THE MODERN
NORTH
THE MODERN
NORTH
People, Politics and the Rejection of Colonialism
Kenneth Coates and Judith Powell
James Lorimer & Company, Publishers
Toronto, 1989
To Peter Baskerville, Ian MacPherson, Bill Morrison and Eric Sager:
friends, colleagues, teachers, scholars.
Copyright © 1989 by James Lorimer & Company, Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani-
cal, including photocopying, or by any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publish-
er.
Front cover photos: background, Lac la Martre (Douglas Hol-
mes); top, Rankin Inlet (Douglas Holmes); bottom, Iqaluit
children (Ronnie Heming/Outcrop/Yellowknife). Inside photos:
Government of the Yukon (all photographs of the Yukon); B.
Wilson, Government of the NWT (Maggie Akrajuk); Tessa
Macintosh, Government of the NWT (Lilliam Shamee; Dogrib
Council, Snare Lake; downtown Yellowknife; NWT legislative
assembly; Cape Dorset); Tessa Macintosh, Native Communica-
tions Society (Colville Lake; native home, Fort Rae; Thomas
Berger; dog sleds).
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Coates, Kenneth, 1956-
The modern North
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-55028-122-4 (bound) ISBN 1-55028-120-8 (pbk.)
1. Canada, Northern - Politics and government.
2. Canada - Native races. I. Powell, Judith
II. Title.
FC3963.C631989 971.9 C89-094511-7
F1090.5.C631989
James Lorimer & Company, Publishers
Egerton Ryerson Memorial Building
35 Britain Street
Toronto, Ontario M5A 1R7
6 5 4 3 2 1 89 90 91 92 93 94
Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue: The North in Transition
1 The Land and its People 1
2 The Search for Economic Stability 23
3 Political Cultures: The Reality of Colonial Status 58
4 Northern Service: Bureaucrats and the Territories 81
5 Fighting for Control: Native Politics
and Land Claims 100
6 Northern Culture: Birth and Rebirth 131
Epilogue 155
Sources 160
Index 163
Acknowledgements
O
ne incurs many debts in the process of research, writing
and publishing a book. We take great pleasure in acknow-
ledging the assistance and support of many people. Barbara Kel-
cey helped with the initial stages of the research. One good
friend, Brenda Clark, took a great interest in the project and
provided invaluable advice. W.R. Morrison, as always, was of
great help with the project — from concept to proofreading. His
friendship and scholarship are greatly appreciated. Thanks, too,
to Curtis Fahey, our patient, understanding and supportive
editor. Much credit for the book's logic and presentation proper-
ly belongs to Curtis.
We must also — and enthusiastically — thank our families.
Dennis, Shan and Mark Powell provided unflagging support and
encouragement, and were remarkably understanding of frequent
absences from home. The Coates family have, again, been
tremendous. Cathy's support and enthusiasm remain unbroken.
Bradley, Mark and Laura still wonder why Dad spends so much
time with his word processor. May they one day understand —
and agree the time was well-spent.
Kenneth Coates
Judith Powell
1989
100
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Prologue
The North in Transition
T
he matter seemed simple enough. There was oil and natural
gas on the Alaskan north slope, and similar discoveries were
anticipated in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. The rich deposits were,
of course, hundreds of miles from potential markets in southern
Canada and the United States, but in the OPEC-fired hysteria of
the early 1970s, such physical barriers seemed surmountable.
Canada and the United States were scrambling to secure a supply
of oil. Canadian Arctic Gas Pipeline, a consortium of multi-na-
tionals, announced plans to build a pipeline from the Arctic slope
to the transmission grid in Alberta, promising at the same time
to free North America from its dependence on OPEC oil and to
usher in a new era of development and growth for the Canadian
northwest and Alaska.
The project found many supporters — in the Canadian oil
patch, among central Canadian business people, with the mega-
project oriented Liberal government in Ottawa and with
Canadian and American consumers. But not everyone was
pleased. The proposed pipeline would cross hundreds of miles
of ecologically sensitive territory, and threatened to disrupt the
aboriginal residents' already tenuous harvesting-based lifestyle.
Many northern Canadians, only too familiar with the entrenched
pattern of regional needs being dismissed in the name of "na-
tional interest," were concerned about the lack of consultation
and northern involvement in the project. The loudest protest
xii The Modern North
came from the Native organizations, many of them newly
formed in response to the political and environmental pressures
being imposed on them in the late 1960s. They demanded an
opportunity to examine the proposal and to express their con-
cerns about what was one of the largest commercial enterprises
ever proposed.
Responding to these pressures, the Canadian government an-
nounced the establishment of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline In-
quiry in March 1974. The Trudeau administration selected Mr.
Justice Thomas Berger, an outspoken defender of aboriginal
rights, short-lived leader of the New Democratic Party of British
Columbia and highly regarded human rights advocate, to head
the commission. Neither Ottawa nor the various interest groups
knew quite what Berger had in mind, for the Mackenzie Valley
Pipeline Inquiry quickly distanced itself from the dyspeptic, for-
mal and boring model of most Canadian royal commissions. If
the Trudeau administration hoped for a quick and technical ad-
judication of the Canadian Arctic Gas application, they had pick-
ed the wrong man for the task. Berger's investigation proved to
be passionate, intensive, controversial and wide-ranging.
Through the summer and fall of 1974, Berger and his commis-
sion, accompanied by a brigade of journalists, lawyers, govern-
ment officials, representatives from Native organizations and
"interveners" (the scientists, economists, sociologists and
anthropologists who commented on the potential impact of the
proposed pipeline) travelled across Canada and throughout the
North. This commission spurned hotel conference rooms and the
comfortable surroundings of the city for school gymnasiums in
isolated sub-Arctic and Arctic communities. In village after vil-
lage, Berger listened patiently and attentively, adapting the com-
mission format admirably to suit the very different speaking
style of the Dene people. While he gave full due to the pipeline
promoters and their witnesses — the commission files are laden
with dozens of highly technical reports covering all aspects of
pipeline design, construction and maintenance — it was Berger's
attention to the words and passions of the northern Indians that
caught the attention of the Canadian public.
Prologue xiii
Those were most unusual times. Night after night radio,
television and newspaper reporters described the expedition and
captured the special emotions of the Dene. The journalists recog-
nized the unique circumstances they were witnessing; one of
their number, the CBC's Whit Fraser, went so far as to step
forward as a witness on the Indians' behalf near the end of the
inquiry. The pipeline advocates were angered, both by what they
perceived as the media's bias against their project and the in-
creasingly non-technical tone of the inquiry. They had hoped and
asked for an examination of the economic and technical
feasibility of their project. They had anticipated challenges on
environmental grounds, and had prepared a battery of reports
and witnesses to counter such criticism. They had not, however,
counted on the simple eloquence of Dene speakers, describing
their attachment to the land and the animals, and telling of their
own special relationship with the environment.
The final report, submitted to the Canadian government in
April 1977, became an overnight bestseller, testimony to
Canadians' fascination with the work of Thomas Berger. For
followers of the inquiry, there were few surprises. Berger advo-
cated a postponement of the pipeline project for ten years (and
recommended an examination of the Alaska Highway option
advanced by Foothills Pipeline), urged the government to settle
northern Native land claims and called for measures to protect
the sub-Arctic environment, most notably through the estab-
lishment of a national park or wildlife reserve in the northern
Yukon. Berger had produced a remarkable document, Northern
Frontier, Northern Homeland — although not all readers, to be
sure, were pleased with the recommendations. The federal
government, feeling the heat of public pressure, shelved the
pipeline project.
Much has happened in the years since the Mackenzie Valley
Pipeline Inquiry. Native land claims are on the verge of being
settled. The federal government has negotiated a final settlement
covering the Western Arctic with the Committee for Original
Peoples Entitlement (COPE) and framework agreements with the
Dene/Metis of the Mackenzie River Valley and the Council of
Yukon Indians. On the pipeline front, after the demise of the
xiv The Modern North
Mackenzie Valley project, attention shifted to the Alaska High-
way proposal, backed by Alberta's Bob Blair, and it appeared for
a short time as though construction would actually proceed. But
declining world prices for natural gas undermined the financial
viability of the project and it remains officially on hold. The
northern Yukon national park concept, one of Berger's recom-
mendations that found much public favour, was pushed
through. Meanwhile, in the Beaufort Sea, several promising oil
strikes were made, financed through generous federal govern-
ment subsidies, and development appeared imminent. However,
the Trudeau government's poorly conceived National Energy
Program, a grandiose plan for nationalizing the oil industry and
increasing federal returns from the resource, combined with
declining world oil prices to dampen the enthusiasm. A much
smaller oil pipeline, linking Norman Wells in the Northwest
Territories to the Alberta pipeline system, proceeded in the 1980s,
but with little of the fanfare associated with the earlier proposals.
There is now talk of reviving the Alaska Highway Natural Gas
Pipeline as well as the Mackenzie Valley pipeline.
Although it is somewhat difficult to recall the excitement and
genuine passions of the politics of northern oil and gas develop-
ment in the 1970s, it is clear that the Berger inquiry represented
a watershed for the Canadian North. In the 1960s, after decades
of neglect, Canadians had just begun to pay attention to their
northland. As before, however, they did so with a view to the
benefits flowing to the south—from the perspective of a colonial
power examining the resource wealth of its colonies. The
development of major new mines — Pine Point in the Northwest
Territories and Cyprus-Anvil in the Yukon — confirmed the
national belief in the magnitude of northern riches. Canadians
looked northward with an enthusiasm hardly matched since the
days of the Klondike gold rush, but they did so with careful
attention to their self-interest.
The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry changed this percep-
tion. The clear and unequivocal statements from the northern
Indians registered in the minds of people across the country. This
was truly their homeland, and Berger had provided a forum
through which they could take this simple but fundamental mes-
Prologue xv
sage to the citizens, politicians and businessmen of Canada. It
would no longer do to treat the North as an uninhabited ap-
pendage of the nation-state; Northerners would not stand for it
and, increasingly, neither would many other Canadians.
Since the mid-1970s, the North has been set on a radically
different course. Not all of the changes flow from the Berger
inquiry — development schemes were in place before then,
northern Natives had started to organize a decade earlier and
regional politicians, led by the tight-lipped but influential Erik
Nielsen, had long advocated greater autonomy for the Yukon
and Northwest Territories. In the decade and a half since the
establishment of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, how-
ever, the North has clearly been in transition. Many of the old
forces are still in evidence — control by southern-based corpora-
tions, a lack of interest among national politicians and the vul-
nerabilities of a resource-based economy. But there are also new
influences — the power and determination of Native organiza-
tions, remarkably creative artistic impulses, educational innova-
tion, experimentation with new political models and a search for
economic and cultural stability. The interplay between these for-
ces, new and old, occasionally complementary but often conflict-
ing, forms the subject of this book.
The people, organizations, businesses, civil servants and
politicians are re-creating the Canadian North, attempting to
strike a balance between legitimate national interests in the
region and the economic and social needs of the citizens of the
Yukon and Northwest Territories. The struggles and develop-
ments described herein are very much interconnected. The battle
for economic stability, for example, is conditioned by attempts
to ensure political equality. Similarly, the recent expansion of
northern-based cultural expression reflects important changes in
the social and demographic structure of the Yukon and
Northwest Territories. The thematic approach offered here —
people, economy, territorial politics, bureaucrats, Native
mobilization and northern culture — affords an entree into the
complex pattern of life in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Since confederation, the northern Territories have been Canada's
colonies; now, the North is fighting back, demanding political
xvi The Modern North
equality and the right to develop as its residents see fit. This book
is an account of the decolonization of the Canadian North, a
process that is by no means complete but which will ultimately
affect all Canadians.
The Land and its People
M
ost Canadians have simple — and often simplistic — no-
tions of life in the Canadian North, reducing the vibrant
and diverse human landscape to pictures of solitary Inuit trap-
pers travelling across the snow-covered tundra. The reality is
very different. The region has a complex racial fabric, bringing
together Indians, Inuit, mixed bloods and non-Natives. The com-
munities range from isolated Native villages, built around a har-
vesting existence and government assistance, to ultra-modern
transportable mining camps, staffed by people flown in on rota-
tion. There are also well-supplied, contemporary communities —
Whitehorse and Yellowknife — with conveniences and services
unrivalled in towns their size elsewhere in Canada. Underlying
this diversity is the mobility of the non-Native population and
the striking growth in recent years of the Native communities.
The North has always been the most sparsely populated part
of Canada. Even after the mining boom of the 1960s, the increase
in population was comparatively minor in absolute terms. In
1961, the Northwest Territories had only 23,000 residents; ten
years later, the population had grown to 34,800 and by 1981 the
number had risen to 45,700. The pattern of growth has continued,
and in 1986, the NWT population reached 52,200. The population
of the Yukon Territory also grew over the same period, jumping
from 14,600 in 1961 to 18,400 ten years later and 23,200 in 1981.
The census of 1986 recorded 23,500 residents in the Yukon ter-
2 The Modern North
ritory. While the total number is quite small — only 75,700 in the
territorial North in 1986 — the growth rate is quite impressive.
The population grew over eighty-three percent between 1961 and
1981, over twice the national rate for the period. The pace has
continued since that time, for an additional 6,800 people have
been added to the overall population (a roughly ten percent
increase) between 1981 and 1986.
The population increase has not, however, been spread evenly
across the northland. In fact, a strikingly high percentage of the
territorial population is found in just two cities. Both Whitehorse
and Yellowknife have grown substantially over the past two
decades. Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon, had 11,500 residents
in 1971 and over 18,400 in 1986. The latter figure represents over
two thirds of the Yukon total. Only three of the other sixteen
Yukon communities — Faro, Watson Lake and Dawson City —
currently have more than 1,000 residents.
The urban distribution in the Northwest Territories is more
even, although the capital city does dominate the region. Yel-
lowknife, home to 8,500 in 1971, currently has a population of
11,750, and makes up over twenty percent of the NWT. Unlike
the Yukon, however, the NWT has a series of smaller regional
centres, each serving a sizeable area. Three communities, Iqaluit
(formerly Frobisher Bay), Inuvik and Hay River, each have about
3,000 people. There are, in addition, eight other communities
(Pangnirtung, Baker Lake, Eskimo Point, Rankin Inlet,
Cambridge Bay, Fort Smith, Pine Point, Rae-Edzo) with more
than 1,000 residents. The remaining population is scattered
among another sixty-four communities, many of them isolated
harvesting centres.
The past twenty years have also witnessed a marked increase
in the Native population in the territories. In the Yukon Territory,
the official Native population has grown from 2,400 in 1961 to
4,045 in 1981 (1,500 of whom live in Whitehorse). The Indians
make up approximately twenty percent of the total population,
a minority position established in the last years of the 19th cen-
tury. In contrast to the Yukon, Native groups predominate in the
Northwest Territories; the Inuit make up almost thirty-five per-
The Land and its People 3
cent of the total population, while the Dene account for an addi-
tional twenty-three percent. There is, again in contrast to the
Yukon, also a substantial Metis (or mixed-blood) population,
which is culturally and politically distinct from other aboriginal
groups in the territory. The Inuit form an absolute majority in the
eastern Arctic, while the Dene and Metis constitute a substantial
minority in the western Northwest Territories.
The North is also a young region. Few people, except for the
Natives, retire in the area; conversely, the pervasiveness of the
frontier myth ensures a steady northward migration of young
non-Native people looking for work and adventure. The youth-
fulness of the Native communities originates in a very high birth
rate (albeit one which has been dropping over the past decade,
from 35.7 per thousand in 1971 to 27.3 per thousand in 1981 in
the NWT) and declining infant mortality.
The Yukon and Northwest Territories are, therefore, sig-
nificantly different from the rest of the country. Many people live
in government regional centres, but large numbers are scattered
across the huge northern land mass, sustaining the small, har-
vesting villages. Native people make up a significant portion of
the total population, particularly in the Northwest Territories.
Much of the North, however, remains unsettled — and parts of
the region are clearly uninhabitable. The people — Native, Metis
and non-Native, rural and urban, government employees,
miners and trappers — have found different ways of adapting
to their northern location and have, in the process, created a
unique human landscape in the Canadian North.
Living Spaces: The Yukon Territory
There is, of course, no single northern lifestyle, nor a single
prototype of the appropriate northern community. The settle-
ments of the Yukon Territory, as in the NWT, reflect their history,
the level of government investment, their economic function and
ethnic mix. The communities range from modern, well-serviced
government centres to isolated, poorly developed Native villages
and also include a diverse mix of highway towns and mining
camps. In the Yukon Territory, there is also a striking social and
4 The Modern North
economic gap between Whitehorse, the capital since 1953, and
the other communities.
Beginning in the Second World War, when the construction of
the Alaska Highway resulted in the rapid expansion of
Whitehorse, the community has dominated life in the territory.
Home to over two-thirds of the Yukon population, Whitehorse
is a modern, cosmopolitan and diverse community. There are a
few remaining signs of the city's origins as a company town of
the White Pass and Yukon Route, particularly as weeds and
shrubs continue to encroach on the abandoned rail-line that gave
the community its life during the Klondike gold rush.
Whitehorse has facilities and services that one would not ex-
pect in a community twice its size. Generous grants from the
territorial and federal governments have permitted the construc-
tion of impressive facilities, most noticeably the Territorial
Government Building, a large, modern hospital, an impressive
Justice building, a new skating rink, the North's best cross-
country skiing facility and the recently opened Yukon College
campus. Comparatively secure government jobs have ensured
Whitehorse a full measure of prosperity, although the com-
munity suffered through a major recession in the aftermath of
the collapse of the Alaska Highway pipeline project and during
the downturn in the mining economy in the early 1980s.
There is, however, life beyond Whitehorse. Dawson City, ser-
vice centre for the Klondike gold fields, is a particularly interest-
ing community. The town had all but died by the mid-1960s,
struggling in vain to find a replacement for the massive gold
dredges that had kept the community alive since the turn of the
century. The closure of the Yukon Consolidated Gold
Corporation's operations in 1966 represented a potentially fatal
blow. Local boosters sought alternatives, particularly through
the exploitation of the city's Klondike heritage. This effort was
aided substantially by Pierre Baton's phenomenally popular
books on the Klondike gold rush.
The city's appeal for help came at precisely the right moment,
for the federal government agreed to develop the Dawson area
as a National Historic Site, ensuring a large number of seasonal
jobs and a major tourist attraction. Dawson City was aided fur-
The Land and its People 5
ther by the surge in gold prices in the mid-1970s. The tailings left
behind by the now-abandoned gold dredges, not completely
stripped of their wealth due to inefficient technology, attracted
renewed interest. Dozens of miners returned to the creeks. Once
on the verge of becoming a ghost town, Dawson had been resur-
rected.
The community has since grown significantly, from 920 in
1971 to 1,552 in 1986. The population figures are deceptive, how-
ever. Many companies, including the mining operations and
several of the hotels and restaurants, operate only during the
summer months, when available water supplies permit
hydraulic operations and the tourists are in town. Large numbers
of young people come north every year to work at the various
tourist attractions, including Bear Creek, Diamond Tooth
Gertie's and the Gaslight Follies. Dawson continues to follow the
seasonal rhythms that have so long dominated northern society;
there is a considerable difference between the boisterous, active
community of the summer months and the more subdued settle-
ment of the winter.
The seasonal rhythms of Dawson City are duplicated in the
Territory's highway communities, most of which came into being
following the construction of the Alaska Highway during World
War II. The wartime maintenance yards have long since been
shut down, but several communities — Watson Lake, Teslin,
Haines Junction, Burwash Landing and Beaver Creek — owe
much of their existence to the highway. In the 1950s, the federal
and territorial governments built schools and other facilities near
the major maintenance yards and encouraged the Native people
to move from their bush camps to the new settlements (several
of which were located on the site of seasonal Indian camps). The
Natives eventually moved into the communities, although often
with considerable reluctance.
The highway communities developed around road-related
services, including gas stations, small hotels and restaurants, tiny
residential Native reserves, and a few government facilities, in-
cluding Royal Canadian Mounted Police stations, territorial
government highway maintenance shops and schools. The towns
have remained very small, although the Native portion of their
6 The Modern North
population has increased over time. Like Dawson, they are tied
into the seasonal patterns of tourist traffic along the Alaska High-
way.
The Yukon's mining communities are not tied to seasonal
cycles in the same fashion, although the insecurity of world metal
prices provides a different form of instability. The mining boom
in the late 1960s led to the establishment of several major mining
camps. Faro, base for the Cyprus-Anvil mine, was burned to the
ground in 1968 — even before the first residents had moved in
—but it was quickly rebuilt and occupied. Clinton Creek, located
northwest of Dawson City, had opened in 1968, following the
opening of the Cassiar Asbestos Company's mine. In an era of
favourable union contracts and buoyant corporate coffers, the
mining companies constructed modern communities, with com-
plete amenities, for their workers and their families.
Faro, built around a central service core which included stores,
a hotel and bar and a recreation complex, was the largest. In the
early 1970s, more than 1800 people lived in the community,
making it the Territory's second largest. As a mining camp, it
attracted a large number of young men, had a very high turnover
in population and suffered through the social difficulties of drug
and alcohol use endemic in isolated mining camps. There was,
however, a growing core of people who were interested in put-
ting down roots in the town, and by the late 1970s the community
was taking on a more settled air, boasting a population of more
than 2,000. But then came disaster — the closure of the mine in
1982. By 1985, the town had only 322 residents. A revival of sorts
occurred when Curraugh Resources reopened the mine on a
reduced basis in 1986, but the community remained a shadow of
its former self.
If fate was unkind to Faro, Clinton Creek faced an even more
severe end. While the asbestos mine operated, the community
looked much like Faro, enjoying new homes, a school, recreation
facilities and the other services expected of a contemporary
northern settlement. But in 1978, ten years after the mine's open-
ing, it had all disappeared. The mine was closed down and the
mill and other facilities dismantled. Today, Clinton Creek con-
sists of little more than mine wastage and abandoned home sites.
The Land and its People 7
At the opposite extreme from the planned, corporate-
dominated communities of Faro and Clinton Creek are the Na-
tive villages. Although there has been a noticeable shift in Native
population — especially young people — towards Whitehorse,
many Native people remain in small, isolated Indian settlements.
Old Crow, with a population of less than 300, is the most famous
of these villages, immortalized in Edith Josie's widely syndicated
newspaper column "Here Are the News/' The community is
located more than 190 kilometers north of the Arctic circle and
is not accessible by road. For many years, Old Crow had few
amenities beyond a nursing station, a police detachment and a
school, and only recently has an effort been made to modernize
housing and community services. An impressive community
centre and a small subdivision of new houses have changed the
external character of the community considerably. Yet this is,
like Ross River further south, still a harvesting community, based
particularly on the muskrat hunt in the Old Crow Flats and the
harvesting of the Porcupine River caribou herd. Old Crow is,
furthermore, a community determined to maintain its attach-
ment to the land and has resisted attempts to modernize too
quickly.
These community profiles indicate something of the com-
plexity of settlement in the Yukon Territory. There is, of course,
more to the Territory. Summer cabins, a few adapted for year-
round use, line the shores of Marsh and Tagish Lakes, near
Whitehorse. Keno and Elsa, located near the rich silver-lead
deposits mined by United Keno Hill Mines, reveal the nature of
pre-1960s rnining camps, and show little evidence of the hand of
a town planner. There are also indications that mining companies
will resist the temptation to build full communities in the future;
plans for mineral development in the Macmillan Pass region call
for the use of fly-in camps for the workers, limiting both the
start-up costs for the mine and the nature of the company's
commitment to the region. The Yukon is diverse, geographically,
ethnically and economically, and the Territory's many and
varied communities provide an excellent reflection of that fact.
