qaumagiaq fell silent. She let the walls speak for her.

Someone had plunged his knuckles through the hallway drywall again and again and again, from the kitchen all the way down to the bedrooms. The blood had been washed away, but the tale of murder, outlined in felt-pen evidence markings, swirled beneath Ms. Qaumagiaq's snow boots.

Aboriginal consultations delay tender on key Arctic radar chain

 

Map of the North Warning System. Photograph by: Postmedia News, Canadian Military Journal/Department of Defence

BY ANDREW MAYEDA, POSTMEDIA NEWS JANUARY 13, 2011

OTTAWA — The Harper government has put on hold its search for bidders to operate and maintain the chain of early-warning radars that guards against foreign incursions into Canadian and U.S. airspace in the Far North, Postmedia News has learned.

The North Warning System, a chain of 47 unmanned radars that lines the Arctic coast from Alaska to Labrador, is operated and maintained by Nasittuq Corp. under a 10-year, $624-million contract that ends Sept. 30 this year.

The Inuit prepare to defend their rights

The Economist, March 3, 2011

Ottawa - WHEN in the Arctic, you should at least treat your host well. Royal Dutch Shell, an oil giant, had to learn this the hard way when planning to drill exploration wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska a couple of years ago. The firm had spent $84m on offshore leases and had satisfied regulators. But it failed to win over the Inupiat, an Inuit group. They worried that icebreakers and drill ships would hurt the bowhead whales on which they depend. Their leaders and environmental groups sued American regulators for not following a 1970 law on environmental impacts. This allowed them to wrest a number of concessions from Shell, including a commitment to stop all offshore operations during the bowhead migration and hunt, should drilling ever proceed.

If we are a northern nation, support our northern peoples

Globe and Mail editorial, February 21, 2011

Canada's greatest claim to sovereignty in the North is the presence of the Inuit and other aboriginal peoples who live there.

Inuit to stand together at summit on Arctic resource development

Bob Weber, Canadian Press, Feb. 20, 2011

OTTAWA - Inuit leaders from the circumpolar world are to meet in Ottawa this week to hammer out a common front on the development of Arctic resources including offshore oil.

"We share the same ocean, the same air, the same land," said Edward Itta, mayor of Alaska's North Slope Borough. "We have a lot in common and we're trying to build better bonds and forge them into a strong united effort to get our voices and concerns heard."

Worst TB outbreak in Nunavut’s history a national problem: CMAJ

Bob Weber, Canadian Press, Feb. 14, 2011

Last year's outbreak of tuberculosis in Nunavut, the worst ever since the region became a territory, is a problem for the whole country, not just the North, says an editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

One of the editorial's authors calls the spread of a disease virtually unknown in the south an international embarrassment.

“We are a rich, developed nation that has the resources to solve the problem in Nunavut if we choose to employ them,” says Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, a respirologist at Toronto Western Hospital. “The fact that we have failed to do so, not just once but over a century, should be an embarrassment to every Canadian.”

TB once again stalking the Arctic

Patrick White, Globe and Mail, December 12, 2010

Six decades ago, a malady known as consumption stormed across the Arctic, snuffing hundreds of lives, tearing apart thousands of families, and seeding a deep distrust in a bungling public health-care system.

Now, the pernicious disease written so indelibly upon Inuit history and psychology is making an unwelcome return to the North. This week, Nunavut recorded its 98th case of tuberculosis in 2010, the most logged in the territory’s 11-year history.

Arctic native leaders say they've been left out of summit

Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service, February 15, 2010

Canada's plan to host a five-nation Arctic summit next month is drawing fire from northern aboriginal leaders who say they're being left out of key discussions about the future of their lands and people.

Inuit want say on renaming Northwest Passage

Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service, October 20, 2009

Despite initial indications the planned renaming of the Northwest Passage to the "Canadian Northwest Passage" would have clear sailing through the House of Commons, the idea may be facing rough waters after all.

A major Inuit organization has raised concerns about the proposed symbolic boost to Canada's Arctic sovereignty, arguing any new name should "reflect the history of Inuit use and occupation of the waters in question for thousands of years," Canwest News Service has learned.

Benefits of Inuit role in directing Arctic shipping highlighted

Randy Boswell, Ottawa Citizen, October 2, 2009

The leader of Canada's 50,000 Inuit says the country should strengthen its claims to the disputed Northwest Passage by creating a joint Inuit-federal "authority" to oversee ship traffic in the Arctic sea route.