8 The Modern North
Living Spaces: The Northwest Territories
The settlement pattern of the Northwest Territories, while dif-
fering from that of the Yukon, also reveals the cultural and
economic diversity of the North. Many of the NWT communities
are comparatively new, creations of the post-war era, when
government intervention and the removal of the Inuit and the
Indians from the land occurred. There are many more settle-
ments in the NWT than in the Yukon, befitting the Territory's
larger size, greater cultural variety and widely scattered resour-
ces.
Yellowknife dominates the Territory, although not to the same
degree as Whitehorse. Founded in 1934 following the discovery
of gold on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, Yellowknife
escaped from its company-town origins with its transformation
into the territorial capital in 1967. The combination of local min-
ing, regional transportation and administrative functions has en-
sured the community a major role in all aspects of the territorial
economy. Although Yellowknife is smaller than Whitehorse
(11,753 people in 1986), it shares many of the same characteristics:
a full range of government offices, a solid base of well-paid civil
servants, excellent transportation access to the "outside" and
surprisingly good cultural and recreational facilities, topped by
the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. And as in
Whitehorse, Native people have historically been shunted to the
least attractive part of town.
The massive size and the different political realities of the
Northwest Territories have dictated considerable decentraliza-
tion of political and administrative affairs. As a consequence, a
series of regional centres have emerged, offering health, policing,
educational and other services within their particular ad-
ministrative hinterlands. Most of these communities originally
developed for other reasons, and have had the administrative
function appended since the early 1970s. Iqaluit (formerly
Frobisher Bay), built at a traditional Inuit harvesting site,
developed around a United States military base constructed
during the Second World War. The base, and associated services,
provided opportunities for wage incomes for the Inuit, who left
The Land and its People 9
their hunting camps to find work. Closer to Montreal than to
Yellowknife, Iqaluit is the administrative base for Baffin Island.
Rankin Inlet, in contrast, originated with the establishment of the
North Rankin Nickel Mine, which operated from 1955 to 1962.
Rankin Inlet also became a focal point for the federal
government's relocation of Inuit families from hunting camps in
the interior. With the closure of the mine, government-funded
activities became the basis of the community's economy. More
recently, the combination of resource-based activities and the
establishment of the administrative offices for the Keewatin Dis-
trict in Ranklin Inlet have provided a more stable foundation for
the community of some 1,400 people.
The other regional centres followed different paths to their
current status. Though the Inuit had frequented the site of
Cambridge Bay for hundreds of years, a permanent community
did not take shape until the 1950s, when the construction of a
Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line station attracted Inuit inter-
ested in wage labour. Federal government services followed, and
Cambridge Bay began to attract many Inuit from the surround-
ing area. In 1981, the community was named as the base for the
Kitikmeot Administrative Region. Inuvik, regional centre for the
Western Arctic, is a different community entirely. It was the first
planned community in the North, developed by the federal
government in the mid-1950s in response to problems with the
townsite in Aklavik. The government built homes, schools, ad-
ministrative offices, a police station and other buildings
(elevated, to avoid problems with the permafrost), all linked
together by a unique "utilidor" (above ground and covered
utility corridors) system. Since the 1960s, the town's economy has
followed the boom and bust cycles of oil exploration in the
Beaufort Sea.
The experiences of Iqaluit, Cambridge Bay and Inuvik mirror
those of most of the Arctic slope communities. Because of
government indifference to the Arctic and the continuation of
Native harvesting, the Inuit remained on the land until the late
1950s (and in some areas, for a decade longer), although some
were attracted to settlements such as Hall Beach and Tuktoyak-
tuk by the prospect of wage employment at DEW Line stations.
10 The Modern North
The situation changed rapidly in the late 1950s. Environmental
catastrophes, leading to widespread hunger and starvation, cap-
tured Ottawa's attention. The Inuit were relocated into newly
built coastal communities, where they relied on the security of
welfare payments, pensions, family allowances and other secure
government transfer payments yet continued to harvest the
land's resources. Some of the relocations were substantial;
families were moved from Port Harrison and Pond Inlet to Grise
Fiord, on Ellesmere Island, an area not previously inhabited by
the Inuit. This was but one of the forced migrations of Inuit from
traditional settlements to new, government created communities.
From the 1950s to the late 1960s, the migration from the land
continued, until virtually all the Inuit had moved, at least for
most of the year, into the new communities. These villages look
much alike, a small number of government-built homes clustered
together on a treeless shore, with a few larger government build-
ings, communications devices and cluttered beaches. The pain
and trauma of these dislocations took their toll on harvesters
separated from familiar territories. The process is now reversing
itself; a number of the inhabitants of Grise Fiord, for example,
have decided to return to their traditional homes, threatening the
future of the Ellesmere Island community.
Not all Arctic communities are of such recent origin, although
many of the others have their roots in non-Native activities.
Pangnirtung, on the east coast of Baffin Island, began as a
Hudson's Bay Company trading post in the 1920s. Other whites,
including the police and missionaries, gathered at the site; the
government opened a medical station on the site in 1927. The
availability of services and opportunities for trade drew the Inuit
into the community, although the major growth came after the
1950s. To the west, Inuit were attracted to Banks Island by the
high prices paid for silver fox in the 1920s. The community of
Sachs Harbour started in that decade, and gradually became the
focal point for settlement on the island. The contemporary com-
munity of Holman, on Victoria Island, similarly had its roots in
the fur trade of the 1920s, as did Gjoa Haven on King William
Island, Arctic Bay and Repulse Bay. The Inuit did not, however,
The Land and its People 11
move into these settlements on a full-time basis until the 1950s
and 1960s.
The communities in the southern Mackenzie River region, not
surprisingly, have a very different history from the settlements
on the Arctic slope. Fort Smith, another of the NWT regional
centres, began as a fur trade post in the 1870s. Because of its
relative proximity to southern centres—the community is on the
60th parallel — Fort Smith became the early administrative
centre for the Northwest Territories. The settlement lost its
primary role in territorial government in 1967, when Yellowknife
was named the capital, but still has a population of 2,460 people,
making it one of the largest settlements in the NWT.
Fort Smith's history parallels that of many of the Mackenzie
River communities. Villages such as Fort Providence, Fort
Resolution, Fort Simpson, Fort Liard, Fort Norman, Fort Good
Hope and Fort McPherson began as fur trading posts, founded
either by the North West Company or, after 1821, by the
Hudson's Bay Company. The Dene surrounding these com-
munities, which were also the site of mission churches, continued
to hunt, trap and fish through much of the twentieth century,
aided at times by the HBC or government relief. In the 1950s and
1960s, the combined pressures of a declining returns from har-
vesting and the first stages of the modern welfare state brought
the Dene out of the bush camps and into more permanent
residence in the villages. These communities remain primarily
aboriginal — Fort McPherson and Fort Good Hope are ninety
percent Dene and Metis, Fort Franklin, ninety-five percent; the
non-Natives tend to be police officers, missionaries or govern-
ment officials, particularly teachers.
The Northwest Territories also has a number of company
towns, built around rich mineral deposits. Rankin Inlet started
in this way, but quickly became a government centre with the
exhaustion of the resource. Pine Point was a planned community,
designed to provide amenities and services to compensate for the
town's isolation. The apparent stability of this mining town
ended with the closure of Pine Point in 1987.
The Nanisivik lead-zinc mine, on Baffin Island, provides the
economic base for a community very different than Pine Point.
12 The Modem North
Established in 1974 by Mineral Resources International, the com-
munity consists of Inuit employees (and their families) and
southern workers, who fly in on rotation. The mine itself is some-
thing of an engineering marvel, for numerous technological
adaptations were required to enable mineral production at this
northern latitude. As mineral production winds down, Nanisivik
has been suggested as a base for an Arctic military training site.
Finally, there is the Polaris mine, located on Little Cornwallis
Island. The mill was shipped into the North by boat and can be
removed when the deposit is exhausted or becomes unprofitable.
The mining camp is self-contained and temporary; miners are
flown in and out on a regular basis.
These, then, are the communities of the Canadian North. They
cover a wide socio-economic and ethnic spectrum, revealing the
very different human adaptations to life in the Canadian North
and illustrating the lingering impact of the major historical pat-
terns — fur trade, mineral development and government inter-
vention — on the region's settlement. The hamlets, villages,
towns and cities, however, provide only the framework within
which northern Canadians live. Within these physical spaces, the
Dene, Inuit, Metis and non-Native residents have addressed the
realities of life in the North and have developed distinctive
strategies to suit their human and natural surroundings.
Native People
The continuity in northern settlements is provided by the Native
people. While non-Natives come and go with regularity, the
Native people tend to stay put, although they are not as tied to
their home communities as they were in years past. Increasing
numbers have left for university, gone to the territorial capitals
to take up political or administrative positions or moved per-
manently to the south. Many of those who stay in the North
continue to hunt and trap, but not in the same fashion as their
ancestors. Over the past forty years, their society has been
threatened by a series of difficult and painful transitions. The
government-induced move into the settlements, undertaken
during the 1950s and 1960s, altered the Natives' nomadic habits
The Land and its People 13
and transformed their relationship with the land. The villages,
with their uniform houses, mediocre services and limited job
prospects, offered a stark and unfriendly contrast to the tradi-
tional bush camp, but economic and family considerations made
it difficult for the Natives to resist the government pressure.
The Whitehorse Indian reserve, now called Kwanlin Dun, il-
lustrates the difficulties, and contemporary promise, of the
Natives' migration into the communities. Established in the early
1900s, the reserve was moved several times to accommodate the
expansion of white settlement. In the post-war era, the reserve
expanded north of the city, separated from the rest of Whitehorse
by an industrial area. Poorly constructed houses, built with in-
adequate water, sewage and heating systems (most heating was
provided by wood-stoves) and. limited community services con-
tributed to an unattractive and unhealthy environment. Because
the settlement was set off from the rest of the community, how-
ever, few non-Natives supported the Indians' requests for im-
provements.
As the Yukon Indians organized politically through the 1970s,
noticeable improvements emerged. A small community hall, on-
site social services, and eventually a reserve-based police force
added appreciably to the quality of life. The Indians, however,
were anxious to move the reserve away from what was clearly
the least desirable piece of residential real estate in the city. After
many months of difficult negotiations, and not without a little
anger among the non-Native population, the Indians were relo-
cated to new houses constructed by the band in a subdivision
overlooking the city, a residential project initially undertaken to
provide room for expansion during the construction of the Alas-
ka Highway pipeline. The new reserve, still under construction,
provides graphic evidence of how far the Indians have moved,
socially and politically, over the past fifteen years.
A similar modernization is underway in most Native villages,
as community centres, administrative/band offices and recrea-
tional facilities are constructed, housing is improved or replaced,
and services are brought closer to general Canadian standards.
In many centres, however, the ubiquitous northern log cabin
remains an important part of the residential landscape, indicat-
14 The Modern North
ing that the improvement of Native living conditions still has a
considerable way to go.
But the evolution of the contemporary North, with its promis-
ing political signs for the Native people, masks some stark and
very real social problems. The transition from harvesting camp
and nomadism to a more sedentary lifestyle was not made
without significant social repercussions. The sum of those effects
is just now becoming evident; the means of dealing with them
remain sadly elusive.
Most Native people have not made a full adaptation to the
wage economy. The major projects employ few Indians or Inuit,
and then usually only when dictated by government regulation.
There have been exceptions. A relatively small number of Yukon
Indians found work along the Alaska Highway during and after
World War II, Inuit across the Arctic accepted construction or
maintenance jobs in the DEW Line stations, and the Natives near
Ranklin Inlet relocated to be near the mines. In contrast, few
Indians ever worked at the Cyprus-Anvil mine, despite the
company's promise to seek out Native employees. Cominco's
Pine Point operation similarly made few such overtures.
Since the 1960s, the federal government has made numerous
attempts to address this problem. Several, like the encourage-
ment of Inuit artists and the establishment of Arctic cooperatives
(artistic, commercial, housing and others), have enjoyed consid-
erable success. However, the federal government has been more
preoccupied with imposing an entrepreneurial model on the
northern Natives and has offered generous subsidies for in-
dividual enterprises — through such programs as the Indian
Economic Development Fund, Special ARDA grants and the
more recent Economic Development Agreements with the ter-
ritorial governments. These administratively top-heavy
programs — the forms and procedures are needlessly complex
— include a few success stories, like the Champagne-Aishihik
band's construction company, and a much longer list of failures.
The difficulty, one for which no answer is readily apparent, is
that there are very few realistic commercial prospects in most
northern communities, and those that exist have, in the main,
already been filled.
The Land and its People 15
Despite these initiatives, unemployment remains endemic
among Natives in the Canadian North. Native people often lack
the technical skills necessary for industrial labour and still face
discriminatory hiring practices in their attempts to find work.
The wage gap between Natives and non-Natives indicates some-
thing of the problem. To use the Yukon as an example, in 1980
the average family income for Native people was slightly more
than $21,000 (single-parent Native families earned an average of
less than $11,000 per year). Yukon families taken as a whole
received almost $31,000 per household. There is another trend
worth noting: a sizeable number, over one quarter, of Native
families earn more than $30,000 (compared to non-Native
families). This group of professionals, managers and business
people is increasingly separated from the much larger group —
over forty-five percent — receiving under $15,000 per year. Na-
tive people do not, in general, earn as much as non-Native North-
erners, although those with university degrees and advanced
training find opportunities on par with non-Natives in the North.
Wage figures, however, do not include the Indians' country
harvests of food and other supplies (especially hides). According
to recent studies of Ross River and Teslin in the Yukon Territory,
the Indians provide a substantial portion of their yearly food
requirements through hunting and fishing, thus reducing their
need for a high income.
The development of northern political organizations, affirm-
ative action programs in the civil service and the steadily grow-
ing number of Indians and Inuit with advanced education have
resulted in a sharp distinction within the Native communities.
Those with training and the ability to move freely within the
regional economy have little difficulty finding work and securing
an above-average income. Most other Natives, lacking the skills
and options, earn considerably less than the regional average and
make up the majority of the unemployed.
The high unemployment rates are a cause of considerable
despair among the northern Native population, for these both
reflect and cause an ever-widening circle of social problems that
affect the northern communities. Alcohol abuse is endemic
across the North and continues despite strong community efforts
16 The Modern North
to control consumption and availability. The widespread abuse
of alcohol, not surprisingly, contributes to a distressing rate of
fetal alcohol syndrome among infant children (eighty-four
children were born in the Yukon in 1984 with this illness), spouse
abuse, and alcohol-related criminal offences (the majority of
charges against Native people involve alcohol). The problems
filter throughout the communities; teenage suicide is of crisis
proportions, as it is on many Native reserves across the country.
The Natives are resisting this despoliation of their human capital,
and have established self-help associations and community in-
tervention programs, increasingly staffed by Native people, in
response.
For the Indians and Inuit of the Canadian North, the difficulty
lies in coming to grips with a changing world. Between the 1940s
and the 1980s, the landscape has been transformed, communica-
tions and travel have improved tremendously and the influence
of government officials has grown by leaps and bounds. The
introduction of television has carried non-Native role models
into the North and permanently altered the world view of all
Native peoples. While struggling to gain recognition of their
rights, the Indians and Inuit face the social and cultural problems
of sustaining a way of life that is under attack, from within as
well as from without. Those who have grown up as an ad-
ministered people, born and raised in the years since World War
H, have been removed far from the world of their parents and
ancestors.
Non-Natives
The non-Native population of the Territories face very different
challenges. Since the early days of the fur trade, non-Natives
have, as a group, demonstrated little commitment to the North.
Attracted by the prospects of resource riches or, more recently,
high-paying jobs, they seized the opportunity to move north.
Most often, the move has been temporary. This pattern,
entrenched in the years following the Klondike gold rush, has
plagued northern society since that time, interfering with efforts
to stabilize and create social cohesion in the region.
The Land and its People 17
There is no disputing the magnitude of the problem. As one
analyst observed, the transiency of non-Natives in the Arctic is
endemic: "About eighty percent of non-transient non-natives are
prepared for no more than a few years stay in the Arctic. Some
leave after building up a nest egg of cash; others, especially
government employees, are transferred or promoted out of com-
munities." Workers in the Beaufort Sea and at the Nanisivik and
Polaris mines represent northern mobility at its most extreme.
From the beginning of these projects, the people have been flown
in and out on rotation, spending from three to six weeks in the
North, usually within the confines of a company camp, and then
given a furlough of equal length in the south. While technically
they are northern workers, these highly paid individuals have
had only a marginal impact on northern society and have
returned very little to the region.
The scale of this migration is easily documented. In 1941, Na-
tive people born in the Yukon and Northwest Territories made
up over half of the total population; non-Natives born in the
Territories constituted only seven percent of the total. In 1971,
the situation was reversed. Over forty-five percent of the total
territorial population consisted of non-Natives born outside the
Yukon or NWT; fifteen percent of the people were non-Natives
born in the region. The Native population, in contrast, had fallen
to slightly more than one-third of the total. One study of the
western Arctic concluded, "The natives risk becoming a minority
in what is essentially a rotating non-Native population." An ob-
server of the mining work force in the Yukon Territory com-
mented in 1976, "The men who come to work in the Yukon's
mines are from southern Canada, the USA and overseas...the
typical plan is to remain a year or eighteen months, work hard,
save five to ten thousand dollars."
The reasons for the northward migrations are fairly obvious:
career advancement, the opportunity to find work and the
promise of high salaries. The average salaries in the Yukon, sup-
plemented in many cases by northern allowances, isolation pay
and other incentives, averaged over forty percent above the na-
tional earnings through the 1970s to 1981. Wages were less at-
tractive in the Northwest Territories, remaining only
18 The Modern North
twenty-three percent above the national average until the early
1980s, when they began to come closer to the Yukon salaries. The
gap has narrowed significantly in the past five years; in 1983, the
average Yukon wage was only fifteen percent above the national
mean and has remained at the level through to 1986. The NWT
has, in contrast, retained its comparative advantage. In December
1986, the average weekly earnings of a NWT employee were
$650; the national average was $439 and the Yukon $510. There
are, of course, other financial compensations, including Northern
Allowances and other special benefits for northern residents.
But high wages have not been enough to keep workers in
place. There are many reasons for the rapid departure of migrant
labour: the cold climate, isolation, distance from southern
amenities and the limits on professional advancement. The fact
that mining, the cornerstone of the northern economy, is noted
for the transiency of its workforce is another factor. A 1972 study,
for example, identified a forty percent turnover of the mining
labour force in the Yukon and NWT. That figure ranked behind
those for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, and was
close to the Ontario average. Given the nature of the northern
economy and the difficulties that Northerners have encountered
in acquiring technical skills locally, a certain amount of transien-
cy appears to be built in.
Further, the continuity in northern employment is less than
optimal. Many companies shut down operations for the winter;
there are few jobs available to absorb the seasonally surplus
workers, forcing them to look outside for jobs. On a larger scale,
the opening and closing of the major mines can bring abrupt
shifts in in-migration or out-migration. As the Canadian Annual
Review noted in 1979, "The economy continued in the doldrums.
The number of people moving out of the territories during the
year exceeded the number moving in by over thirteen hundred,
and out-migration is always an indication of a stagnant
economy."
Instability is the inevitable result of this constant turnover. In
1982, the NWT lost almost 3,300 people through out-migration,
but attracted 3,900 new residents. Four years later, the trend had
reversed, with over 5,100 people leaving and less than 3,300
The Land and its People 19
arriving, for a net loss greater than 1,800. The pattern is similar
in the Yukon Territory. In 1978, over 2,800 people left the Yukon;
2,653 entered the territory. The migratory loss peaked in 1982,
when 1,200 more people left the Yukon than arrived. The trend
has been reversed once again of late; in 1986, the Territory
recorded a net population gain through migration of over 600
people.
Transiency among the non-Native population is nothing new;
it does, however, reflect the continuing southward orientation of
many Northerners. Raised and educated in the south, and with
their families typically living hundreds of miles away, it is in-
evitable that most non-Native Northerners continue to view then-
world from a southern perspective. The ramifications of this,
however, run deeply through the northern society. Many
employers, for example, provide employees and their families
with an annual trip to southern Canada, a necessary inducement
to potential employees but a benefit unavailable in most other
parts of Canada.
Civil servants and company officials are not alone in seeking
to escape — if only temporarily — from the North. This is, in
large measure, a function of the northern climate, particularly the
long and often bitterly cold winter, and of the limited commercial
and recreational options available in the North. Regional airlines,
including the pre-merger Canadian Pacific and Pacific Western
(in one of its advertisements it called itself the "northern dream
airline")/ enthusiastically promote travel packages to more
gentler climates. In the Northwest Territories, and particularly in
Yellowknife, the West Edmonton Mall, Canada's temple to con-
sumerism, is an especially popular attraction. Regional busi-
nesses have long been distressed by this practice, and are fighting
back. A September 1980 advertisement in the News of the North
included a patriotic appeal:
Why waste holiday time on needless shopping? Usual-
ly you can find what you want right here in Yel-
lowknife for the same price or so little more it doesn't
pay to carry it up. And when you support local busi-
ness you are helping to pay your neighbour's salary.
20 The Moder n Nort h
Think about it. When last did you see a Southern
retailer supporting local sports or cultural activities
like most local retailers do? We've got to work together
to build a strong community.
And then there is Hawaii for those in the west, and the Caribbean
for residents of the Eastern Arctic. The tropical islands — in the
winter months, the antithesis of the Canadian North — have long
held a grip on the northern imagination. Each December and
January a full-scale, if short-lived, migration takes place. Almost
every winter issue of the News/North, Whitehorse Star, Yukon News
or Iqaliufs bilingual Nunatsiaq News contains several advertise-
ments for condominium rentals on southern islands, holiday
excursions and packaged trips. To many, the obligatory annual
holiday in warmer climates is an essential preventative measure
in forestalling "cabin fever" and providing a break from a long,
intense, dark and colourless winter. In this, of course, northern
Canadians are little different from many other Canadians —
particularly on the prairies — who similarly view winter as an
endurance test. Northerners, however, pay considerably more
for the luxury of southern travel.
If the cost of leaving is high, so is the cost of staying. While
much is often made of the generous salaries and benefits offered
to northern residents, particularly non-Natives, little attention is
paid to the substantial differential between the costs of living in
the North and in southern cities. Between 1977 and 1986, it cost
between fifteen and twenty percent more to live in Whitehorse
than Edmonton, and between ten and twenty percent more than
Vancouver. Consumers in Yellowknife in 1983 paid from fifteen
to thirty percent more for supplies than their counterparts in
Edmonton. In both cases, the differential for food, particularly
fresh produce, was and is much higher.
While there is a substantial gap between southern centres and
the territorial capitals, there is also a wide difference within the
two Territories. The highest prices in the Yukon are found in Old
Crow, which is accessible only by air, and in small highway
communities like Carmacks, Ross River and Burwash Landing.
The variation is even greater in the Northwest Territories. Con-
The Land and its People 21
sumer prices in Spence Bay, for instance, are from 120 to 130
percent higher than in Edmonton; the residents of Pelly Bay,
which cannot be reached by barge, pay from 130 to 140 percent
more than consumers in Edmonton. The range is not always so
extreme. Pine Point is only fifteen to thirty percent higher than
Edmonton; isolated Grise Fiord from ninety to 100 percent higher
than Montreal. Inuvik prices are from forty to fifty percent higher
than Edmonton. Most communities in the Northwest Territories
receive the bulk of their supplies by barge, with perishables
imported by air. The much greater road network in the Yukon
permits the routine supplying of the communities by truck, keep-
ing prices down and greatly improving the prospects for resupp-
lv.
Native and Non-Natives in the Modern North
This description of the northern life has deliberately emphasized
the differences between Natives and non-Natives. Historically,
the two groups have lived and worked separately; only a few
non-Natives, including missionaries, police officers, fur traders
and government officials worked regularly with Native people.
This was particularly true for Whitehorse, Dawson City, the
Keno-Elsa area and in Yellowknife, where substantial non-Na-
tive settlements evolved. It was also true later, in the modern
mining camps at Pine Point, Faro and Clinton Creek, where few
Native people found work.
The historical relationship between Natives and non-Natives
offered little cause for optimism in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Many non-Natives, having had little direct contact with Indian
peoples, held onto old and dated stereotypes of the Natives and
found enough evidence in the North to confirm their impres-
sions. The politicization and radicalization of the Native people
did little to ease the tensions between Natives and non-Natives,
and in fact added new concerns. The situation was more
favourable in the Northwest Territories than in the Yukon. In the
Territories, the existence of a Native majority made it important
for non-Natives to seek a reasonable accommodation. In the
Yukon, where the non-Natives dominated the Territory — par-
22 The Modern North
ticularly Whitehorse — the need for an accommodation did not
seem as pressing.
Given this heritage of distrust and animosity, it is not surpris-
ing that tensions and fears persist. Perhaps the greatest change
of the past twenty years has been the closing of the cultural and
ethnic gap. The sincerity and legitimacy of northern Native land
claims has found a reasonably sympathetic audience in the non-
Native community — although many exceptions remain. As the
Natives move closer to the general Canadian norms of dress,
language, expectations and cultural baggage, the social gap be-
tween Natives and non-Natives also closes.
It is far too early to suggest that the transition is complete, that
the Yukon and Northwest Territories are developing as bicul-
tural social environments where racial and cultural differences
are readily accepted. The political and legal battles of the last
twenty years have, however, created a very different North. The
vestiges of the old order remain, in economic sectors still closed
to Native people, in communities where Natives and whites have
not been fully integrated and in the still evident stereotypes held
of Native people. Yet the transient non-Natives of the new North,
emerging out of a different education system and a different
social climate than those who came north in the 1940s, 1950s and
1960s, tend to be more sympathetic to aboriginal aspirations than
were their predecessors. In this increasing openness to Native
ambitions and expectations lies the foundation for a more lasting
accommodation between Natives and non-Natives in the
Canadian North.
The people of the Yukon and Northwest Territories are a cul-
turally and socially diverse lot. While the changes and turmoil
of the postwar world have brought many problems, faced
primarily by the Native people, they have also resulted in rapid
advances in the northern standard of living, although most of
those gains have fallen to the non-Natives. A social and
demographic transformation has clearly taken place over the last
twenty years in the Canadian North.
The Search for Economic
Stability
I
n 1974, as the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry began, the
economic debate seemed very basic. The Arctic Gas consor-
tium wanted to build a natural gas pipeline down the Mackenzie
Valley, offering in the process to create hundreds of jobs in
manufacturing, production and construction. Initially, public
concerns about the pipeline appeared restricted to matters of the
environment and the technology of northern construction. Very
quickly, however, the debate shifted and more fundamental
questions emerged: who owned the northern resources and how
should they be used?
The issue was not a constitutional one, for the federal govern-
ment retained control of Yukon and Northwest Territories'
resources. Rather, the argument was over the use of non-renew-
able resources and the age-old problem of the instability of the
northern economy. Pipeline proponents pointed to the prospects
for job creation and further oil and gas exploration in the North;
critics, all too familiar with the region's boom and bust economy,
wondered whether the North, and particularly Native people,
would get enough out of the proposed developments. The debate
sparked by the pipeline inquiry was overdue, for northern
developers had traditionally opted for short-term returns,
24 The Modern North
paying little attention to the long-term needs of the region and
its people.
In the early 1970s, the prospects for a bust seemed remote. In
the preceding decade, the northern economy had been develop-
ing quickly, based on a resurgent mining sector, expanding
government spending and a growing tourism industry. But in
the midst of the boom, there had been warning signs, most of
which passed unheeded. The passage of time would prove that
the unevenly distributed prosperity of the 1960s and early 1970s
was tenuous at best, and hardly a firm foundation for a region
that struggled for economic stability.
Efforts to create some measure of continuity in the North have
traditionally run afoul of the vulnerability and unpredictability
of frontier resource developments. The standard northern
problems of isolation, climate, a small and transient work force
and few roads and railways have been further complicated by
the vagaries of world markets for northern resources, the uncer-
tainty of government support and, more recently, the complica-
tions surrounding land claims. When times were good — and
there have been some very good times over the past three
decades — confidence in the North escalated and prosperity
seemed assured. But when the busts hit, the dislocations were
immediate and severe.
Mining
The federal government has not been oblivious to the structural
problems of the northern economy. Since World War II, consid-
erable effort and a great deal of money have been expended in
attempts to smooth out the roller-coaster contours of the region's
boom and bust cycles. Most of this effort, until the recent past,
focused on the mining industry, a high profile sector backed by
a powerful political lobby. At a time when the pegged price for
gold would not cover production costs, the passage of the Emer-
gency Gold Mining Assistance Act in 1948 provided generous
subsidies to keep gold mines in production. Support for northern
resource development expanded rapidly under the Diefenbaker
administration. The Conservatives' loudly touted Roads to
The Search for Economic Stability 25
Resources program and a wide-ranging series of subsidies to
mining companies provided ample evidence of the government's
commitment to developing the Canadian North.
Throughout the 1960s, the mining sector's repeated appeals for
assistance found sympathetic ears. A creative and complex series
of reduced royalties, incentive programs, tax concessions, tax
holidays for new mines, special depletion allowances and assis-
tance from government departments (particularly the Geological
Survey of Canada) provided generous incentives for those who
were prepared to speculate on frontier exploration. The Northern
Mineral Exploration Assistance Program, for example, provided
grants of up to forty percent of approved expenditures on north-
ern properties. With mining companies facing comparatively few
restrictions on their activities in the years before environmental
awareness forced a toughening of land use regulations, develop-
ment was virtually unhindered.
The framework of direct and indirect subsidies seemed to have
worked, if the measure was the number of mines brought into
production or the value of minerals delivered to market. Explora-
tion companies spent millions of the dollars in the North each
year through the 1960s and 1970s. Results were predictably
mixed. Numerous mineral deposits were identified, but few
were rich enough to justify immediate exploitation. However,
this mattered little since the few that were developed — includ-
ing the Pine Point mine on the south shore of Great Slave Lake
and Cyprus-Anvil northeast of Whitehorse — were more than
rich enough to encourage others to continue in the search.
The development of Pine Point illustrates the close relation-
ship between private capital and government investment in the
Canadian North during the 1950s and 1960s. Consolidated Min-
ing and Smelting Company (Cominco) had long known of the
existence of a lead-zinc deposit on its Pine Point property. But
the distance from markets, high costs of transportation and other
logistical considerations initially discouraged the company from
developing the ore body. In the late 1950s, the company ap-
proached the federal government for assistance. The Diefenbaker
government, trapped in the web of its own contradictory north-
ern policies, was presented with an excellent opportunity to
26 The Modern North
honour its commitments to resource development. Given the
richness of the mine, company officials clearly got the best of
federal negotiators.
Cominco proceeded with the project only after the govern-
ment promised to build a rail link — the Great Slave Railway —
to the south and to provide a variety of other subsidies. The
federal administration received few concessions in return for its
multi-million dollar commitment. The mine flourished from the
beginning, providing Cominco with millions of dollars in annual
profits within just a few years of opening.
Although a major mineral producer, the Pine Point mine had
a curiously limited impact on the Northwest Territories'
economy. Like other mines of its vintage, Pine Point was served
by a brand-new community, built to house the incoming miners.
The almost-exclusively non-Native workforce proved to be ex-
tremely transient. Operating as an isolated island within the
NWT, the community maintained few connections with the rest
of the Territory.
The mining community's relationship with Fort Resolution, a
nearby Dene village, is particularly revealing. Although Fort
Resolution was only forty-two miles away from Pine Point, the
company did not significantly improve the rough trail between
the centres. Neither did Cominco support a commuter shuttle
service between the Dene village and the worksite, an arrange-
ment that would have encouraged the Natives to seek work with
the mine. Those wishing to work—and there were relatively few
over the years — had to move into Pine Point where they found
themselves isolated by the foreign lifestyle in the community
atmosphere. Not until the 1970s, and under considerable pres-
sure from Native groups and government officials, did Cominco
make a concerted, but belated, effort to attract Native people into
its workforce.
The pattern was much the same with Cyprus-Anvil's lead-zinc
mine at Faro in the Yukon Territory. Once more, generous
government assistance permitted the rapid development of the
property, discovered by Al Kuhlan in the early 1960s. As at Pine
Point, the mine owners provided a full range of amenities for
their imported workers — heavily subsidized housing in the new
The Search for Economic Stability 27
townsite of Faro, handsome salaries, trips "outside" and other
benefits. Local Native people, in contrast, found few jobs and
many difficulties, despite vague corporate promises to make a
special effort to recruit Native workers. The first mining crews,
housed temporarily in nearby Ross River, came into conflict with
the Native population, souring relations for years to come.
The marriage of risk capital and government investment in the
interests of northern resource development had its problems,
particularly for the Native people. On the surface, however, it
appeared to work. With Pine Point and Cyprus-Anvil as the
cornerstones of the respective territorial economies, the mining
sector led a boom through the 1960s and early 1970s. The long-
promised prosperity of the Canadian North seemed at hand.
And these mines were not the only ones. A number of other
major mines continued to operate or were brought into produc-
tion in this era — Clinton Creek and Whitehorse Copper in the
Yukon, and Yellowknife, Canada Tungsten and Nanisivik in the
Northwest Territories. Employing hundreds of workers, and sus-
tained by a buoyant market, the mining sector provided a seem-
ingly solid foundation for what was perceived to be a stable and
expanding northern economy.
Such promises quickly proved illusory. The greatest, and in-
escapable, problem for the mining industry is that development
contains the seeds of its own destruction. As soon as production
begins, the clock begins to tick towards the mine's eventual
demise. To complicate matters further, the vagaries of interna-
tional markets can, within a few months, undercut a mine's
viability, forcing a short-term closure. Given the fragile nature of
the northern economy, so dependent on one or two major mines,
the closure of a single operation is devastating. After riding the
good years of the mining boom for more than a decade, the North
eventually hit the bust with a vengeance.
For the Yukon, serious problems began with the closure of the
Clinton Creek asbestos mine in 1978. When Cassiar Asbestos, the
parent company, opened the mine in 1967, they had projected a
twenty-year life for the property. The government invested $4
million of the $21 million required for the townsite and physical
plant. Plans changed almost as soon as production began. The
28 The Moder n Nort h
company decided to high-grade the ore, taking out the readily
accessible reserves and exploiting the asbestos deposit as quickly
as possible. When the mine closed, the community shut down
and all equipment was removed. The homes were also sold and
moved, most of them to Dawson City. A decade after the closing
of the mine, few signs remain of the once flourishing mining
town of some 500 people northwest of Dawson City.
The Clinton Creek closure paled in comparison with the
Yukon's problems a few years later. Many small placer gold
operations, developed during the hyper-inflated markets of the
mid-1970s and often consisting of little more than a bulldozer
and a modern efficient sluice-bar, began to have trouble meeting
their payrolls. The news only got worse as the recession
deepened; in 1981, Yukon mineral production fell off by close to
one third from 1980 levels. The following year, United Keno Hill
mines and Cyprus-Anvil announced substantial lay-offs. Within
a few months both had closed down, although United Keno Hill
resumed operations on a reduced basis when metal markets im-
proved. Whitehorse Copper ran out of accessible ore in 1982 and
closed permanently. By the end of the year, no hardrock mines
remained in operation in the Yukon Territory. The value of
mineral production had fallen from the 1980 high of $360 million
to only $61.5 million three years later.
The effects of the collapsing mining sector were soon felt
throughout the Territory. The White Pass and Yukon Route got
into difficulty as a result of a combination of the federal
government's rejection of their request for a subsidy, the loss of
the Clinton Creek business and some questionable management
decisions. It could not long survive the termination of its lucra-
tive Cyprus-Anvil contract. Rail operations were suspended in
October 1982.The ripples swept through the Yukon with surpris-
ing speed. Make-work projects under the Community Recovery
and NEED programs were undertaken in an effort to keep miners
in Faro until the recession lifted. Other private sector companies,
caught by the loss of business, laid off employees, demanded
wage cuts or closed up shop altogether. As had so often hap-
pened in the past in such times, many people reacted by leaving
The Search for Economic Stability 29
the Territory, a stark reminder that the pattern of transiency and
instability in the North had not yet been arrested.
Yukoners hoped that the 1982 Cyprus-Anvil closure would be
temporary, but their worst fears were soon realized. When the
mine workers were approached to accept wage reductions to
facilitate re-opening, they were in no mood to be conciliatory,
feeling that the company had not dealt with them fairly in the
months leading up to the closure. Efforts to revive the company
continued into 1985. The federal government and the mine's
owners, Dome Petroleum, negotiated a two-year, $50 million
package which permitted the employment of 250 people (less
than one third of the usual workforce) to strip the overburden
off the ore body. This plan was designed to make the mine more
profitable once mineral prices rebounded. Although wage con-
cessions from the unions sweetened the pot, Dome demanded
further wage reductions and, when faced with continued opposi-
tion, locked the workers out. The financially strapped resource
company, near bankruptcy as a result of its overly optimistic
investments in the oil patch, tried to sell the Cyprus-Anvil mine,
but found few takers. The mine was moth-balled in 1985.
As the death-watch continued, however, a saviour appeared
on the scene. A small Toronto company, Curraugh Resources,
announced an interest in the property. After extended negotia-
tions with Dome Petroleum, the banks, the Yukon and the federal
governments, Curraugh announced that the mine would reopen,
on a reduced basis, in July 1986. Yet those who thought that the
old order would soon return were to be disappointed. The White
Pass and Yukon Route road-rail transportation system from Faro
to Skagway was not re-established. Instead, over considerable
opposition, the Skagway-Carcross road was pressed into year-
round service to handle the ore trucks. That was it — the days
of subsidized housing, recreational facilities and generous
salaries had ended. Still, with the lingering effects of the interna-
tional recession still hanging over the area, Curraugh could offer
a less generous arrangement but still attract a full, though tran-
sient, complement of mine workers. The mine was back in opera-
tion but the boom days were clearly over.
30 The Modern North
The Northwest Territories' mining economy, geographically
dispersed and more diversified, provided a more stable base
through the early 1980s than that of the Yukon, but there were
serious problems here as well. The Canada Tungsten mine, for
example, opened and closed several times during the 1980s, a
sign of fluctuating markets and a diminishing resource base. The
temporary closure of the Pine Point mine in 1983, however,
foreshadowed more sweeping changes. As at Faro, wage conces-
sions by the workers and government subsidies through special
work grants kept the mine in operation temporarily, but the
inevitable could not be avoided. Having operated Pine Point at
considerable profit for more than twenty years, Cominco an-
nounced in 1987 that the mine would be shut down. Newly
discovered ore reserves, particularly the company's Red Dog
mine in Alaska, ensured a steady flow of concentrate to the
Cominco smelter in Trail, BC, and made it feasible to close the
Pine Point mine. Although the announcement of closure was
greeted with the same howls of protest that accompanied the
Cyprus-Anvil decision, the company remained unmoved.
Houses in the community, as at Clinton Creek, were put up for
sale; most were removed to Hay River.
While the North's major and established producing mines fell
on hard times through the late 1970s and early 1980s, the news
was not all bad. Many prospectors and investors, facing a decline
in base metal prices, quickly switched their attention to the
smaller precious metal deposits. Although it is often difficult to
separate promoters' rhetoric from the reality of northern mining,
some promising discoveries were made. In the Yukon, major
corporations like AMAX, Hudson's Bay Mining and Smelter,
Placer Developments and Pan-Ocean concentrated their explora-
tions in the mineral-rich Macmillan Pass and Howard's Pass
areas northeast of Ross River. Other properties, particularly
placer operations in the Dawson area and the Mount Skookum
mine, provided evidence that there were still profitable deposits
in the ground. The news was even better in the Northwest Ter-
ritories, where placer mines and the opening of Cullaton Lake,
Lupin and Polaris mines combined with expanding exploration
activity to sustain interest in the region.
The Search for Economic Stability 31
Through this modest resurgence, it was clear that the mining
companies had learned some lessons from both the great expec-
tations of the 1960s and 1970s and the sudden downturns of the
1980s. The exceptional costs and implied commitments of the
company-town approach to mineral production had been tried
and found wanting. Worker, community and government pres-
sures to stabilize the economic base clearly interfered with the
logical development of the resource. By the 1980s, there were
alternate models at hand, approaches to frontier mining that
might well become the norm in the coming years.
The future of northern mining, particularly in Arctic regions,
might well rest with the model offered by the "transportable"
Polaris lead-zinc mine on Little Cornwallis Island. The entire
operation (except the resource), including processing mill, dor-
mitories and other facilities, was delivered to the island by barge.
Once docked, the plant was quickly pressed into operation.
Workers fly in and out of the mine site on rotation; there is no
permanent community in the area, and hence no local workforce
to draw on. Working conditions are formidable — winters are
long and frigid—but the mine and the physical plant is self-con-
tained, requiring few workers to venture outdoors. When the ore
body is exhausted—initial projections call for a twenty-five-year
life for the mine — the structures will be removed.
While the Polaris model of a self-contained mine site, operated
by workers brought in on rotation from a larger, but distant
community, seems to work well in isolated areas, it is less feasible
when a mineral body is located near an established community.
The Nanisivik development on the northwest coast of Baffin
Island, near the Inuit village of Arctic Bay, represents a contem-
porary attempt to overcome the traditional barrier between
aboriginal peoples and resource development. The Canadian
government, a minority shareholder in the company (Mineral
Resources International is the majority shareholder), provided
thirty percent of the development costs, a total of $24 million. In
return, the mine gained tangible evidence of federal interest in
northern resources, helped to establish a firm Canadian presence
in disputed Arctic territories and provided work for Inuit people
in nearby Arctic Bay.
32 The Modern North
The Inuit participated in the construction of the mine much as
other Inuit had done with the earlier nickel mine at Rankin Inlet.
Just under half of the workers were Native, short of an unrealistic
goal of sixty percent Native participation. But as the mine went
into production, the Inuit discovered that their lack of technical
skills and low level of educational attainment precluded them
from many parts of the mine operation. By 1982, only one quarter
of the Nanisivik workforce were Native. As was the case with
other Arctic mines, the company experienced difficulties attract-
ing permanent workers to the site; as a result, southern workers
are now brought in on rotation and live in temporary company
quarters. There is also a problem with the eventual closure of the
mine, for as the Arctic Bay residents are drawn into the mining
economy they will inevitably find themselves facing a difficult
choice between continuing to work and remaining in the home
community.
The economic trials of the past decade have raised new ques-
tions about mining. While exploration and mineral develop-
ments remain, and likely will remain, the backbone of the
northern economy in the coming decades, mining offers at best
a shaky and uneven basis for regional growth. Infrastructure
investments in the major mines have proven to be of little lasting
value; the Aisihik dam, built in the 1970s to provide power for
Cyprus-Anvil, has been a financial albatross around the necks of
Yukoners since construction began. While the new prototypes of
the northern mines, based on a transient work-force and smaller,
leaner operations, may be more fiscally efficient, the spin-off
benefits for the region at large are significantly lower. And
serious questions remain about the continued tension between
Native people and the mining sector; their relationship has been
uneasy and not mutually beneficial in the past. Importantly, and
as will be discussed later, there are clear signs that the many
questions surrounding northern mineral development are being
recognized and addressed.
The Search for Economic Stability 33
The Big Gamble: Oil and Natural Gas in the 1970s
By the early 1970s, the search for minerals, though of vital im-
portance to the northern economy, had been overshadowed by
oil and gas exploration. The North's petroleum resources had
been long known. The identification of the Athabasca tar sands
in the nineteenth century first spurred prospectors' dreams of
northern oil riches. The discovery of oil at Norman Wells in 1920
again sparked great, if temporary, enthusiasm. The Norman
Wells field would languish until the 1940s, cut off by distance
and technical problems from southern markets. The ill-fated
Canol Project undertaken during World War II revived interest
in the region, but once more the promoters' visions fell far short
of reality. High costs, poor planning and low production doomed
this short-lived venture. Still, there was evidence of northern
petroleum; the time was simply not yet right for development.
Although exploration continued, aided once more by
generous federal incentives, enthusiasm for frontier oil proper-
ties remained in check, particularly in the oil-rich 1960s. But the
1968 discovery of the massive Prudhoe Bay field, estimated at
ten billion barrels of oil and twenty-five trillion cubic feet of
natural gas, altered the equation considerably. After the attempt
by the Manhattan to discover the suitability of tanker travel
through the Northwest Passage proved unsuccessful, a trans-
Alaskan pipeline was seen as the only economically viable
method of delivering the crude to market. The richness of the
Prudhoe Bay field also encouraged the oil companies to seek out
other Arctic deposits.
The high costs of Arctic work forced the oil companies into
special financial arrangements. Panarctic Oils, a consortium
formed in 1967, was forty-five percent owned by the Canadian
government and held exploration rights to forty-four million
acres in the Arctic islands. A number of the major multinationals
also rushed into the field, only to discover that expenses and risks
were prohibitive, particularly in offshore exploration. Economic
logic brought the competitors together to form Arctic Petroleum
Operators Association. The consortium approach allowed the
34 The Modern North
sharing of risks, and also profits, and permitted exploration to
proceed where it otherwise would have stagnated.
Within the first three years of the 1970s, however, the face of
the North American oil industry changed dramatically. The crea-
tion and toughening of the OPEC petroleum cartel, aided by an
industry-fueled hysteria, touched off an international energy
crisis. While motorists obligingly paid the escalating prices at the
gas pump and national governments lectured about the need for
energy self-sufficiency, the oil companies expanded drilling
operations with Ottawa's blessings. The once-risky northern
fields, proven and unproven, suddenly seemed unusually attrac-
tive.
The rapid surge in Arctic oil exploration did not go unnoticed
by governments or interest groups. As early as 1968, the federal
government had formed an inter-departmental Task Force on
Northern Oil Development. As northern work expanded, and
particularly as governments and industry learned, on the job,
about the social and environmental risks associated with sub-
Arctic and Arctic drilling, regulations were tightened and
clarified. Anticipating the eventual need for a pipeline to connect
northern reserves and southern markets, the government
produced guidelines for pipeline construction in 1970 and
revised these guidelines two years later.
Ottawa's attempts to regulate the frontier industry did not
satisfy all the critics. Native peoples and organizations, par-
ticularly in the Mackenzie River Valley and Delta, were troubled
by the lack of interest in and commitment to aboriginal needs
and concerns. On the national front, many others were concerned
about environmental questions and the regulation of frontier oil
exploration. The establishment of the Canadian Arctic Resource
Committee in 1971, a privately funded watchdog and one of the
most professional lobbying agencies in the country, provided a
different perspective on the questions surrounding the fast-track-
ed development of northern petroleum reserves. CARC's persist-
ent questioning about Arctic resource activities, echoed by the
ecumenical church group Project North (formed in 1975) and a
cacophony of northern, Native and environmental associations,
The Search for Economic Stability 35
convinced the government to toughen its regulations further and
to keep a closer eye on the industry.
They had much to watch, for northern oil exploration ex-
panded rapidly through the early 1970s. The Canadian Geologi-
cal Survey estimated that the Mackenzie Delta-Beaufort Sea area
held six billion barrels of oil and some ninety trillion cubic feet
of gas, an assessment that was later moderated as more technical
work was done. Such claims fueled investors' interest in the
region, particularly when the federal government offered to pay
a major portion of the cost of exploration.
Dome Petroleum, active in Arctic oil work from the early
1960s, continued to lead the way. With its fleet of drilling ships
and ice breakers, Dome explored its own mineral leases in the
Beaufort and Arctic islands. As the leader in Arctic exploration,
particularly deep water work, Dome also discovered a ready
market in drilling for other companies. Yet, despite handsome
profits in some sectors of its operation, the company was beset
with problems. Poor planning, a shocking lack of attention to the
costs of exploration, and technological errors plagued Dome's
Arctic ventures.
Dome was not alone in the North, although it was the major
player. By 1976 Imperial Oil had drilled 150 wells in the region,
spending over $500 million in the process. Esso, Shell, Texaco
Gulf and Petro-Canada also had sizeable Arctic investments.
While there were enough promising signs to encourage a con-
tinuation of the work — and enough federal incentives and tax-
write-offs to pay most of the bills — discoveries in the Canadian
Arctic were, at best, marginal. Still, Beaufort discoveries, the
promise of additional finds and the prospect of delivering Prud-
hoe Bay natural gas to southern markets via a Canadian route
combined in the midst of an era of mega-project mania to stimu-
late plans for a northern pipeline.
By the mid-1970s, three different companies were developing
proposals for a Mackenzie Valley pipeline. Out of this initial
competition emerged a single multi-national consortium,
Canadian Arctic Gas Pipeline Ltd., which proposed one of the
country's largest mega-projects ever, a pipeline from the Beaufort
Sea to Alberta; from there, the existing North American pipeline
36 The Modern North
grid would deliver the resource to American and Canadian
markets. A connecting line would be built across the northern
Yukon to Prudhoe Bay. On March 21,1974, CAGPL filed a formal
application with the National Energy Board for permission to
start construction.
CAGPL would not have the field to itself for long. Bob Blair's
upstart Foothills Pipe Lines of Calgary, pitching to the nationalist
fervor of the Trudeau government, proposed an all-Canadian
pipeline designed, unlike CAGPL's plan, to move Canadian gas
to Canadian markets. As the application and investigation
process unfolded, Foothills' proposal was altered several times
to include an American branch and, in 1977, a route along the
Alaska Highway to service the Alaskan fields.
The tendering of the CAGPL application led to the estab-
lishment of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry in March 1974.
The government offered the head of the inquiry, Thomas Berger,
little direction. He was to inquire into the social, environmental
and economic impact of the proposed pipeline and to assess the
technical merits of the company's plans. Starting in March 1975,
he held the necessary formal hearings, plowing through moun-
tains of technical data and analysis — much of it quickly found
wanting — and listened to dozens of expert witnesses discuss
the engineering questions associated with constructing and
maintaining a pipeline that would stretch for hundreds of miles
across the sub-Arctic. To the dismay of pipeline promoters, how-
ever, Berger also took his inquiry into thirty-five northern com-
munities and listened to some 1000 witnesses.
Many developers, particularly in the oil industry, found much
to fault in Berger's inquiry. His choice of advisors, including the
controversial political economist Mel Watkins, they said, biased
the investigation against their proposal. Others wondered aloud
if the Native voices heard at the inquiry, consistently opposed to
pipeline development, really spoke for all Northerners. The
criticisms did not address the many concerns raised by the in-
vestigations. Berger had done what no previous inquiry had
done: he listened to the Native people of the North, heard what
they said and agreed with them. The startling consensus, and the
unexpected passions in the Native community, surprised many
The Search for Economic Stability 37
Canadians who followed the well-publicized Berger inquiry as
it made its way around the North.
Few were surprised when Thomas Berger's report recom-
mended that pipeline construction be put on hold for a decade,
pending settlement of the Dene, Metis and Inuit land claims. But
Berger was not alone in his reservations. The National Energy-
Board, holding hearings on the technical feasibility of the
pipeline proposals, also found them wanting. Troubling environ-
mental and engineering questions remained unanswered; the
escalating costs of the pipeline construction also raised concerns.
The NEB likewise rejected the CAGPL proposal and, instead, in
July 1977 offered conditional support for Foothills' late entry into
the pipeline sweep-stakes — the Alaska highway natural gas
pipeline through the southern Yukon and northern British
Columbia.
Even this project, however, could not proceed immediately.
Another (and often ignored) inquiry, headed by Kenneth Lysyk,
Dean of Law at the University of British Columbia, was given
less than three months in the summer of 1977 to investigate the
Foothills proposal. Meetings were held along the route of the
planned pipeline, favoured by many because it ran along an
existing development corridor. Like Berger, Lysyk recom-
mended a delay in construction until land claims had been set-
tled and called for strict environmental and social controls to
limit the impact.
Although many technical questions remained only partially
answered, the federal government decided to press ahead. In
August 1977, an agreement in principle was signed with
Foothills. Legislation was quickly implemented, including a
federal Northern Pipeline Act and the Yukon's Northern Natural
Gas Pipeline Ordinance. A complex deal was struck between the
Canadian and American governments in 1977, removing one of
the final hurdles to construction. The Canadian upstart had
defeated a consortium of multi-national giants. The Mackenzie
Valley proposals had been defeated but construction on the Alas-
ka Highway route was slated to begin in 1981.
Along the highway route, communities and businesses braced
for the economic explosion they felt was sure to accompany
38 The Modern North
construction. In Whitehorse, targeted as construction head-
quarters, signs of expansion could be seen throughout the town.
But even as the official deals were being signed, there were
indications of trouble in the offing. Initial estimates called for the
construction of the pipeline for around $4.4 billion. As inflation
soared and the natural gas market levelled off, costs escalated.
By 1982, the estimate had more than tripled, to $15 billion. With
North American banks rapidly turning sour on oil and gas
development, an inevitable consequence of their incautious en-
thusiasm for the oil patch in the 1970s, Foothills was forced to
delay construction. In 1983, the company closed its Whitehorse
office, a sure sign that the boom that never was had turned to
bust. The suspension of pipeline construction plans was a cruel
blow for a territorial economy already suffering from the malaise
of a collapsing mining sector. While some hoped that the pipeline
project would be re-started and others applauded the demise of
what they viewed as an ill-conceived adventure, it was clear to
all that the short-term infusion of pipeline construction invest-
ment had been postponed indefinitely.
The cancellation of the pipeline project did not stop Arctic oil
and gas exploration immediately. Panarctic, for example, con-
tinued its work in the Arctic Islands and drilled successful wells
on Cameron and Melville Islands. The company initially
proposed the construction of a pipeline to southern markets, a
concept that found little favour with environmental and Native
groups across the country. In 1985, Panarctic dispatched a trial
shipment of oil by tanker from its Arctic base to Montreal; the
company is also involved in the Arctic Pilot Project, a similar plan
to deliver liquified natural gas from the Arctic in ice-breaking
tankers.
Despite occasional bursts of optimism, however, the overall
picture of northern oil and gas development has fallen far short
of the early promoters' vision. In the western district, Gulf
Canada's promising Amauligak field, discovered in 1984 and
originally estimated to hold 800 million barrels of oil, soon fell
on hard times. Further work demonstrated that the initial reports
had been overly optimistic. In addition, in the days of weakening
federal support for Arctic exploration, high interest rates and
The Search for Economic Stability 39
declining world prices, the Arctic play lost much of its attractive-
ness.
Not all northern oil development followed the same con-
voluted path. Esso, owners of the Norman Wells oil field,
decided in the 1980s to press ahead with further exploitation of
the field. A $600-million expansion, built around six artificial
islands and 160 additional wells, provided enough oil flow to
justify the construction of a pipeline. By then, as well, the
Canadian oil grid had reached Zama, Alberta, 900 kilometers to
the south. Interprovincial Pipeline built a twelve-inch connecting
line, completing the job in 1985. This pipeline project, carried out
with considerable Native participation and without the rhetoric
and fear of the previous decade, proceeded with little difficulty.
Times clearly had changed.
For many in the oil patch, the problems with Arctic explora-
tion and development lay with the Liberal government's con-
troversial National Energy Program. Introduced in 1980, the
legislation sought to ensure Canadian self-sufficiency in
petroleum products within a decade while significantly increas-
ing Canadian ownership in the industry. Majority Canadian
ownership was required for companies wishing to receive new
licences. The Petroleum Incentives Program (PIP) offered sub-
stantial grants (up to eighty percent of actual spending for wells
drilled by companies at least seventy-five percent Canadian
owned, and working in frontier areas) for exploration. The
government also reserved for itself a controversial twenty-five
percent share (the back-in provision) in any new oil and gas
discoveries.
The major exploration companies, fearing the economic con-
sequences of such measures, mounted a concerted attack on the
program. There was a certain amount of posturing involved —
market forces had already begun to dampen interest in frontier
developments—but the removal of drilling rigs and the suspen-
sion of operations in the North by many companies sent shock-
waves through the northern economy. The Liberals made some
adjustments to the legislation in an attempt to attract the com-
panies back, but they were turfed out of office by the Mulroney
Conservatives before they had an opportunity to effect substan-
40 The Modern North
tial changes. By the spring of 1985, the Conservative administra-
tion had suspended many of the provisions of the National Ener-
gy Policy, including the controversial Petroleum and Gas
Revenue Tax and PIP grants. Alterations to the legislative
framework were not enough, however, for low world prices
continued to play havoc with exploration and development
plans.
The impact of frontier oil exploration on the North is difficult
to gauge. For a variety of political and economic reasons, north-
ern oil has been viewed as a national and not a regional resource
(as it is in Alberta). For this reason, the federal government typi-
cally justifies its investment in oil exploration and development
in national terms — jobs created in the south, manufacturing
spin-offs and the security of Canadian oil supply. Many of the
oil patch workers, for example, live in the south, flying in on
rotation as seasons and work schedules dictate. They are the
ultimate transients, experiencing little of the North beyond their
work-site and contributing even less to the economic, social and
political life of the region.
Not surprisingly, the oil industry has had an uneasy relation-
ship with the Native population, a tension highlighted by the
radically different perspectives on the proposed Mackenzie Val-
ley pipeline. Yet, while aboriginal people fear the possible en-
vironmental and social effects of oil exploration and
development, the industry has begun to provide opportunities
for Native participation.
It has not always been so. In the early days of the Beaufort Sea
development, drilling crews and Native people in the Tuktoyak-
tuk region experienced considerable difficulties. Widespread
abuse of alcohol and drugs, the large number of single young
men brought in to work on the rigs and the social distance
created by the provision of a few high-paying but low-skilled
jobs for Inuit workers disrupted community life and soured rela-
tions between the Natives and Dome. The company did its best
to control its workforce, moving its headquarters out of Tuk,
limiting worker access to the settlement and trying to regulate
the excesses of behaviour.
The Search for Economic Stability 41
To improve communication between the Inuit and the com-
pany, Dome created the Beaufort Sea Community Advisory
Committee, made up of representatives of seven communities.
The committee was greeted with some cynicism — the repre-
sentatives were accused of surrendering to Dome — and some
anger, particularly among those who felt that the Inuit organiza-
tion in the area, the Committee for Original Peoples' Entitlement,
had been pre-empted by the new council. In time, however, the
advisory committee began to make a substantial contribution,
convincing Dome to respect Inuit ties to the land by providing
time off for hunters, and providing a conduit for community
concerns about resource development.
The disruptions of the transient, highly-paid frontier
workforce continue to be felt in the North. While there have been
efforts made to increase Native participation in the industry,
with greater success than in the mining sector, the Inuit and Dene
continue to suffer from a lack of marketable skills and from
conflicting cultural expectations. In 1985, for example, when
several mining companies were still active in the North, 5,587
individuals were employed. Of these, only 600 were Native
people.
There are, however, indications that improvements are in the
offing, aided by the negotiation and settlement of land claims.
Esso's expansion of the Norman Wells field, while the object of
some initial opposition from certain Native groups, nevertheless
drew heavily on its partnership with Native enterprises, like
Shehtah Drilling, owned and operated by Dene from nearby Fort
Norman. The same has not been true of recent pipeline repair
work, which has been contracted to an Edmonton firm. Equity
investments and joint ventures carry certain risks of their own,
tying community prosperity to the continued exploitation of
non-renewable resources, but they do ensure Dene and Inuit
people a greater say in the pace and direction of resource
development, and a considerably more substantial share of the
revenues being taken from their land.
42 The Modern North
Renewable Resources
The Native people have, of course; always taken sustenance from
the land, but typically in the form of renewable resources. For
centuries, carefully regulated hunting, fishing, trapping and har-
vesting provided the Dene and Inuit with the materials and foods
they needed to survive. The arrival of European fur traders com-
mercialized the harvesting of wild animals, altering the manner
in which aboriginal people viewed the resources around them.
Over the last two decades, following years of government efforts
to bring the Natives off the land and into the mainstream of
Canadian society, the aboriginal people have found their tradi-
tional uses of the land threatened.
On a grand economic scale, the harvesting of renewable
resources seems to make only a marginal contribution to the
North. Agriculture remains small in scale and largely experimen-
tal, limited by climate, high costs, soil types and, particularly in
the Yukon, the difficulty in securing title to land pending a set-
tlement of the land claim. There is some commercial fishing. In
the Yukon, the Han Fishery out of Dawson City harvests salmon
in the Yukon River. To the east, there are commercial fish plants
in Hay River, Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay; their catch,
marketed through the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board, capital-
izes on gourmet interest in northern species. Similarly, northern
forests have attracted some attention. But the relatively small
amount of commercial-grade timber has little export value, and
the few mills in the territory produce mainly for local use.
The single most important non-renewable sector is, surprising-
ly, not the fur trade but production of "country" food. In many
Native communities, the land continues as a primary supplier of
food. There are many reasons for this. Native people prefer the
taste of country to store-bought food. They assign considerable
cultural importance to the harvesting of animals and fish. The
reliance on country food, which must be harvested when avail-
able, creates an interesting tension with wage labour, particularly
when the standard North American work schedule is followed.
Studies in Old Crow, Ross and Teslin in the Yukon documented
that country food constitutes from forty to sixty percent of the
The Search for Economic Stability 43
food consumed in the community. If the dollar value of this food
is calculated, it adds up to approximately $10 million a year (1985
figures) for the Yukon Territory. For many northern Natives,
wage labour is primarily viewed as a means of securing the
money and equipment necessary to continue hunting and trap-
ping.
Country food production, despite its importance to the Native
people, lacks the public profile of fur trapping. The harvesting
for sale of fur bearing animals has been an integral part of Native
life in the North since the 18th century, and continues to be a
major source of income for Northerners. In 1986, northern trap-
pers brought in over $4 million worth of furs, supporting more
than 4,000 trappers in the Northwest Territories and 800 in the
Yukon.
There are some important misconceptions about the northern
fur trade, the first of which is that it is the main economic activity
of Native people. In an extensive 1984 study of the "traditional"
economy in the North, Jack Stabler identified the changing role
of harvesting activities. Of more than 6,000 Native people
employed in the Northwest Territories, only 1,200 were
employed year round in traditional activities. Another 5,300 pur-
sued harvesting activities on a seasonal basis. In addition, it was
clear from Stabler's work that older Natives were far more likely
than younger individuals to participate in harvesting activities.
The returns for trapping have also been less than lucrative,
although it is important that trapping be recognized as only one
part of a renewable resource harvesting cycle that includes hunt-
ing, fishing, gathering, occasional wage work and government
transfer payments. In 1984-1985, for example, NWT trappers
averaged only $870. Fewer than 1,200 earned more than $600 and
only fifty had trapping incomes in excess of $8,000. Despite these
modest economic returns — the social and cultural benefits of
trapping cannot, of course, be readily quantified — there is great
demand for trap-line space and very little room for expansion.
In the Northwest Territories, the Natives have the trapping
field almost exclusively to themselves; to the west, in contrast,
much of the trapping is done by non-Natives. In 1985, there were
768 licensed trappers in the Yukon Territory, including 314 non-
44 The Modern North
Natives, 302 status Indians and 152 non-status Natives. Accord-
ing to a recent government report, the non-Native trappers have
been responsible for the largest share of furs taken in the territory
over the last few years. There is nothing particularly new in this,
for non-Native harvesters have been active in both the trapping
and trading side of the industry for generations.
While the export of furs remains the foundation of the north-
ern trade, greater attention has been paid of late to processing
and using the resource in the North. Northern artisans have sold
their handiwork on a casual basis for years, but little attention
had been paid to the systematic development of the crafts. Aided
by sizeable government grants, Native people in the Yukon
created Yukon Native Products, an artists' co-operative,
manufacturing centre and retail store. In the Northwest Ter-
ritories, the community-based co-operatives have similarly been
encouraging the production of clothing and art work using
northern fur resources, garnering a greater share of the value of
the fur trade for northern residents.
All this is now threatened. In the late 1960s, sparked by the
controversy over the Newfoundland harp seal hunt, animal
rights organizations launched a polemical campaign against the
fur trade in general. Their self-righteous wrath knew few
bounds, and demonstrated little real knowledge of the nature of
the northern fur trade. This was not, of course, their concern.
Animal rightists aimed to end what they viewed as cruel and
inhumane treatment of animals. The claims of the Inuit, for ex-
ample, that the protests were harming their subsistence-based
economy were brushed aside. To Greenpeace activist Patrick
Moore, the Inuit had aligned themselves with the exploiters of
animal life; they had, he argued, been "co-opted into an unac-
ceptable economy." Greenpeace would later recant, in part, and
exempt Inuit hunters from their attacks. But for many Inuit com-
munities, it was too late.
By the 1980s, the protest movement against the fur trade had
expanded. The International League for Animal Rights, I KARE
Wildlife Coalition, International Fund for Animal Welfare,
Greenpeace International, Animal Defense League and other or-
ganizations, supported by a generation of urban North
The Search for Economic Stability 45
Americans and Europeans whose lives had been almost totally
divorced from experience of the land and its resources, united in
a demand that the killing of fur-bearing animals be stopped.
They pulled few punches. Graphic films, urban guerrilla tactics
— such as spray-painting those who dared to wear a fur coat in
public — and a well-orchestrated and emotion-laden political
campaign proved very successful. The European Common
Market, while stopping short of a total ban on the importation of
seal skins, permitted individual countries to impose their own
import restrictions.
The conflict between the animal rights organizations and
northern harvesters is very basic. To the Natives and many non-
Natives in the North, the harvesting of game for food or fur
carries no particular moral dilemma. Hunting and trapping is an
institutionalized way of life; as has been the case for centuries,
game is killed to sustain life. For their opponents on the fur trade
issue, the matter is just as simple: harvesting, particularly
through the use of the leg-hold trap, which causes the trapped
animal considerable pain and suffering, is immoral and in-
humane. To such individuals, the alleged mistreatment of
animals is an indication of a fundamental human failing. The two
perspectives are at opposite poles, and it is difficult to imagine a
compromise position.
The destruction of traditional markets has had an immediate
effect in the North and has resulted in a sizeable loss of income.
In Resolute, for example, sealing income dropped from almost
$59,000 to $2400 in only two years in the early 1980s. Igloolik
hunters received close to $46,000 for their seal skins one year, and
around $5,000 two years later. In the Eastern Arctic, sealing was
the backbone of the subsistence economy; the destruction of the
market has led to a reduction in harvesting activities, a far greater
reliance on government transfer payments and further alienation
of the Inuit from their land.
Northern Indians are fighting back. Stephen Kakfwi, then
President of the Dene Nation, commented in 1985 that the anti-
trapping crusaders have their priorities misplaced:
46 The Modern North
We understand that many people are worried about
the loss of wildlife species throughout the world. We
share this concern. But we also know that the greatest
threat to animals is not from hunting and trapping. It
is from the destruction of their natural habitat by the
industrial society.... We believe we can offer our
knowledge and experience as a people who live in
close contact with nature to help change this
dangerous trend.
The difference in this perspective from the anti-trapping lobby,
whose uninitiated supporters recoil at the simple mention of the
killing of a wild animal, is readily obvious. Making the protesters
respect the opinions of the Natives is much more difficult. It does
not, however, mean that northern Natives will readily surrender.
The cornerstone of the Native defence is Indigenous Survival
International, an alliance of aboriginal peoples from Canada,
Alaska and Greenland formed in Yellowknife in 1984. The or-
ganization is dedicated to preserving Native harvesting rights
and to guaranteeing that fur and fur products continue to enjoy
access to European markets. ISI is also determined that the Na-
tive perspective on harvesting and conservation be included in
the scientifically dominated organizations pursuing a world con-
versation strategy.
The battle against the anti-fur trade lobby extends beyond
Indigenous Survival International. The Yukon Territorial
government has given financial support to the ISI, funded the
Yukon Trappers' Association to prepare a film on northern trap-
ping and assisted the Council of Yukon Indians to prepare an
information booklet. The Northwest Territories legislative as-
sembly has been similarly active, providing financial assistance,
along with the Fur Institute of Canada and the federal govern-
ment, for a major exhibit at the British Museum on the lifestyles
of the Inuit, Metis and Dene. The northern campaign can claim
a few successes. Greenpeace England was convinced to
withdraw from a particularly aggressive group called Fur Free
Britain; and Anglican and Catholic bishops from the North have
issued statements in support of Native harvesting. Northern
The Search for Economic Stability 47
trappers have also changed their ways somewhat. With govern-
ment encouragement, more and more trappers are switching to
Conibear and other "humane" traps in response to the criticism
of the leg-hold trap.
But the battle continues, and uncertainty remains. In the spring
of 1988, British parliamentarians considered, and then turned
down, a total ban on the importation of wild fur products into
their country; Yukon politicians suggested only partially tongue-
in-cheek a retaliatory ban on the importation of British products
into the Territory. Indigenous Survival International is maintain-
ing its efforts and met at Fort Yukon, Alaska, in June 1988 to
co-ordinate the campaign to protect existing markets for north-
ern pelts, stressing that the importance of the issue does not rest
only with the potential for lost income; rather, the systematic and
concerted attack on aboriginal subsistence harvesting represents
a challenge to the very core of Native life.
Stephen Kakfwi is right, of course, and other northern leaders
have echoed his observations. The synthetic substances touted
by the anti-trapping forces as replacements for fur goods are
created only at tremendous environmental cost. But those costs
— the damage caused by mining, pollution, urban sprawl and
the destruction of animal habitats — cannot be reduced to the
simplistic images so attractive to the anti-trapping lobby. To the
animal rights activists, northern Natives astride skidoos, bearing
rifles and setting a few leg-hold traps, are seen as living
anachronisms and are labelled a throw-back to a less humane
time and culture. The fact that the Native people are much more
attuned to their natural world, and more conscious of the need
for careful conservation of renewable resources, is conveniently
ignored. The battle will continue, for the anti-trapping lobbyists
are not likely to surrender their position without many more
well-financed campaigns. Native people, less well-funded, will
also fight on, determined to gain respect for their lifestyle and to
protect the markets for their trapping.
Trapping is not, of course, the only renewable resource option
available to the North. In recent years, great importance has been
placed on the development of the tourist trade, a relatively non-
polluting, non-destructive, but potentially rich alternative to con-
48 The Modern North
tinued non-renewable resource exploitation. Divorced from the
fluctuations of international commodity markets, it has the
added benefit of protecting the northern economy from the in-
evitable booms and busts of the mining sector. In an age of
increasing industrialization and urban concentration, the North
is also discovering that what were once its greatest economic
liabilities — isolation and wilderness expanses — have become
its most important assets.
The Canadian government has recognized the uniqueness of
its northern Territories. Three new national parks, Kluane in the
Yukon, Auyuittuq and Nahanni in the Northwest Territories,
were created in 1972. National park reserves (similar in status to
national parks but subject to land claims negotiations) have been
set up by the federal and territorial governments in the Northern
Yukon and on Ellesmere Island. Although Native people and
organizations generally favour the restrictions on non-renewable
resource development, they are concerned about the implications
of park designation for Native harvesting activities, and about
the loss of control over these lands once they are designated as
permanent parks. In the immediate term, however, the setting
aside of park lands is a recognition of the unique environment
in the North and of the need to protect these lands for future
generations — of both Northerners and tourists.
The national parks have not yet been fully integrated into the
North's tourism strategy. Nahanni's isolation has limited park
use to a small number of travellers; Auyuittuq, a rugged wilder-
ness of mountains, glaciers and fiords, is even more inaccessible,
attracting only a few wilderness adventurers each year. Kluane,
however, is a different matter. The park, initially set aside as a
preserve in 1942 during construction of the Alaska Highway, has
the highway as its western boundary. As a result, portions of the
park are readily accessible to travellers. Parks Canada has, in
recent years, expanded its program of activities at Kluane and
has developed plans for roads and tours into the back-country
glaciers. This proposal is sure to be greeted with considerable
opposition from those who want the park, a UNESCO World
Heritage Site, left untouched.
The Search for Economic Stability 49
In the Northwest Territories, the exceptionally high travel
costs limit the attractiveness for tourists. Economy fares to Yel-
lowknife, Iqaluit or Inuvik run well over $1,000 from most
southern centres; outlying communities, although well-served
with scheduled and charter flights, are even more expensive to
reach. Road access to the Liard and Mackenzie highways is
limited; drivers must face long and gruelling journeys from
southern centres. Still, travellers are venturing north in increas-
ing numbers. In 1987, the Territories attracted 44,000 visitors; the
industry supported over 200 tourist facilities of various descrip-
tions and employed over 4,000 people on a full and part-time
basis. Estimates call for steady growth over the next decade.
Tourists are attracted to the Northwest Territories by the call
of the last great wilderness. A daunting array of hunting, fishing,
canoeing, "flight-seeing" and other wilderness adventures satis-
fies the desire for a truly "northern" experience. For those with
even more money and time, there have even been cruises
through the Northwest Passage, the ultimate fantasy trip for the
armchair explorer. Governments support these enterprises in a
variety of ways. Arctic Hotline, a toll-free service for travel
agents, provides access to a data bank on NWT opportunities.
Travel Arctic, backed with a $2.3 million budget, provides a
co-ordinated marketing campaign, targeted primarily at
southerners and non-Canadians in search of a unique frontier
experience. This kind of Territory-wide promotion allows the
government to stress the significance of aboriginal culture and to
encourage further development of related activities, like food
production and northern handicrafts. Perhaps the best example
of government-industry interdependence, however, was the
NWT's extremely popular exhibit at Expo 86 in Vancouver, BC,
the most important sign of the government's determination to
expand tourism in the Territory.
If there is one concern about increased tourist interest in the
North, it is that little of its profits would remain in the region.
Organizations like Travel Keewatin have tried to counter this
trend, urging the development of community-based tourism.
Each community has been encouraged to develop tourist
programs based on local opportunities and resources — arts and
50 The Modern North
crafts tours to Eskimo Point, photography, hunting, fishing or
wilderness adventures.
The tourist situation in the Yukon Territory is, not surprising-
ly, much different. Air rates are considerably lower, aided recent-
ly by the re-introduction of competitive service on the
Whitehorse-Vancouver run. The Alaska Highway, upgraded
substantially over the past two decades, provides ready
automobile access to the territory. Improvements to the Stewart-
Cassiar Road and Haines Road, the construction of the Skagway-
Carcross highway and expanded service on the Alaska state ferry
service have likewise made it easy for people to reach the Ter-
ritory. The Yukon also offers travellers more options, including
wilderness adventures, big-game hunting, river travels and his-
toric tours.
The federal government has placed its greatest emphasis on
the reconstruction of Dawson City. Since being designated as an
historic site in the 1960s, the government has devoted millions of
dollars to the preservation, rebuilding and interpretation of his-
toric sites related to the Klondike gold rush. The effort starts, as
the gold rush did, in Skagway, with the joint Canada-United
States Chilkoot Pass Park. In Whitehorse, visitors can see the
restored S.S. Klondike, rescued from the White Pass and Yukon
Route shipyards, where its last remaining sister ships met a fiery
death shortly after the Klondike was relocated. The government's
priority, however, has long been Dawson City, where the Klon-
dike Visitors' Association has fought to develop facilities suitable
for tourists.
The Parks Canada attractions in the Dawson area host more
than 65,000 visitors each summer. It is an expensive proposition.
The 1987 budget called for an expenditure of $3.5 million per
year on the historic sites in Dawson City, Bear Creek and Bonan-
za Creek. In Dawson City itself, Diamond Tooth Gertie's (a legal
gambling saloon), the KVA's Palace Grand Theatre, Robert
Service's cabin, the S.S. Keno, the Administration Building and
other reconstructed buildings have been designed to recreate the
ambiance of gold rush Dawson, and attract tourists to stay in the
Yukon. Private enterprise has lagged behind the government's
initiative; facilities are routinely jammed in the summer months,
The Search for Economic Stability 51
as campgrounds and hotels fill with tourists. Entrepreneurs are,
however, finally beginning to jump on the gold rush band-
wagon. The White Pass and Yukon Railway, closed in 1982, was
re-opened in May 1988, running from Skagway to the Alaska-
Canada border. A tour and freight riverboat service is scheduled
to go into operation on the Yukon River in 1989, joining the many
smaller operators offering summer tours between Whitehorse
and Dawson City.
The effort is working. In the late 1970s, more than 300,000
tourists visited the territory every year. Expanded promotion,
like the Yukon's Expo 86 pavilion, and special marketing efforts
in Germany and the United States have been paying off. The
number of people visiting the Yukon continues to grow steadily,
filling the hotels, keeping tour operators, wilderness guides and
other services busy during the short summer season. There
remain, however, some troubling trends within the tourism sec-
tor. Few travellers have the Yukon as a final destination; most
are simply passing through on their way to Alaska. Further,
many are self-sufficient in their accommodations, travelling in
campers and motor-homes. Considerable government and in-
dustry effort has therefore been devoted to keeping these people
in the Territory a few extra days.
The Native Economy
The northern economy no longer rests on the simple mining-
based foundations of the past. Yet the other sectors remain, in
monetary terms, comparatively small, necessitating continued
federal and territorial involvement to even out the bumps of the
boom and bust cycles.
Ottawa, abandoning its inattention and neglect of earlier
decades, has swamped the North with a kaleidoscope of
economic development strategies and programs. Federal officials
have directed particular attention to the development of a new
Northern Mineral Policy, formally announced in December 1986.
A complex series of economic deals with the territorial ad-
ministrations, called Economic Development Agreements,
provided local officials with large sums of money to encourage
52 The Modern North
the diversification of the North's economic base. The territorial
administrations have followed suit, undertaking construction
projects, providing grants and setting local preference purchas-
ing and contracting policies in an attempt to support regional
business. These administrative initiatives have had mixed
results. As the 1982-1985 depression in the Yukon Territory indi-
cates, the region remains remarkably vulnerable to economic
forces far beyond the North's control.
Non-Natives and Natives respond very differently to the
economic forces that shape their lives. Many non-Natives, being
immigrants to the region, simply leave when the mining
economy or petroleum industry takes a sharp downturn. Native
people, whose incomes are seldom directly tied to these major
industries, do not perceive their options in the same manner. This
being their homeland, they have not been willing to pick up and
leave if economic times turn sour. For the past two decades,
major efforts have been made, by the federal and territorial
governments, to provide more opportunities for Native people.
The effort is not new. In the 1960s, considerable effort and
money went into the creation and maintenance of retail and
producer cooperatives in the Northwest Territories. Although
the financial fortunes of the cooperatives have been mixed, the
organizational experience and control that the system provide
have been of major benefit to the Native people. Much more has
been done recently. A number of Native development corpora-
tions, Native-owned and operated, have been opened across the
North. The larger ones, Inuvialuit Development Corporation,
Metis Development Corporation, Denendeh Development Cor-
poration and Nunasi Corporation (central and eastern Arctic
Inuit), represent the business interests of the major Native politi-
cal organizations. The corporations allow Native people to be
directly involved with the industries that affect their lives, pro-
vide on-the-job training and hold the potential for a profitable
return.
Native people have established a formidable business
presence in the North. The Nunasi Corporation, for example, has
investments in Nunasi Central Airways (formerly Ontario
Central), a Keewatin gold property, oil and gas holdings and
The Search for Economic Stability 53
publishing ventures. The Inuvialuit Development Corporation,
founded in 1977 and holding many of the financial resources
resulting from the COPE land claims settlement, had assets of
$42 million in 1985. Investments included the Northern
Transportation Company, Aklak Air, Madison Oil and Gas (Al-
berta), Bush Company (a local liquor store) and the Inuvialuit
Petroleum Corporation.
Recent joint ventures reveal even more of the enormous chan-
ges that have swept through the North in the past fifteen years.
Chevron Oil and the residents of Fort Good Hope, for example,
have been working jointly on oil exploration in the area. The
various projects employed 162 residents, including 129 from the
local Native community. The Natives supplied heavy equip-
ment, maintained the camps, provided contract labour and con-
tracted for bush slashing and survey work. Chevron, for its part,
paid for the work, provided training and some of the equipment
and helped the development corporation establish new busi-
nesses.
Shehtah Drilling, established in 1983, represents a union of
Esso Resources, Denendeh Development Corporation and the
Metis Development Corporation. Ownership is split between the
Native corporations and Esso, but is directed, managed and
operated by the Natives. Shehtah Drilling, which provided thirty
jobs (out of forty-five) for northern Natives on Norman Wells
drilling projects in 1984, is designed to train Native people for
work in the oil patch at both technical and managerial levels and
to provide a solid financial return for investors.
The Cullaton Lake gold mine provides yet another example of
Native and non-Native cooperative ventures. The Nunasi
Development Corporation contributed a $27.9 million loan to the
project, in return for the option to purchase shares. The coopera-
tion went further, with forty of the 120 workers in the mine being
Native. The Nunasi loan was repaid on schedule and the Inuit
no longer have an equity share in the project, but their willing-
ness to provide financial support has resulted in a far more
favourable attitude toward the employment of Native workers.
Native business ventures have not all been in the non-renew-
able resource sector. Kal's Country Food, established in Rankin
54 The Modern North
Inlet in 1987, offered caribou meat, dried meat, seal and char,
purchasing the food from commercial hunters and offering it for
resale. Much has also been done to provide outlets for northern
artisans. The art cooperatives in the Northwest Territories, par-
ticularly the noted Cape Dorset and Baker Lake cooperatives,
have long promoted Inuit print-making and carving. Retail
operations such as Yukon Native Products and Northern Images
similarly promote Native handicrafts, serving as consignment
houses for people wishing to market their work. Many other
operations across the North — construction companies, airline
companies, retail stores, producers' cooperatives, guiding and
tour companies — are owned and operated by Native people.
An increasing number of these enterprises are community-
owned and based, a marked departure from the individualistic
and entrepreneurial model of the non-Native business com-
munity, but in keeping with the needs and aspirations of the
Native people of the North.
Even with these developments, however, Native businesses
form only a small percentage of the northern commercial sector.
In 1986, for example, only fifty-five of 1378 businesses in the
Yukon were Native-owned or run. Also, many Native business
activities carry an implicit commitment to non-renewable
resource development, which may be at odds with other Native
aspirations, such as the preservation of traditional lifestyles. Still,
Native corporations permit the Indian, Metis and Inuit com-
munities to capture a greater share of the financial benefits from
the northern economy, to gain the professional, technical and
managerial skills needed in an increasingly complex society and
to provide employment for Native people in the North.
New Directions
Economic diversification remains a central, if elusive, goal for
northern politicians and businessmen, holding the potential of
freeing the region from the inevitable and disastrous boom and
bust cycles of the past. Recognizing the problems inherent in a
resource-based economy, the Yukon NDP government, first
elected in 1985, announced a bold planning initiative.
The Search for Economic Stability 55
The "Yukon 2000" process sought to involve all Yukoners in
a systematic evaluation of the territorial economy, with the hope
that the planning process would indicate (or create) a consensus
on the best path for the Yukon. The process started in Faro in
June 1986, with a small gathering of representatives from various
territorial associations and interest groups. From the Faro launch,
the process expanded rapidly, through a series of public meet-
ings, seminars and consultations. The effort was remarkably
wide-ranging. All sectors of Yukon society were well repre-
sented: Natives, women, mining, tourism, organized labour,
youth, handicapped, trappers and hunters, volunteer groups,
local governments, seniors, public servants and many others. The
planning process identified the major sectors of the economy and
the significant economic links that tied the Yukon together.
The government was taking a considerable risk in asking such
a diverse group to discuss such a controversial and wide-ranging
issue. As the Yukon 2000 process continued, however, it seemed
to gain momentum. A major conference was held in Whitehorse
in the fall of 1986. As a result of this meeting and further consult-
ations, the government produced The Things That Matter: A
Report of Yukoners' Views on the Future of Their Economy and Society
in August 1987, the document listing dozens of the recommen-
dations offered at the discussions as solutions to the Yukon's
problems.
The Yukon 2000 process did not produce quick answers or
even a strong consensus on plans for the future. However, the
discussions did demonstrate that the distance between the
various interest groups was not as great as many had long ex-
pected. Many observers were attracted to the unique exercise.
Peter McDowell, a business professor at the University of Alaska,
commented, "This government appears to be sensitive, intel-
ligent, and dynamic for economic leadership, and this should be
a model for an Alaska regional development strategy. I find
Yukon 2000 to be a charismatic process to which I am keenly
attracted/' Tony Penikett, Yukon government leader, offered a
solid rationale for the undertaking:
56 The Modern North
We are saying, here is an exercise in which, for the first
time, you as a citizen or businessman or trade union
leader or Indian band leader will have the chance to
have a continuing voice in the kind of economy you
want to see developed, and how we can do it. The most
successful societies in the world are ones that share
common goals and assumptions about where they
want to go and how they want to get there.
The Yukon 2000 process is not yet complete, and it will be several
years before direct benefits can be seen from the complex and
involved discussions. But the significance of the process rests not
with short-term results, but with the effort itself. The willingness
of the territorial government and dozens of its most active and
informed citizens to step outside their normal activities in order
to contemplate the future of their Territory indicates a commit-
ment to the region — and to a sustainable, stable economy —
that has long been missing in the Canadian North.
Looking Ahead
Much has changed in the northern economy over the last fifteen
years. The pipeline projects, touted as the foundation for growth
and prosperity, withered and died, the massive reports and
proposals that accompanied them remaining as testimony to
misplaced dreams and aspirations. Mining is still the cornerstone
of the regional order, with a marked shift to precious metal
production following the collapse of base metal prices in the
early 1980s. Around the fringes, and moving ever closer to
centre-stage, are the smaller sectors — tourism, renewable
resource development, services and secondary processing—that
hold the opportunity for a balanced and stable regional economy.
Although the statistics clearly indicate that Native people (par-
ticularly those with little or no formal education) remain outside
the economic mainstream, there are also promising signs of Na-
tive participation, both as workers and as owners, throughout
the North. Regional prosperity is no longer exclusively reserved
for the largely transient, non-Native population.
The Search for Economic Stability 57
Behind it all, and providing the essential financial props that
preserve prosperity, are massive federal and territorial expendi-
tures. The hand of government is everywhere to be seen — in
interventionist petroleum legislation, grants to Native organiza-
tions and corporations, transportation or supply subsidies and
major investments in infrastructure. As Native organizations and
territorial governments take a larger role in the economic
decision-making process, it is also clear that federal expenditures
are having a greater impact. While it is too soon to argue that
large mining projects, like Cyprus-Anvil or Pine Point, no longer
dominate economic planning in the North, it is obvious that
Northerners have set new priorities for the future development
of their region.
Will the North achieve the economic stability and diversifica-
tion it seeks? The answer remains unclear. The colonies are now
fighting back, determined to capture a greater share of regional
resources and income for the North and to upset the long-estab-
lished model of northern development. Southern corporations
and the federal government move more cautiously now that they
did fifteen years ago in developing the North's resources, and
listen with respect to the wishes of the northern communities. As
the people of the region take a bigger role in planning and im-
plementing their own economic agenda in the Yukon and
Northwest Territories, there is much greater chance that the age-
old pattern of boom and bust, of reliance on transient southern
workers and of the marginalization of the North's aboriginal
citizens, will give way to a more promising course.
Political Cultures: The
Reality of Colonial Status
T
he most public battle against Canadian colonialism is being
waged on the political front. Over the past fifteen years, the
Yukon and Northwest Territories have argued for greater politi-
cal autonomy and greater control over their own affairs. The
political structures and arrangements that govern the North
have, as a consequence, been modernized and, to a substantial
degree, transferred to the region. Yet the transition is far from
complete, as the controversy over the Meech Lake constitutional
accord demonstrates only too well. Even as the North moves
towards political equality and maturity, there is considerable
evidence that colonialism will not disappear easily.
The Ottawa Scene
Since World War II, the greatest political challenge facing the
North has been the struggle for recognition. The Yukon and
Northwest Territories typically have had a minor place in the
national scheme of things, attracting little attention from federal
politicians and civil servants. Not since the days of John Diefen-
baker, when northern development was offered as a "New Na-
tional Policy," has the region sat near the top of the federal
government's agenda. As a result, northern politicians have
Political Cultures 59
struggled, with only limited success, to focus attention on
regional concerns and to heighten national interest in northern
affairs.
The North's representatives to the federal House of Commons
bear primary responsibility for carrying the North's message to
the other members of parliament. The Yukon has been electing
men and women to the House of Commons since 1901; the
Northwest Territories did not receive a separate seat in Ottawa
until 1952. For much of this century, the region's representatives
have enjoyed only limited success in raising the profile of ter-
ritorial concerns. Like the region they represented, most northern
MPs faded into the background.
The Yukon's Erik Nielsen broke this pattern. First elected in a
December 1957 by-election and a back-bencher during the years
of Conservative rule, Nielsen emerged as an important political
figure during the 1960s. A World War II veteran, and a man
noted for his grit, loyalty, partisanship and determination, Niel-
sen was something of a muckraker, noted for bringing news of
Liberal scandals to public attention. More important, he rose
regularly in the House of Commons to press territorial concerns,
offering a particularly persistent appeal for provincial status for
the Yukon. Nielsen represented well the interests of the business
community, and urged the rapid development of territorial
resources, but he never neglected the rest of his Yukon con-
stituency. He earned his support the hard way, through careful
attention to constituency affairs and to an unwavering defence
of territorial interests in Ottawa.
Nielsen represented the Yukon for thirty years, winning ten
more elections in the process, before retiring in January 1987.
While his string of electoral victories was unbroken, it would be
wrong to assume that all Yukoners were pleased with his leader-
ship or his party. In the 1968 election, for example, Liberal can-
didate Chris Finlay rode Trudeaumania to within sixty-two votes
of the long-serving incumbent. Following his re-election in 1979,
Nielsen was appointed minister of public works in Joe Clark's
short-lived Conservative administration. The position was an
important one for the North; a temporary burst in funding for
60 The Modern North
the reconstruction of the Alaska Highway was one of the more
important legacies of his brief tenure in the minister's chair.
Although there were signs that Nielsen was tiring of federal
politics, he stayed on. He barely held his seat in a tight 1980
electoral battle, but emerged as one of the most prominent
figures in the federal Conservative caucus. He stood behind Joe
Clark when the leader faced, and lost a leadership challenge. It
was a sign of Nielsen's high reputation within Conservative
ranks that one of the first things that Brian Mulroney did upon
unseating Clark as Conservative leader was to appoint Nielsen
as deputy leader. In the Conservative sweep of 1984, the Yukon
seat remained Tory blue, with Nielsen winning by more than
4,000 votes.
Nielsen's loyalty and prominence assured him a major role in
the Mulroney government. As deputy prime minister, he per-
formed as one of the administration's most important
troubleshooters. He chaired a major and controversial task force
on government spending and programs, a study group that had
official Ottawa trembling for months on end, and replaced
Robert Coates when the latter was forced to resign his post as
minister of national defence. The positions gave Nielsen an un-
expected national presence, but he did not ignore the North. In
May 1985, he announced an $8.7 million economic development
grant for his home territory and a new financing agreement
which increased the Yukon's capital budget from $27 million to
$42 million.
Yet, while no one questioned Nielsen's loyalty to the prime
minister and his administration, he was to become a political
liability. The political characteristics that had served Nielsen so
well in opposition — his partisanship, tenacity and combat-
iveness — did not transfer easily to the government benches.
"Velcro Lips' so named for keeping information (including
news of his re-marriage) under close control, became a favourite
opposition target. In January 1987, the political wars having
taken their toll, Nielsen announced his resignation. In typical
fashion, he offered few comments on his departure — not even
to the party faithful in the North— and retreated to his lodge on
Quiet Lake. But he did not disappear completely from public life,
Political Cultures 61
accepting an appointment to the Canadian Transport Commis-
sion.
The 1987 Yukon by-election campaign triggered by Nielsen's
resignation was a three-sided contest, fought by Audrey Mc-
Laughlin of the New Democrats, Tory candidate David Leverton,
a relative newcomer to Yukon politics, and popular Whitehorse
mayor Don Branigan of the Liberals. The battle focused on the
Yukon's opposition to the Meech Lake constitutional deal; it was
clear from early in the competition that Leverton would feel the
brunt of territorial anger at the Mulroney government. While
Nielsen, interestingly, was conspicuous by his absence from the
by-election, the territorial NDP turned its considerable electoral
team into their candidate's campaign. McLaughlin, a social
worker by training, won, earning 332 more votes than Branigan.
Leverton finished third, a sure mark of the end of the Nielsen
dynasty. While McLaughlin had little time to establish a national
presence, she broke with her leader and party on the Meech Lake
deal. She has also been much more outspoken on northern issues,
particularly constitutional matters and Native affairs, than was
the dose-lipped Nielsen.
No other northern representative in Ottawa has risen to
Nielsen's stature. For much of the post-war period, a single mem-
ber of parliament represented the entire Northwest Territories, a
daunting and tiring political task. Wally Firth, a Native rights
worker and commercial pilot, carried the Northwest Territories
for the New Democratic Party in 1972 and won again in 1974.
Before the 1979 election, the Northwest Territories was divided
into two electoral districts. In Nunatsiaq (Eastern Arctic), Peter
Ittinuar of the NDP defeated the prominent Native activist Tagak
Curley of the Liberal Party. In the west, mining engineer Dave
Nickerson of the Progressive Conservatives won a close three-
way race. Both men ran again the following year, and each eked
out a narrow victory: Nickerson by nineteen votes over Wally
Firth and Ittinuar by 311 ballots over Liberal James Arvaluk.
Neither Ittinuar or Nickerson, however, established much of
a presence in Ottawa. Both men, in fact, became embroiled in
personal difficulties that distracted them from their constituency
work. Nickerson, a pro-development advocate and former ter-
62 The Modern North
ritorial cabinet minister, had represented his Mackenzie region
well, as demonstrated by a sizeable victory over the Liberals and
NDP in the 1984 election. But a well-publicized domestic dispute,
which resulted in opposition party demands that Nickerson
resign his seat, tarnished his image and temporarily reduced his
effectiveness.
Peter Ittinuar's career has followed an even more tortuous
path. The former CBC announcer, film-maker, magazine editor,
executive member of the Inuit Tapirisat, and professor of Inuk-
tituk linguistics and culture, crossed the floor to the Liberals in
1982. His once-promising career soon lay in tatters, demolished
by unproven accusations concerning the use of government
funds. But Ittinuar was not about to give up. He ignored the
many signs of his growing unpopularity, including the loss of
the NDP nomination in the 1984 nomination. Running as an
independent, he received only ten percent of the votes cast and
finished well behind the winner, Thomas Sulak of the Progres-
sive Conservatives.
The November 1988 federal election saw further political
change in the NWT and a confirmation of the decision taken a
year earlier in the Yukon. Audrey McLaughlin (now NDP caucus
chairperson and widely touted as a potential leadership can-
didate) won handily, confirming that the by-election victory of
1987 had been no fluke. McLaughlin won, in part, because of her
strong opposition to the Meech Lake Accord and excellent con-
stituency work. In the NWT, voters bucked the national trend,
rejecting incumbent Tory MP Dave Nickerson in the Western
Arctic and sending two Liberals, Ethel Blondin (Western Arctic)
and Jack Iyerak Anawak (Nunatsinq), to Ottawa.
The federal political forum has proven to be of marginal value
for Northerners. Regional members of parliament have seldom
been able to bring northern issues to the attention of the House
of Commons, beyond routine private members' motions that
attract little notice. Partly because of the limited ability of in-
dividual MPs to affect the nation's political agenda and partly
because there is so much work to be done at the territorial level,
much of the region's political energy has been devoted to the
unique and innovative territorial administrations.
Political Cultures 63
Politics in the Yukon
The Yukon has had a long history of political representation at
the territorial level. In 1908, an amendment to the Yukon Act
established a fully-elected ten-member territorial council, al-
though the political power of the commissioner — the federally
appointed head of government — limited that body's real power.
In 1918, in the wake of a massive cut in territorial appropriations,
the council was reduced to three elected members. Improve-
ments to the territorial political scene came only after World War
II.
Through the 1960s, Yukon politics was noted for its raucous
character. Controversial and outspoken members like Ken Mack-
innon, Norm Chamberlist, Hilda Watson, Clive Tanner and Jim
Howett guaranteed lively and rich debate. The often confronta-
tional atmosphere originated, at least in part, in the absence of
substantial power in the hands of the territorial representatives.
Anxious for greater authority, the Yukon Territorial Council in-
troduced an autonomy motion in 1966, calling for an elected
council of fifteen members, provincial status within twelve years
and the creation of an executive committee with full cabinet
powers. The federal cabinet countered in 1967 with a demand
that the Yukon raise a greater share of territorial revenues. When
the Territorial Council refused, Ottawa temporarily cut off
federal grants.
And then, slowly, real change began. With Yukoner James
Smith as commissioner, some major alterations were made to the
structure and administration of government. In November 1970,
two elected members, Hilda Watson and Norm Chamberlist,
were appointed to the five-member Executive Council which,
with the commissioner, served as the territorial cabinet. Four
years later, another elected representative was added to the
council. Three years later, in 1977, the addition of yet another
member gave elected officials a majority. Party politics formally
arrived in 1978, when the Progressive Conservatives won eleven
of the sixteen seats on Council. In the following year, 1979, the
first fully elected cabinet was sworn in under Government
Leader Chris Pearson. Responsible government had arrived.
64 The Modern North
For the Conservative administration, control of the Executive
Council was not enough. Chris Pearson wrote to Jake Epp, Min-
ister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development:
The growth of the Executive Committee concept and
the advent of party politics to the Yukon legislature
have made it possible to entrust a large portion of the
responsibility for the active, day to day administration
of the Yukon government to elected officials directly
accountable to the Yukon Legislative Assembly. In this
context, it is our contention that the Commissioner
need not and should not continue to play a prominent
role in the day to day administration of the Yukon
government.
The challenge to the commissioner's position was not unex-
pected. The appointment of Art Pearson in 1976 was particularly
unpopular, and his resignation under a cloud in 1978 did a great
deal to diminish the prestige of the position. The appointment of
popular and influential Yukoner Ione Christensen in January
1979 was greeted much more enthusiastically, but the political
groundswell against the power of appointed officials had gained
too much momentum. Minister Jake Epp accepted the Yukon's
position and advised Christensen that the commissioner would
no longer sit on the Executive Committee and was to accept the
advice of elected council on all matters. The commissioner was,
in Epp's words, to be a "mediator in the constitutional develop-
ment of the Yukon." Christensen was not comfortable with the
diminished status, and resigned her office in "protest against the
Territory's pell mell dash towards democracy." She ran unsuc-
cessfully against Erik Nielsen in the 1980 federal election cam-
paign.
The Yukon was not, of course, content with the achievement
of responsible government. Since the 1960s, some Yukoners had
demanded provincial status. Enthusiasm for the idea had never
been widespread, but it did enjoy considerable support among
Conservative followers. The Yukon plan received a major boost
with the selection of Joe Clark as federal Progressive Conserva-
Political Cultures 65
tive leader. Shortly after becoming leader of the Official Opposi-
tion, Clark visited the Territory and, backed by Erik Nielsen,
promised that the Yukon would move towards provincial status
during the Conservatives' first term of office. To Clark's dismay,
the offer was greeted with considerable scepticism and limited
enthusiasm. As residents looked carefully at the financial cost of
such status, their support dimmed markedly.
Yet, while many Yukoners recognized that becoming a
province was not in their immediate interest, there was a desire
to continue the process of constitutional reform and to ensure
that the option of future change would remain open. Ironically,
as the Yukon moved towards greater local control over its affairs,
Yukoners discovered that their political future was becoming
increasingly constrained. When Prime Minister Trudeau, back in
office after 1980, was asked about the prospect of provincial
status for the Yukon, he bluntly replied, "Not in my lifetime." In
1980 Chris Pearson demanded an invitation to the First
Ministers' Conference on the Constitution; he was refused. Fur-
ther, territorial demands for control over lands and resources,
fueled by the Native land-claims process, were repeatedly
rejected.
The debate over constitutional reform was not over — a host
of unresolved problems kept the issue alive. Even with the chan-
ges of the 1970s, the Yukon had far fewer powers than the
provinces, particularly in the crucial area of land and resources.
It lacked the ability to amend its own constitution and faced the
prospect of continued federal control over territorial legislation.
Finally, Ottawa retained considerable power over Yukon finan-
cial matters, necessitating continual negotiations between ter-
ritorial and federal officials over territorial funding.
Yet the broad strokes of constitutional change do not tell the
entire story. The 1970s and early 1980s witnessed considerable
progress in the area of administrative decentralization. Begin-
ning in 1971, when the Yukon government acquired control over
the administration of justice, a number of federal responsibilities
were turned over to territorial officials. Public Works Canada
handed the Alaska Highway to the Yukon Department of High-
ways in 1972. The same year partial responsibility for local
66 The Modern North
fisheries was transferred to the Yukon government. The transfer
of health care took longer, slowed by Native concerns and a lack
of funds, but the territorial administration made significant gains
in this area as well.
The transition was not always smooth, slowed by the ter-
ritorial government's limited financial resources. Discussions
started in the 1970s over the need for a formula financial agree-
ment for the Territory, but a deal was not reached until 1985 (a
second agreement has recently been ratified). The process of
devolution, the North's principal option given the rejection of
provincial status for the Yukon, has continued through the 1980s.
The federal government clearly supports the ongoing transfer of
administrative responsibilities, although the generosity has
stopped short of offering the Yukon control over natural resour-
ces.
The territorial government's acquisition of greater powers oc-
curred simultaneously with the emergence of political parties.
For many in the Yukon, the introduction of parties was a sign of
the Territory's political maturation. Through the 1960s, territorial
legislators had avoided overtly partisan politics, although the
federal affiliations of most politicians were well known. In the
1974 territorial election, the New Democratic Party agreed to
identify its party candidates; the Progressive Conservatives, ad-
hering to a national party policy that required a field of fifteen
candidates before a party slate would be offered to the electorate,
declined to run as a group. As long-time Tory Ken McKinnon
argued, "the party shouldn't split the Yukon with partisan
politics."
In the 1978 election, the first run completely along party lines,
the Tories swept to power, winning eleven of the sixteen seats.
These were not, however, elections that the rest of the country
would immediately recognize; they were more like small-town
municipal campaigns than provincial elections. In the smaller
ridings, fewer than three hundred people went to the polls. Con-
servative Howard Tracy, for example, won the Tatchun con-
stituency with 109 votes, twenty-six votes ahead of his nearest
challenger. In Old Crow, winner Grafton Njootli gained sixty-
two votes, more than twice the number of Liberal challenger
Political Cultures 67
Ethel Tizya. Not all the ridings had so few voters — the
Whitehorse constituencies were substantially larger — but these
were clearly small-scale elections, fought on a local level, and
with political personalities and local reputation playing a deter-
mining role in the contests.
The Conservatives seemed secure in their control of territorial
political life, backing Erik Nielsen at the national level and
returning a Tory majority to the Territorial Council. The 1982
election, fought primarily between the Tories and the NDP,
reflected a certain polarization of territorial politics. The NDP,
strong supporters of the Council of Yukon Indians' land claim,
made significant inroads in the rural constituencies. The pro-
development Tories held most of the Whitehorse ridings. When
the dust had settled, the Conservatives had won again, holding
nine of the sixteen seats and leaving the NDP with six seats.
The Progressive Conservatives offered a strongly ideological
administration. There was a series of struggles over Native land
claims, with the territorial government demanding attention to
the need for a settlement of the Yukon's claim to control over
land and resources. The Yukon Territorial Government pulled
out of the land claims negotiations in 1982, returning reluctantly
the following year. Determined efforts were also made to create
a favourable atmosphere for investment in the Yukon. The
government's support for short-term development, and the ab-
sence of a long-term plan for the diversification of the territorial
economy, suggested that the Conservatives accepted the long-es-
tablished economic pattern in the region.
While the Tories rode the wave of economic prosperity
through the 1970s, they faced the consequences of their commit-
ment to resource development following the economic collapse
of the early 1980s. The recession forced cuts in legislators' wages,
restrictions on government employees' pay and a reduction in
work schedules. But the Tories' problems ran deeper than this.
In the early 1980s, the Pearson government lost four ministers to
scandals and personal problems. Pearson himself resigned in
1985, and soon afterwards he received a patronage appointment
from the federal government as the federal representative in
Dallas, Texas. Willard Phelps, whose family's ties in the Territory
68 The Modern North
go back to the days of the Klondike gold rush, was selected to
replace Pearson, a choice that was not uniformly popular
throughout the Territory.
Phelp's first challenge, and a major test for the Tories' pro-
development philosophy, came in the 1985 general election. The
NDP, led by Tony Penikett and with strong support in the Native
communities, offered a clear alternative to the Conservative
Party. The election was a true Yukon barn-burner. The once-sub-
stantial Faro riding, for example, had been significantly depleted
by the closure of the Cyprus-Anvil mine. Liberal Jim McLachlan
won with only 142 votes. In Watson Lake, a battle within Con-
servative ranks resulted in two independent candidates running,
in addition to the official PC representative. The conflict allowed
NDP member David Porter to sneak into office. It was a tight
battle throughout the Territory — the Tories actually won more
votes than the NDP—but a distribution of seats in favour of the
rural areas gave the NDP a minority government. The two
Liberals held the balance of power.
The uncertainty would not linger long. Liberal leader Roger
Coles ran into difficulties when he attempted to sell cocaine to
an undercover RCMP officer. Coles resigned the leadership and,
when found guilty of trafficking, also gave up his Tatchun seat.
A by-election was called, with local Native Danny Joe running
for the NDP against a prominent Liberal, Indian activist Elijah
Smith. Joe won the contest, giving the NDP nine out of the sixteen
seats in the territorial assembly.
Even before the Tatchun victory, Tony Penikett had launched
a program to revitalize the Yukon. Working quickly to placate
the business interests who were worried about the NDP's ap-
parent unwillingness to support mining development, the
government successfully negotiated the re-opening of the Faro
mine. The government was also committed to the diversification
of the territorial economy, and sponsored the Yukon 2000 con-
sultation process in an attempt to seek guidance and, they hoped,
a consensus on future directions. To speed up the land-claims
process and to reassure its Native supporters, the NDP ap-
pointed former judge Barry Stewart as chief territorial negotiator.
Perhaps most important, the new administration revitalized the
Political Cultures 69
Territory's large and influential civil service, a group that had
grown rather moribund and somewhat gun-shy under the reign
of Tory free-enterprisers.
A territorial general election in February 1989 provided the
first major test of the Penikett government. The usual territorial
dynamics entered into the race — a moribund Liberal party
struggling for respectability, unusual nominating meetings and
a string of personality-based campaigns. The NDP were returned
to power, winning nine of the sixteen seats. The Conservatives,
led by Willard Phelps, won the remaining seven ridings. The
Liberals ran close to a full slate of candidates but were shut out;
the party finished third in all but one riding.
The electoral victory confirms that NDP policies have been
popular of late. The Conservative Party remains an important, if
weakened, force in territorial politics. The Liberals, on the other
hand, seem destined for perennial third-party status, clearly
without a sizeable territorial following. There have, therefore,
been two significant shifts in territorial politics in the Yukon over
the last fifteen years: the introduction of party politics and the
replacement of Tory domination with NDP supremacy.
Politics in the Northwest Territories
These same forces of change have likewise swept through the
Northwest Territories, although the timing and consequences of
constitutional reform in that region have differed significantly
from the situation in the Yukon. The two Territories started from
the same base — colonies of a distant and often uncaring federal
government — but the Northwest Territories' advance towards
responsible administration has been much slower. For most of
the century, until the mid-1960s, the territorial government was
based in Ottawa. The council consisted of federal civil servants
until after World War II, when local residents were finally ap-
pointed. Having regional representatives helped somewhat, but
with the capital still located in Ottawa, residents had little say in
the governance of their land.
Pressured by regional demands for greater autonomy, the
federal government finally acted. In 1963, Ottawa appointed an
70 The Modern North
Advisory Commission on the Development of Government in
the Northwest Territories, under the leadership of A.W.R. Car-
rothers, dean of law at the University of Western Ontario. The
Carrothers Report, tabled in October 1966, recommended that,
over time, the powers of the elected officials be increased and the
authority of the appointed commissioner be reduced. A number
of people had proposed the division of the Territories; the Car-
rothers commission advised postponing such a division, arguing
that it would retard the progress of the NWT towards local
autonomy.
The changes did not come immediately. By 1970, the fourteen-
member territorial council consisted of ten elected and four ap-
pointed officials. In 1974, the NWT Act was amended, providing
for a fully elected fifteen-member council. The face of northern
politics changed in other ways. In the 1975 territorial elections,
nine of the fifteen members were of Native descent, the first time
that aboriginal people had ever held a majority in a democrati-
cally elected assembly in Canada. In 1979, the council was ex-
panded to twenty-two members; fourteen of the elected
members were of Native ancestry.
There is far more to the Territories' political system than its
ethnic balance. The territorial system operates on an unusual
non-partisan, consensual format that offers no assurance of as-
sembly support for government measures and requires all
politicians to seek a moderate, widely acceptable course. Ter-
ritorial counsellors are elected on the basis of their stature within
the community, not their party affiliation. Several members have
been elected by acclamation since 1970. Government leaders, to
provide a further example of consensus in operation, do not
represent a stable voting block in the assembly and do not as-
sume office solely on the basis of territorial election results.
Rather, the leader is selected by elected representatives from
among their own number. The leadership has rotated — from
Richard Nerysoo to Nick Sibbeston to Dennis Patterson between
1985 and 1988 — without the incumbent being defeated in the
house or losing his seat in the assembly. The process, which
draws on the Natives' tradition of consensual governance,
protects against the concentration of power, helps limit the
Political Cultures 71
likelihood of excessive patronage and, as with the selection of
cabinet ministers, provides an effective check on political leaders.
The political career of Tagak Curley illustrates the effective-
ness of the consensus format. An Inuk born in Coral Harbour,
Curley worked his way up the ranks of Inuit politics and com-
munity organizations. After stints with the federal and territorial
governments, he served as settlement manager at Repulse Bay.
He was a founding member and first president of the Inuit
Tapirisat and president of the Nunasi Development Corporation.
He was first elected to the NWT council in 1979, representing
Keewatin South and, later, Aivilik. In 1984, Curley was ap-
pointed Minister for Economic Development and Tourism, with
additional responsibility for Energy, Mines and Resources and
the Public Utilities Board. In his ministerial capacity, he served
on a variety of committees and coordinated the NWT's highly
successful exhibit at Expo 86 in Vancouver.
But at this point, Curley's political career, which demonstrates
the close connection between local organizations, government
service, Native politics and territorial affairs, was almost over. In
1987 he was accused of threatening a member of the territorial
assembly over questions of grants to private businesses in the
minister's riding. The legislative assembly voted to strip him of
his ministerial position. He subsequently lost his seat in the Oc-
tober 1987 election, ending in ignominious fashion (perhaps tem-
porarily) a distinguished political career. Tagak Curley's removal
demonstrates the ability, and willingness, of territorial counsel-
lors, operating under the consensus system, to take quick, tough
and painful decisions, freed from the constraints of partisan
politics.
The system has not rested unchallenged. As early as 1979, the
New Democratic Party declared its intention to introduce party
politics into the Territory. While the proposal found some sup-
porters — some said such a transition was inevitable as the North
modernized — the concept foundered. Yellowknife South MLA
Lynda Sorensen attempted to organize a "Northern Party" in
1983; both the Liberal and Conservative parties rebuffed her
suggestions.
72 The Modern North
There have been many critics of the consensus system. Political
scientist Michael Wittington has argued that the "problem with
the system is that there is no collective responsibility in the ex-
ecutive.... Without some collective responsibility to the legisla-
ture, it is impossible to have responsible government in the
conventional sense." The NWT Chamber of Commerce declared
that party politics would offer better accountability and would
permit long-range planning. Others have favoured the introduc-
tion of new political parties, created in and for the North, rather
than importing them from the south. (Regional voting patterns
evident in the assembly suggest that this process is already un-
derway, if informally.) But there are also many people, especially
among Natives and in the Eastern Arctic, who find the consensus
format to be less divisive and less confrontational than the party
system, and fear that partisan politics could endanger land-
claims negotiations and movement towards division of the NWT.
The evolution of the territorial political system continues. In
the spring of 1988, a committee of ordinary members — the
fifteen members of the Legislative Assembly who do not sit in
cabinet — was formed. The committee assumed the role of an
official opposition, bombarding cabinet ministers with questions
and forcing them to justify major decisions publicly. Government
Leader D. Patterson contends that this latest wrinkle does not
represent an end to consensus government, pointing out the
government would have quickly toppled had the committee of
ordinary members been functioning as a true opposition party.
The evolutionary process will undoubtedly continue, as the
Northwest Territories struggles towards a stable political course
that seeks to blend national political structures and traditions
with the realities of territorial life. Importantly, NWT politicians
have learned to approach southern political models with scep-
ticism; they are determined that political change will continue at
the North's pace and according to the region's agenda.
Within this uniquely northern and Native political system,
territorial legislators have pushed steadily for an expansion of
constitutional and administrative powers. In the mid-1970s, the
NWT government proposed a full-scale reassessment of its status
within confederation, but the federal government moved on its
Political Cultures 73
own. Former Liberal cabinet minister Bud Drury was appointed
in 1977 to a commission on constitutional development. He was
instructed to pay particular attention to Native proposals for new
government structures.
The NWT legislative assembly did not wait for Drury's report.
In March 1979, the assembly unanimously endorsed a demand
for immediate responsible government with continued evolution
towards provincial status. Further demands called for the
removal of appointed officials, including the commissioner, and
devolution of government activities to the communities.
The Drury Report, submitted in 1980, identified some fun-
damental flaws in the NWT's political structures. The report
suggested that Native concerns were not well handled within
existing arrangements. Drury also argued that the potential of
local government had not been fully realized. He commented,
"local governmen t can provide for a measure of the self-govern-
ment which Native people seek, but within the framework of a
single territorial government. This would avoid an ethnically
differentiated arrangements, which is anathema to Ottawa." The
report recommended much greater emphasis on local govern-
ment than was common in the south, and argued that many areas
of federal responsibility should be transferred to the territorial
government.
The Drury Report echoed, rather than stimulated, territorial
demands for political reform. There was a practical side to this
political re-structuring. The Northwest Territories Council
moved to make the Executive Council more truly responsible. In
1980, George Braden, MLA from Yellowknife North, was
selected by fellow councillors as the first leader of an elected
executive. Thomas Butters became the first elected territorial
minister of finance in 1980. (Two additional members were
added to the Executive Committee in 1981.) Butters instigated a
major shift in financial structures, removing federal control of
territorial funding and negotiating a formula financing arrange-
ment similar to the relationship between Ottawa and the provin-
ces.
Territorial politicians kept the pressure on, negotiating with
Ottawa for the continued transfer of federal responsibilities to
74 The Modern North
territorial control. Through the early 1980s, there were numerous
demands for limits on the power of the commissioner, including
a defeated 1983 motion to remove the commissioner entirely
from the legislature and turn his office into the equivalent of a
provincial lieutenant governor. In response to this pressure, John
Munro, minister of Indian affairs and northern development,
announced that the commissioner's role would continue until
land claims had been settled and the territorial political climate
had stabilized. There was more movement at the administrative
level. Control of the Departments of Information and Public Ser-
vice were transferred from the commissioner's office to the Ex-
ecutive Council in 1983 and in April 1988 the NWT government
announced that it had assumed full control over health services.
A central thrust of this political restructuring was a demand
for a substantial realignment of territorial boundaries and politi-
cal structures. The NWT administration created a Special Com-
mittee on Unity in November 1979 to investigate means of
enhancing political consensus within the NWT. A lengthy series
of discussions and consultations followed between the five-
member committee and individuals, communities, and such Na-
tive organizations as the Inuit Tapirisat, Dene Nation, the Metis
Association and COPE. The final report observed:
The Northwest Territories as a geo-political jurisdic-
tion simply does not inspire a natural sense of identity
amongst many of its indigenous peoples; its govern-
ment does not enjoy in the most fundamental sense the
uncompromising loyalty and commitment of sig-
nificant numbers of those who are now subject to it.. i t
came into being essentially without the consent of
those who inhabited the area.
The federal government did not ask the inhabitants:
Shall we keep these residual lands as one territory
under a single government? It did not seek such con-
sent, one can assume, because it felt that the in-
habitants of the area were too few and, being largely
unsophisticated in a political sense, were not then
ready to make any judgement concerning this matter.
Political Cultures 75
Moreover, it undoubtedly viewed the arrangement
then as an interim agreement, to be altered when some
other part(s) of the Territory seemed ready for provin-
cial status.
In making this bold demand for the political change, the govern-
ment was simply reacting to the erratic and illogical evolution of
the NWT's boundaries. From 1870, the NWT had been Canada's
leftovers, those lands and peoples that had not yet been fully
integrated into the national economy and society. Over time,
segments were carved off what had once been a huge land mass.
The process, started with the creation of the province of
Manitoba, continued through the establishment of the Yukon
Territory, the creation of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and later
deletions as a result of the northward extension of the provinces
of Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. The remaining land continued
within a single political jurisdiction—the Northwest Territories.
The NWT, however, was a vast and culturally varied region.
Settlements were isolated and widely dispersed. In addition, the
very different paths of the two regions — the Mackenzie River
Valley and the Eastern Arctic — only increased the sense of
difference. Inuit dominated the Eastern Arctic, making up a size-
able majority of the regional population. The western district was
more diverse, with a substantial Inuit population in the Macken-
zie Delta, large numbers of Dene and Metis in the Mackenzie
Valley and an important, if largely transient, non-Native popula-
tion as well. So long as the NWT government was centered in
Ottawa, the differing social and economic realities of the eastern
and western Arctic were of little consequence. But as power
devolved to the NWT government, the conflicting aspirations
and needs of the communities and territorial regions took on
greater importance.
Through the 1970s, debate over territorial autonomy and the
continued transfer of federal responsibilities to regional control
took on a new dimension. Led by political representatives from
the Eastern Arctic, residents began to demand the division of the
Northwest Territories. Some protested the whole concept, and
argued for maintaining the integrity of the Territories. Many
76 The Modern North
more, while accepting the concept in principle, disagreed on the
boundary for the proposed new territories.
After giving agreement in principle to division and recom-
mending a territorial plebiscite on the matter, the legislative as-
sembly created a Special Committee on Constitutional
Development in May 1981 to consider possible models for
governments in newly created Territories. On April 14, 1982,
voters who met the three-year eligibility requirement went to the
polls to pass judgement on the proposed division. Fifty-three
percent voted; of those, fifty-six percent favoured division. For
territorial and federal decision-makers, the seemingly clear mes-
sage was clouded by the fact that support was uneven across the
Territory; the Eastern Arctic offered a strong mandate, but the
western regions were considerably less supportive. Aboriginal
organizations and the NWT government created a NWT Con-
stitutional Alliance, later divided into the Western Constitutional
Forum, and the Nunavut (Eastern Arctic) Constitutional Forum
was soon in place as well. Negotiations then began with the
federal government.
Matters would not proceed as smoothly as first anticipated.
An extensive study by geographer William Wonders of the
University of Alberta provided the cultural and economic data
necessary to settle the demarcation line across the mainland. But
a major problem developed with Inuit communities of the
Western Arctic. Although these communities were culturally and
linguistically aligned with the Inuit of Nunavut, they were close-
ly tied to the politics and economics of the west. Equally, the
COPE settlement district contained the much-coveted oil rich
areas of the Mackenzie Delta and Beaufort Sea. The Western
Arctic was reluctant to surrender this area, unless there was to
be some form of revenue-sharing arrangement covering the
region's resources. For these and other reasons, negotiations
stalled, and acrimony replaced the post-plebiscite euphoria. Al-
though division still claims hundreds of enthusiastic supporters
across the Northwest Territories, it has been relegated to the
political back-burner. The regional struggles inherent in the size
and structure of the Northwest Territories ensures, however, that
the issue is unlikely to disappear.
Political Cultures 77
In the absence of a restructuring of territorial boundaries, the
Northwest Territories government has proceeded with a devolu-
tion process of its own. The distance between most NWT com-
munities and the different cultural and ethnic character of those
settlements, has long worked against centralized administration.
While the government is not actively promoting the regionaliza-
tion of its administrative functions and does not view this
process as an alternative to division, NWT officials have
responded to requests from communities for greater local con-
trol. Rather than following a specific model for regional govern-
ment, devolution has proceeded on a case-by-case process,
transferring authority to community or regional bodies as is
deemed appropriate and as is requested by the citizens involved.
Although there have been problems with the administrative
restructuring of the Northwest Territories, particularly the
daunting work-load placed on community leaders, the process
has been accompanied by much excitement. The throwing off of
the most direct and restrictive shackles of colonialism —
demonstrated through the establishment of local health commit-
tees, Native participation on wildlife management boards and a
variety of other administrative and political activities — has
given the NWT a degree of autonomy and self-confidence that
seemed unattainable fifteen or twenty years ago.
The Meech Lake Betrayal
Ironically, in the midst of major improvements in territorial
authority, the Yukon and Northwest Territories received a cruel
political blow. Just as the northern colonies moved towards
equality, the constitutional process of the 1980s re-asserted
federal dominance over the Territories, making them "forever
colonies." Although there was increasing evidence through the
late 1970s and early 1980s that national politicians were prepared
to take northern issues seriously, there were few constitutional
assurances of continued involvement. Increased consultation,
which drew northern officials closer to the inner circle, served to
heighten regional demands for constitutional equity. Its expecta-
tions rising rapidly, the North was to be bitterly disappointed.
78 The Modern North
When the Trudeau administration proceeded with its plans to
patriate the British North America Act, the NWT and Yukon
governments found that many of their aspirations had been ig-
nored. There was particular concern in the northern assemblies
about Ottawa's willingness to abandon aboriginal rights in the
new constitution. But there were other issues, too. Provincial
premiers, concerned that the federal government might abuse its
power to create new provinces in order to erode provincial
authority, advocated consultation before any new partners were
added to Confederation. The provinces seemed to win, for the
Constitution bill introduced in 1981 called for the involvement
of the existing provinces in the creation of new provinces, a sharp
break with tradition. That November, the entire NWT Legislative
Assembly travelled to Ottawa to protest the federal proposals,
joining hundreds of other voices of concern. While an imprecise
statement on aboriginal rights made it into the final draft, a
resolution of the question of process for the creation of future
provinces would await a new government and a new constitu-
tional process.
When Prime Minister Mulroney and the ten provincial
premiers gathered at Meech Lake to seek amendments to the
Constitution Act of 1982, the Territories were not invited. This
slight hurt for, as Yukon Government Leader Tony Penikett ob-
served, "our fates were as much or more at stake as Quebec's or
any other province's." Further, he argued, it was "not necessary
to sacrifice the North in order to save Quebec." Before Meech
Lake, the federal government had the authority to create new
provinces; under the agreement, the approval of all ten provinces
would now be required. With no consultation, the Yukon and
Northwest Territories discovered that their hope of eventually
becoming equal partners in confederation had been all but tossed
aside. The Territories were also denied the opportunity to par-
ticipate in the recommendation of candidates for the senate and
the supreme court. Such was the nature of Canadian constitu-
tion-making that the federal government and provincial
premiers were prepared to sacrifice the aspirations of a disad-
vantaged region in order to achieve other political objectives.
Political Cultures 79
The northern Territories did not accept the Meech Lake
betrayal quietly. Tony Penikett was particularly outspoken in his
opposition to the accord, leading a territorial court challenge and
demanding a reconsideration of the agreement. Following a
Yukon Territorial Court decision awarding a trial on the case, the
British Columbia Court of Appeal accepted the federal govern-
ment position that the Meech Lake accord did not violate
Yukoners' rights under the Charter of Rights. The Northwest
Territories government was not silent on the issue. Government
Leaders Norm Sibbeston and Donald Patterson joined Penikett
and other northern politicians in actively campaigning on the
matter. The NWT joined with the Yukon in an unsuccessful 1988
Supreme Court of Canada challenge.
The Meech Lake controversy is filled with irony. It represents
an assault on Northerners' constitutional rights — an example of
Canadian brokerage politics ignoring the rights of a minority. In
their haste to placate Quebec, a laudable and important goal, the
first ministers uncaringly trampled on the political aspirations of
its constitutionally weakest members. The requirement for unan-
imous approval — unlikely, given the provinces' tendency to
protect their powers and various regional interests in extending
provincial status northward — effectively limits the dream of
northern constitutional reforms. At the same time, debate over
constitutional reform has united Northerners like few issues
have in the past. In the Yukon federal by-election of 1987, all
three candidates protested the accord, breaking with their na-
tional parties in the process. The Yukon and Northwest Ter-
ritories have identified a common cause and have coordinated
protest efforts, a surprisingly rare occurance in the last two
decades. Matters and slights like these are likely to generate a
sustained regional protest and form the basis for a strong
regional identity.
The timing of the constitutional controversy is perhaps the
greatest irony, for it comes in the midst of the modernization of
northern politics and administration. After fifteen years of
devolution, increased autonomy and political experimentation
and maturation, the Yukon and Northwest Territories had every
reason to believe that even better times lay ahead. Meech Lake
80 The Modern North
hammered home, as few government or political actions could,
that not all that much had really changed.
The controversy over Meech Lake has diverted attention away
from the substantial political gains made in the North over the
past two decades. The introduction of political parties in the
Yukon, the creation of consensus government in the Northwest
Territories and the continuing process of devolution have
reshaped the way the North administers its affairs and plans for
its future. Canada's colonies are still colonies, but they have
developed substantially from the truncated and immature politi-
cal cultures that were in place twenty years ago.
Northern Service:
Bureaucrats and the
Territories
C
ivil servants form a vital component of northern society,
providing a much-needed measure of economic and social
stability, as well as generating and administering the programs
that make the region one of the most administratively innovative
in the country. They dominate the North's largest centres —
Whitehorse and Yellowknife—and provide an educated, profes-
sional group that has brought the North much of its spirit and
vitality. Because they exert such influence over the expenditure
of government funds, the bureaucrats are also a potent political
force in the North.
This same power and presence, not surprisingly, carries con-
siderable risks. The free enterprise ethos that permeates the
northern business community, particularly the mining sector,
often collides with the pace and administrative overburden of
the civil service. Similarly, the vestiges of colonial rule have not
been completely removed, and remain evident in aspects of the
relationship between bureaucrats and Native people. Such
qualifications aside — and there are some important and telling
criticisms of the civil service in the North — the expansion,
empowerment and regionalization of the federal and territorial
82 The Modern North
bureaucracies are essential elements in the development of the
modern North.
The Bureaucratic Presence
Until World War II, the federal government assigned only a small
contingent of public servants to northern responsibilities, and
many of those worked in Ottawa. From 1939 to 1949, the gover-
nance of the territories fell to the Department of Mines and
Resources, restructured in 1949 as the Department of Resources
and Development. In 1953, the federal government announced
the creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and National
Resources, a symbol of a growing commitment to the land north
of the sixtieth parallel. That structure remained in place until
1966, when the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development was created.
Within this departmental structure, operations in the North
were administered by specific agencies: the Northwest Ter-
ritories and Yukon Branch between 1922 and 1951, Northern
Administration and Lands Branch from 1951 to 1971 and the
Northern Affairs Program from 1971 to the present. This last
change improved the profile and coordination of northern mat-
ters within the federal civil service. The Northern Affairs Pro-
gram supported territorial and municipal governments and
assisted with welfare, education and health. At the same time, it
encouraged the development of northern resources/ supporting
the construction of roads, airports, communications systems, oil,
gas and mineral exploration and environmental management.
Not all federal affairs in the North could be contained under
one roof. The Indian and Inuit Affairs Branch had specific
responsibility for Native matters, covering everything from local
government, social assistance and housing to band membership,
economic development and education. This branch also handled
treaty negotiations, enfranchisement and reserve allocations. The
IIAB and the NAP have often been at odds, since they represent
the frequently conflicting aspirations of Native and non-Native
Northerners. The oddity of compressing them into a single
Northern Service 83
government department, under a single minister, has been
repeatedly commented on, but nevertheless remains unchanged.
The minister of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, responsible for a huge Ottawa-based estab-
lishment and its many northern arms, is the most powerful in-
dividual involved with the North. The power of the cabinet
minister easily outstrips that of the members of parliament,
government leaders in the Territories and territorial counsellors.
The minister of IAND is a veritable czar ruling over close to half
of Canada's land mass. Despite the comparatively slight atten-
tion granted to the northern Territories by the federal govern-
ment, the cabinet post has long been a favourite. Former
ministers (since 1970) Jean Chretien, Judd Buchanan, Warren
Allmand, Hugh Faulkner, Jake Epp, John Munro, David Crombie
and Bill McKnight have all spoken enthusiastically about their
time in office, typically describing their work with Native people
and the North as the highlight of their career. (It is too soon to
tell if the same is true of the current minister, Pierre Cadieux.)
The attraction is fairly obvious — exotic locations, vast distances,
a varied workload and an opportunity to assist with the
revitalization of northern Native cultures and the rapid transi-
tion of northern life generally.
The minister of IAND is not the only cabinet minister with
northern responsibilities. In fact, in 1984/1985, less than twenty
percent of all federal civil servants with northern responsibilities
actually worked for this department. Other departments with
sizeable northern contingents included Defence (seventeen per-
cent of all federal employees), Health and Welfare (sixteen per-
cent), Environment (ten percent), Transport (nine percent) and
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (less than nine percent). In
total, the federal civil service complement is quite substantial. In
1973/74, some 4,485 person years were assigned to northern
service; by 1983/1984, the number had grown to over 4,900. The
first years of Conservative rule have seen a significant roll-back;
the government planned for slightly over 4,700 person years, not
including crown corporations.
Northerners, pleased with the apparent simplicity of lif e in the
region, have long been baffled by the complexity of the federal
84 The Modern North
administrative apparatus. Consider the Department of Indian
and Northern Affairs in 1981/1982. The Northern Program was
responsible for northern resources, the environment, Native cul-
tures and languages and the political evolution of the territories.
There were a number of branches within the program. The Policy
and Programming Branch was to coordinate federal and ter-
ritorial activities; the Northern Policy Directorate would oversee
policy, planning, Native claims and co-ordination; the Northern
Co-ordination and Social Development Directorate, to confuse
matters, had divisions of territorial relations, research and a so-
cial and cultural development division, which in turn had five
sections: Native liaison, Inuit art, culture and linguistics, voca-
tional training and loan fund and administration.
There is more. The Northern Program also had under it the
following: Major Projects Assessment Directorate, Northern En-
vironment division (including land management, land use plan-
ning, forest resources and water); Northern Environmental
Protection Branch, Northern Resources and Economic Planning,
Northern Economic Planning Directorate (with divisions of
Forecast and Analysis, Transportation and Communications, Na-
tive Economy and Renewable Resources Development, non-
Renewable Resources Development, and Energy Planning);
Northern Roads and Airstrips Directorate; and Socio-Economic
Agreements Directorate. One of the largest divisions in IAND is
the Indian and Inuit Affairs Program, which has subdivisions of
Resource Developments Impact, Economic and Employment
Development, Social Development, Education, Local Govern-
ment and Reserves and Trusts.
The lines of responsibility within IAND are not as precise as
this list suggests, since there is considerable overlap with other
government agencies. The Canadian Transport Commission and
the departments of Communications, Employment and Im-
migration, Energy, Mines and Resources, and Environment have
legislative responsibilities in the North that are close to the ac-
tivities of the DIAND. Much of this has been handled through
close inter-departmental liaison, but the overlap only clouds an
already unclear situation. The proliferation of government
programs, exacerbated by the steady growth of independent ter-
Northern Service 85
ritorial administrations, complicates the work of bureaucrats and
those seeking to approach government.
Take, for example, the matter of resource development. Ac-
cording to one report, "at least nine federal departments and
agencies, as well as the two territorial governments, are directly
involved in the administration of northern resource and environ-
mental legislation and regulations. Not included in this number
are special purpose interdepartmental and intragovernmental
coordinating committees, task forces, special agencies, par-
liamentary committees and native land-claims negotiating
teams, whose decisions influence northern environmental and
resource management." The federal government is involved in
northern resource development through the departments of In-
dian Affairs and Northern Development, Environment, Fisheries
and Oceans, Health and Welfare, Energy, Mines and Resources
and Transport, as well as the National Energy Board, the Atomic
Energy Control Board and the Canada Oil and Gas Lands Ad-
ministration.
There is a similar overlap in the area of economic development
initiatives in the North. Several years ago, the Yukon territorial
government created the "One Stop Shop," a central agency to
administer all economic and business programs offering assis-
tance for individuals and businesses. The centre provided help
with twenty-five different federal and territorial programs;
surprisingly, however, the government acknowledged that there
were actually over ninety separate economic development
programs. No wonder, then, that individuals, businessmen, Na-
tive groups and others approaching officialdom have often com-
plained about the jungle of government programs, agencies and
offices in existence in the North.
The overlap and proliferation of government services in the
Canadian North has become a cause for considerable concern.
With the departments and agencies headquartered in Ottawa,
with regional offices for federal departments in southern centres,
and with duties obscured by a tangled web of federal and ter-
ritorial responsibilities, government has become increasingly
complex. This may, however, be something of a transitory phase
between the federal neglect of the pre-1950 era and the steady
86 The Modern North
advance of territorial autonomy. As the Yukon and Northwest
Territories gain increasing self-government, the duplication and
overlap should recede.
The steady progress of devolution and the expanding ac-
tivities of the NWT and Yukon governments are readily apparent
through employment figures. In 1973/74, the NWT allocated
just over 2,800 person years for its departments. By 1984/85, that
number had risen to almost 3,400. Estimates for 1986/87 called
for over 3,800 person years of employment The growth in the
Yukon has similarly been rapid. There were 1,238 people
employed in the Yukon territorial administration in 1973; in 1986,
there were over 2,350 territorial workers (and an additional 237
municipal employees).
When the territorial and federal numbers are combined, the
figures are staggering. Forecasts for 1985/1986 called for 10,100
civil service person years of employment for the Canadian North,
a region inhabited by approximately 70,000 people in total. Not
all these bureaucrats, of course, live in the Territories. In 1985,
slightly fewer than 1,300 federal employees worked in the Yukon
Territory; almost 2,650 lived in the Northwest Territories. While
this is a sizeable majority of the close to 4,800 person years of
federal employment assigned to northern service, it still leaves a
sizeable component outside the North. Nevertheless, the north-
ern civil service represents a very prominent demographic force
in the region.
Government payrolls, logically, contribute a sizeable boost to
the territorial economies. In 1978, federal expenditures on
employees in the Yukon totalled almost $20 million; by 1985, the
payroll had expanded to $35.4 million. There was a similar ex-
pansion in the neighbouring Northwest Territories, where the
federal government payroll grew from $46 million in 1980 to over
$64 million in 1986. In the Northwest Territories, the territorial
payroll jumped from over $76 million in 1980 to over $182.8
million six years later. Over the same period, Yukon government
expenditures on the territorial payroll increased from $33 million
to $78.8 million. The total government payroll in the Yukon
(federal, territorial and municipal) exceeded $120 million in 1985;
in the NWT, the sum was just short of $270 million. An additional
Northern Service 87
1,200 employees of federal crown corporations also work in the
North.
While the employment and payroll figures provide further
evidence of the importance of the northern civil service, they tell
only part of the story. Equally significant is the fact that federal
and territorial bureaucrats control large amounts of the
taxpayers' money. Again, the numbers give an indication of the
scale, and the growth, of government expenditures over the past
fifteen years. In 1973/74, federal and territorial governments
spent over $353 million in the North, with the lion's share, almost
$200 million, coming directly from the federal government. The
Yukon government spent almost $41 million; the Northwest Ter-
ritories government handled over $115 million. By 1984, total
government expenditures had risen to $1,450,000,000. Ap-
proximately half — $721 million — came from the federal
government, with the NWT spending almost $570 million and
the Yukon $166 million. However, the division of monies is a bit
misleading. Over fifty-five percent of the Yukon's budget comes
through federal transfer payments; in the Northwest Territories,
the number is around sixty-eight percent.
Federal money is delivered to the North in a variety of ways,
including direct grants, departmental and agencies expenditures,
and subsidy programs for individuals or businesses. One of the
more prominent of these programs, targeted at aboriginal
people, is the special ARDA (Agricultural and Rural Develop-
ment) initiative, created in 1970 by the Department of Regional
Economic Expansion. Between 1978 and 1986, over 150 Yukon
applications, worth over $6 million, were approved. The funding
provided assistance for training and staff for the Council of
Yukon Indians, trapping, Native crafts, gas stations, recreational
vehicle parks, trail rides and outfitters, construction companies
and other small enterprises. Results have been uneven, due part-
ly to the structural barriers to Native business and partly to a
complex application process (the federal government provides
counsellors to assist with applications.). There is a similar situa-
tion in the Northwest Territories, where the mix of government
initiatives includes a NWT Co-operative Business Development
fund, regional tourism development strategies, a new Venture
88 The Modern North
Capital Program, and a Tourism Training and Manpower Needs
Board.
There are, however, many other economic development
programs, some available to all Canadians, other designed
specifically for the North. The acronyms are more than a bit
confusing, the proliferation of programs bewildering. Over the
past decade, there have been LEAP and LEAD, NEED, Job Corps,
Canada Works, Canada Access, Summer Canada Program,
Northern Careers Program, Indian Community Human Resour-
ces Strategies Program and others. There is, of course, a political
explanation for this program growth. The short-term require-
ments of the democratic process place a real priority on regular
announcements of new government initiatives, targeted at
specific economic needs. The needs of the political masters have
ensured that northern commercial development schemes have
been overwhelmed by a complex proliferation of programs,
bureaucratic overlap, and confusion among potential applicants.
Lately there has been a major and substantial shift in the struc-
ture of federal-territorial assistance programs. The Canada-
Yukon Economic Development Agreement, signed first in 1985
and recently renewed, seeks to provide stability in government
initiatives and to broaden the region's economic base. The EDA
is further divided into a series of sub-agreements — on renew-
able resources, tourism, Economic Development Planning,
Yukon Business Loans and a special grant for restarting the Faro
mine. The Northwest Territories has a similar EDA, prepared in
consultation with over 100 NWT organizations and covering six
subsidiary agreements: small business, arts and crafts, mining,
tourism, renewable resources and regional economic strategies.
The ED A s are designed to provide greater territorial and Native
control over to the disbursement of government grants and the
determination of economic policy for the region.
The federal government, obviously, contributes massively to
the financial support of the northern Territories. According to
Gordon Robertson, "Th e tw o Territories received, per capita, 5.6
times as much in federal transfers as the province with the largest
equalization transfers." He continued:
Northern Service 89
Differences of this kind do not reflect wanton ex-
travagance by the territorial administration. They are
the financial reflection of what everyone familiar with
the North knows; costs of virtually everything are
much higher than in the South. Distances are enor-
mous, population is sparse, the country is at an early
stage of development with great need for economic
and social infrastructure, the climate is cruel, building
conditions are difficult, and commodities from
'outside' must come long distances at high cost.
Tracing these expenditures through the myriad departments and
programs is a complex undertaking. The dispersal of the civil
servants — some northern departments report directly to Ottawa
while others are part of regional offices — further clouds any
understanding of the situation. The Department of Public Works,
for example, was responsible for the Alaska Highway from 1964
to 1972, when it transferred maintenance responsibility for the
Yukon sections to the territorial government. That department,
however, worked through the Pacific Region, and has long been
supervised out of Vancouver. Many of the NWT divisions of
federal departments report through Alberta departmental of-
fices. In the case of Parks Canada, which itself has been shuffled
between federal ministries, its responsibilities in the Yukon and
Northwest Territories are administered out of a Winnipeg office.
The Changing Face of Territorial Bureaucracy
The federal bureaucracy has had considerable problems with its
northern responsibilities. The transiency of its employees, the
distance between Ottawa and the field offices, and the cultural
barriers between its largely southern-raised staff and its northern
constituents have interfered with the implementation of govern-
ment programs. Whatever its failings, however, the federal
bureaucracy can at least call on a rich tradition of public service.
The same does not necessarily hold for the territorial govern-
ments. For many years the only civil servants in the North, except
for the police and a small cadre of surveyors and scientists,
90 The Modern North
worked for the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development. As the territorial autonomy and responsibilities
expanded, the governments of the Yukon and Northwest Ter-
ritories scrambled to keep up with the growth. The results have
been uneven.
The civil service in the Northwest Territories is still in transi-
tion. Until the Carrothers Commission, and the transfer of the
capital to Yellowknife, the Territories' bureaucratic presence in
the North was weak. While the civil service has grown rapidly
since that time, the politically astute process of regionalization
has produced a certain degree of fragmentation in the territorial
bureaucracy. The government of the Northwest Territories has
been divided into eleven departments, each operating within the
five regions in the territory. There is a regional superintendent
for each department; the superintendents have considerable
autonomy in their day-to-day activities and have even started to
develop independent policies suitable for their region.
Although there are administrative problems with such a
decentralized system — a further indication of why territorial
division has so many supporters — it does respond to the social
and political realities of the north. In the 1950s, the federal
government dispatched a number of Northern Service Officers
to train Native people for administrative and political service.
The officers actually assumed much of the power themselves,
imposing a southern-style administrative structure on the region.
The Carrothers Commission enhanced the process, encouraging
the integration of local-level government into the Northwest
Territories' administration. In 1978, over half the communities
were still of settlement status; local councils had only an advisory
function, with little control over the issues that really mattered
— education, social programs and land-use provisions. Over the
past decade, however, much has been done to empower local
governments. The territorial assembly has provided local com-
munities with a greater measure of self-government on a range
of matters. This exercise, which has expanded rapidly in the
fields of education, health and resource management seeks to
give Native communities real control over their lives while offer-
Northern Service 91
ing a northern, not a southern, model for territorial administra-
tion.
The territorial government, following the lead of the federal
government, is also committed to increasing the number of Na-
tive people and their decision-making authority within the civil
service. Non-Native people not only tend to stay in the North for
a short time, they also inevitably carry with them the cultural
baggage of their southern origins. The move toward involving
aboriginal people in the civil service, therefore, is a deliberate
attempt to address one of the North's longstanding and most
pressing problems. The "indigenization" of the government
workforce, built around a "hire Native" policy introduced by the
government in the early 1970s, is just beginning to show promise
but there is still a long way to go. Few northern Natives have
been recruited into either the federal or territorial civil service.
The reasons for this are many. There are more ideologically at-
tractive opportunities with Native organizations. Further, there
are actually few trained people available for the posts, since
northern Inuit, Metis and Dene have relatively low levels of
educational attainment. Perhaps most important, success in the
civil service invariably requires relocation away from the home
community, an unpalatable decision for many.
The territorial government's commitment to regionalization
and Native hiring has other, potentially insidious, costs. Michael
Wittington describes the situation:
Generally, in the NWT a career in the public service
requires significant experience in the field in the more
remote communities before promotion to more senior
positions in Yellowknife. One result of this career pat-
tern has been that the senior management positions in
the government have tended to be dominated by per-
sonnel lacking professional management training. The
reason for this is that people with such training are
generally unwilling to accept the relatively junior and
generalist positions in the field, which are simply not
challenging enough.... Even today there are dis-
proportionate numbers of ex-teachers who have been
92 The Modern North
promoted to senior management because of higher
levels of formal education, and significant numbers of
ex-RCMP NCOs and ex-Bay employees who have had
the opportunity to acquire some supervisory skills in
their jobs.
This is changing, particularly in Yellowknife, where a large num-
ber of southern-trained professionals, many with little or no field
experience, are beginning to work their way through the civil
service. While such hirings have imported the professional ex-
pertise necessary to cope with the NWT's growing respon-
sibilities, some difficulties have emerged. Tensions have grown
between the old-guard, who clearly preferred the small-scale,
decentralized pattern of the past, and the "upstarts." The tech-
nologically innovative new-guard has clearly modernized ter-
ritorial administration, but the jury is still out on whether or not
this fast-paced modernization was actually necessary, given the
small population.
The situation in the Yukon is considerably different. A longer
history of government administration, stretching back to the
Klondike gold rush, and a larger and more concentrated non-Na-
tive population have provided the Yukon a more stable and
professional civil service. The Yukon is also aided by the fact that
its bureaucracy is much smaller, and centralized in Whitehorse.
The capital city's attractiveness to potential employees, com-
bined with the Yukon government's lesser emphasis on the need
for field experience in the North and the existence of the Public
Service Commission, has resulted in the establishment of a bet-
ter-trained bureaucracy.
There are other differences between the Yukon and NWT
bureaucracies. Because of the smaller size of the Yukon's Native
population, the government of that Territory has not, until
recently, pursued the integration of Native people into the civil
service with the eagerness and commitment of the NWT. As well,
unlike its counterpart in the NWT, the Yukon's civil service is
highly centralized. That centralization reflects the smaller size of
the territory, easier communications and travel and the potential
for conflict within the ethnically mixed communities. Local Im-
Northern Service 93
provement Districts were established in the 1970s, offering a
narrow range of powers (garbage, roads, sewers) to smaller com-
munities, but they remained primarily advisory. In 1980, the
Yukon Government eliminated the Local Improvement District;
smaller communities were allowed to become hamlets or unin-
corporated settlements. The situation is much like that which
existed in the Northwest Territories in the 1970s, and is unlikely
to change in the near future.
The process of devolution, discussed earlier at a policy level,
also had an important administrative side. By passing on some
of its responsibilities to the territorial governments, Ottawa also
made it possible for federal civil servants to follow their jobs to
the Yukon and NWT. For example, when responsibility for the
Alaska Highway was transferred to the Yukon government in
1972, highway workers were afforded the opportunity to join the
territorial bureaucracy. Some stayed with the federal govern-
ment, some left government service altogether, but the majority
moved to the Yukon Department of Highways. The process con-
tinues. The devolution of forestry responsibilities to the NWT
government in the mid-1980s, for example, resulted in the trans-
fer of 122 employees.
Bureaucracy and Health Care: A Case Study
Recent changes in the health care field illustrate both the pace of
recent changes, and the need for continued progress in the
decolonization of the North. Providing adequate health care for
the widely scattered regional population has long perplexed
federal government administrators. After World War II the
government built new nursing stations, removed people with
tuberculosis to southern treatment centres and greatly expanded
its expenditures on health care. The effort was much needed,
especially for the aboriginal people, who were suffering from the
ill effects of imported diseases and food shortages.
The rapid growth caused many problems. Health care profes-
sionals carried a southern and western medical ideology into the
North. Their authoritarian interventionist manner matched the
expectations of most Canadians, but stood in stark contrast to
94 The Modern North
Native traditions. Further, many of the new medical practices
introduced by the southern doctors and nurses revealed a lack
of concern for the cultural needs of their Native patients. Medical
anthropologist John O'Neill described the impact:
The message implicit in this treatment approach was
that responsibility for decisions regarding the type and
location of treatment for diseases was now entirely in
the hands of the colonial power. Furthermore,
medicine had the authority to disrupt family life and
traditional patterns of social organization.... Instead of
sickness being viewed as an event which, with the help
of a healer, resulted in increased social harmony and
integration, illness now facilitated intrusion of the
colonial power into the intimacies of family life.
The birthing process in the Northwest Territories provides one
of the best examples. By the 1970s, the government had decreed,
for medical reasons, that babies would be born in properly
equipped hospitals. Since there were only nursing stations in
most small, isolated communities, this meant that expectant
mothers had to be flown to a larger centre — usually Yel-
lowknife, Iqaluit or Churchill, Manitoba — to await the birth of
their children. While this suited the medical requirements, ensur-
ing mother and child of proper professional care, the process
eliminated family and community involvement with the birth.
Mothers were often separated from their husbands and families
for several weeks, longer if there were troubles with the preg-
nancy or birth. The government and medical professionals ar-
gued that this was required to protect mother and child; if a
serious problem occurred during a home birth, the mother or
child or both might well die. Many Native women, however,
wanted the right to decide for themselves if their children would
be born at home or in a distant community.
The medical profession, particularly nursing, has changed
with the times, but this has created new problems. Over the past
decade, greater emphasis has been placed on self-help—changes
to nutrition and lifestyle rather than on immediate recourse to
Northern Service 95
medicine — a sharp break from earlier interventionist standards.
Northern Natives, however, have not always responded
favourably to the new system. Born and raised under the old
colonial model of health care, Native people have often
demanded more interventionist measures than the professionals
are prepared to provide, insisting, for example, that prescription
medicines be provided when the doctor wishes a change in
eating habits.
There were other problems. Native people were seldom
treated in their own language, for few health care professionals
were conversant in northern tongues. Hospital food, prepared
with due care to national nutritional standards, was often unac-
ceptable to Native patients, particularly the elderly, who had
been raised on country food. These factors only added to the
unattractiveness of a hospital visit and heightened distrust of the
medical fraternity. Little wonder, then, that Native people have
led the fight for regional control of medical care.
The situation has take a dramatic turn in the past few years.
Native organizations, particularly women's groups, have
demanded greater control over the health care system. The
federal government, committed to the devolution process, has
turned over control of medical care to the territorial govern-
ments. The NWT administration, in turn, has indicated a deter-
mination to give community-level bodies significant input into
planning and management. In one observer's words, the process
has "turned the cumbersome, overlapping jurisdictions of the
administration of health care into a responsive, locally directed
system, almost overnight/' As of April 1, 1988, a community
health committee in each settlement assumed control of local
health care delivery. In addition, each community has repre-
sentation on one of the nine regional health boards.
While many applaud the move to "self-determination" in this
critical field, a number of health-care practitioners are worried
about the growing influence of non-professionals in their field.
A number of doctors and nurses, raised and trained in southern,
urban settings, will undoubtedly be troubled by the transfer of
responsibilities to Native-run committees and boards. Given the
legacy of colonialism in northern health care, however, a
96 The Modern North
dramatic step is clearly necessary. As John O'Neill argues: "Self-
determination in Native health care is a public health movement
of historic proportions and the effective delivery of the full range
of preventive, curative and educational health services in the
North will not progress until the transfer is complete."
The transformation of Northern health care is more than just
ideological. There has been a tremendous expansion in facilities
over the past two decades. In 1983, for example, the Medical
Services Branch operated in the Yukon a general hospital, three
cottage hospitals, two nursing stations, ten health centres and
four health stations. In the Northwest Territories, there were four
hospitals, two cottage hospitals, thirty-nine nursing stations,
eight health centres and several health stations. The construction
and technical boom has proceeded apace; among the new
facilities is a 135-bed hospital for Yellowknife, which opened in
the spring of 1988. The use of satellite transmissions to link nurs-
ing stations and southern hospitals has further addressed the
traditional isolation of northern health care professionals. Satel-
lite connections permit the transmission of x-ray data over
thousands of miles, aiding in diagnosis and treatment for
patients in isolated communities.
This new communications technology helps offset the North's
chronic shortage of doctors. In 1982, the Yukon had more general
practitioners than the national average; the NWT's rate, conver-
sely, was half that of Canada as a whole. While there is usually
little difficulty attracting medical staff to Whitehorse, the same is
not true for outlying districts. In 1988, the town of Faro ran a
high-profile national campaign in a successful attempt to recruit
a permanent physician, offering a generous compensation and
support package in return for a promise to relocate to the mining
community. The real problem, however, is with specialists. There
were almost 5,800 Yukoners per specialist physician in 1982; in
the NWT the rate was over 4,000 residents per specialist. The
national average was slightly over 1,250.
The North has found ways of combatting what is a fairly
inevitable problem. Stanton Yellowknife Hospital, for example,
operates a central specialistic program, but has also begun to take
these services on the road. Outside specialists are also brought
Northern Service 97
into the region on periodic visitations. In emergency cases, resi-
dents are quickly flown out of their own community — to
Whitehorse, Yellowknife or Iqaluit, or to southern centres if the
problem is deemed serious enough. This movement "outside,"
of course, carries its own problems, since the patient and family
must readjust to southern settings.
Measures are being taken to address this concern. The Baffin
Regional Health Board, established in 1986, recently opened a
receiving home in Montreal for patients sent outside for care.
Baffin House, as it is called, has an Inuit staff, keeps in contact
with the patient's family and generally expedites and smooths
the invariably rough transition. It is a small initiative, but an
important one in that it recognizes the problems inherent in
being removed from an isolated northern community and sent
to a technologically advanced hospital in a southern city.
Health care was one of the first government services extended
into the Canadian North; it is now among the first to be brought
under northern and Native control. Affirmative action programs
and specialized training courses at Yukon College and Arctic
College are drawing more Inuit, Dene and Metis into the medical
professions. Native employment in these fields in the Baffin dis-
trict, for instance, jumped from fourteen percent in 1982 to thir-
ty-seven percent six years later. The process remains far from
complete. The national medical profession, perennially suspi-
cious of curative measures from other traditions, has made only
_ the most tentative steps towards incorporating Native healing
into health care. Native women are particularly concerned about
their treatment by the medical profession. And non-Native
people, often used to the ready availability of a full range of
medical services, remain troubled by the less than complete
coverage of the northern Territories.
The Revolution in Northern Bureaucracy
Civil servants are a large and potent force in the Canadian North.
The post-1985 Yukon provides perhaps the best illustration of the
power and opportunity that lies within the bureaucracy. Kept in
check by the free-enterprise Conservative administration in the
98 The Modern North
first years of responsible government (a process aided by a
steadily deepening depression in the early 1980s), the
bureaucracy came to life under the NDP government. The new
administration's innovative planning initiative, the Yukon 2000
process, made it clear that the government was open to new
ideas; the civil servants responded with a range of suggestions
and programs. Since then, bureaucrats have played an important
and innovative role in the Yukon's return to economic health.
The non-partisan tradition of NWT politics, and the smaller
scale of the administration, have similarly given considerable
latitude to civil servants in that jurisdiction. Striking new
measures — from the physical expansion and program develop-
ment of Yukon College to the NWT Department of Education's
Native language programs — belies the standard image of in-
transigent and uncreative bureaucrats and gives an indication of
the role of the civil service in the modernization of the North.
Devolution presents the North with its greatest administrative
challenge. For the past two decades, having won much of the
political battle for responsible government, the territorial govern-
ments have been demanding the transfer of administrative
responsibilities. The federal government has gradually accepted
that request, offering the power, money and personnel that
northern politicians have long claimed is essential for regional
self-determination. While some resistance persists in the middle
ranks of the civil service, there is no doubt that federal politicians
and senior administrators are committed to passing on real and
substantial power to the Territories. There are some outstanding
problems, such as continued administrative overlap, the
proliferation of federal and territorial programs, and the need to
reconcile Native and non-Native perspectives and needs, but
there is also a great deal of promise in this change.
For the past century, the federal civil service has been the
principal agency of colonial control and regulation. Federal
agents from the Mounted Police, the Department of Indian Af-
fairs, the Geological Survey, the Department of Mines and other
agencies gathered the knowledge, implemented the programs
and did Ottawa's bidding in the land north of sixty. Northerners
resented the southern control; Native people struggled with the
Northern Service 99
cultural insensitivity and domination of the national
bureaucracy. That power has now been significantly reduced
and the North finds itself in the midst of an administrative
revolution. The early stages of the decolonization of the civil
service have given the Yukon and the Northwest Territories the
tools they need to fashion their own future.
Fighting for Control: Native
Politics and Land Claims
I
n the halcyon days of the 1960s resource boom, scant attention
was paid to the few questions, complaints and suggestions
coming out of Native communities in the North. Non-Native
administrators and politicians felt comfortable in ignoring
aboriginal voices, for in their view the rapid expansion of the
welfare state in the North provided ample evidence of Canadian
concern for Native peoples. Those few Natives speaking out in
defence of traditional lifestyles were dismissed as voices from the
past.
The Native people came together slowly throughout the late
1960s. To be sure, there were lots of white advisors around.
Community development workers sent by the Department of
Indian Affairs and representatives of the Company of Young
Canadians came north to organize aboriginal people to stand up
for their rights. These people often had their own ideological or
political axes to grind, and occasionally led Native people down
paths they soon found unacceptable. In time, the power of the
white advisors was reduced, replaced by a cadre of young,
politicized, educated and often angry Native activists. For years,
however, the early presence of white "agitators" would continue
to colour the perception of aboriginal organizations held by non-
Native Northerners and government officials. Long after the Na-
Fighting for Control 101
tive people had gained control over their organizations and es-
tablished their own agenda for political, social and economic
change, they continued to be accused of being mere front-men
for white advisors. Few non-Natives wanted to see beyond what
they perceived as a facade; only reluctantly, and after several
years, would they recognize the deep commitment that lay be-
hind the Native organizations and the land-claims battles across
the north.
Native Organizations
The first problem for aboriginal people was learning to speak the
political language of the colonizers. Hundreds of Native people
had gone through residential schools across the North by the
1960s, but it would take the political and racial turmoil of that
tumultuous decade to bring aboriginal protests into focus and
provide direction for Native leaders who sought a better future
for their people. In the 1960s, Native people across North
America organized to protect their interests. While the media
focused its attention on radical groups like the American Indian
Movement (AIM), more moderate organizations attracted con-
siderable interest in the Native communities.
The North presented a special challenge for Native organizers.
The villages were widely scattered and, in the 1960s, most lacked
even rudimentary communications with the outside world. Not
well-informed of events around the Territories and across the
country, and still pursuing a traditional economy, aboriginal
people were reluctant to throw their support behind a protest
movement. But the Native organizers kept to the task, much as
union workers throughout Canada struggled with unreceptive
audiences of workers earlier in the century. Slowly, individually,
by family and eventually on a community-wide basis, the
fieldworkers brought the Native constituents together. This lit-
tle-known process of community organization, more important
perhaps than the first approaches to government, laid the foun-
dation for later protests and demands. The spread of the
democratic process remained, however, a two-edged sword; Na-
tive leaders forgot at their peril that power in aboriginal or-
102 The Modern North
ganizations lay with the communities and not with the political
leadership.
In the late 1960s, Native people were only too aware of
government's lack of attention to their problems. The Depart-
ment of Indian Affairs and Northern Development did meet once
a year with a Chiefs' Advisory Council, but the Natives knew
that their concerns went largely unnoticed. Department of Indian
Affairs' workers, who shuffled in and out of the Territories on a
regular basis, brought the values and attitudes of the south with
them. There was little affinity for the Natives' harvesting ac-
tivities or their culture. It was not that the government and its
employees were unconcerned; an array of economic and social
programs suggested that that is not so. Rather, the problem lay
in the perpetuation of the long-standing non-Native and
southern assumption that Native people could be aided only by
speeding their integration into mainstream Canadian society.
Although highly flawed, this assumption dominated govern-
ment thinking for much of the post-war period.
Native people reacted against the colonial, paternalistic and
racist assumptions that underlay much of the government's plan-
ning. In the Northwest Territories, the introduction of co-opera-
tives in the late 1950s and 1960s provided an important training
ground. Many of the Inuit leaders of the 1970s emerged out of
the co-operative movement. Additional strength was found in
the work of national Native organizations, like the National In-
dian Council, founded in 1961, and the National Indian Brother-
hood and Canadian Metis Society, both founded in 1968. Other
organizations helped out. In 1971, OXFAM gave a small plane to
the Indian-Eskimo Association of Canada. Organizer Wally
Firth, later member of parliament for the Northwest Territories,
flew into communities across the North, working with Native
organizations, helping to development programs and spreading
word of the expansion of Native activism.
The organizational impulse was aided, ironically, by an ill-
conceived federal initiative. In 1969, Jean Chretien, Minister of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development, introduced a White
Paper on Indian Affairs in Canada. The proposal called for the
elimination of the Department of Indian Affairs and the rapid
Fighting for Control 103
integration of Native people into Canadian society. Native or-
ganizations across the country rose up in anger, denouncing the
minister and the Trudeau government and demanding that the
plan be scrapped. The protest was successful and the White
Paper abandoned. More important, however, Native people had
discovered the power of aboriginal organization.
Native organizations emerged on a regional basis, reflecting
the cultural, linguistic, geographical and political barriers be-
tween aboriginal people across the North. The Yukon Native
Brotherhood, led by Elijah Smith, was formed in 1968 and for-
mally incorporated two years later. Non-status Indians or-
ganized separately; in October 1971, they formed the Yukon
Association of Non-Status Indians (YANSI). The creation of
YANSI rested on the legal discrimination inherent in the Indian
Act, which permitted government statutes and regulations to
determine an individual's status. In a cultural or ethnic sense, the
status/non-status distinction had little cultural foundation in the
Yukon Territory; there are no identifiable Metis settlements in
the Yukon as there are in the neighbouring Northwest Ter-
ritories. Both status and non-status Indians felt uncomfortable
with the legally-mandated distinction between peoples who
lived, worked and hunted together. The negotiation of a Yukon
land claim hastened a merger. In 1973, the YNB and the YANSI
joined to form the Council of Yukon Indians (CYI).
Since 1973, the Council of Yukon Indians has played a crucial
role in Yukon life, its duties and responsibilities expanding con-
siderably over the years. CYI, the official legislative body for
Yukon Indians, allocates funds provided by the federal govern-
ment, creates and supervises programs and coordinates land-
claims negotiation. Not all Yukon Native people have been
comfortable with the centralizing tendencies of the CYI. There
are seven different language groups and thirteen bands in the
Territory, ranging from those in isolated settlements like Old
Crow, located north of the Arctic Circle and inaccessible by road,
to the urban Kwanlin Dun (Whitehorse) band. Because of this
diversity, the relationship between CYI and the communities has
not always been smooth. In 1976, for example, the CYI came close
to reaching an agreement-in-principle on land claims with the
104 The Modern North
federal government, but the bands, sending a sharp rebuke to the
Whitehorse-based executive, rejected it.
Special efforts have been made to ensure that the communities,
acting through their chiefs, retain control of the CYI. Organiza-
tional structures are designed to guarantee that the central office
does not lose touch with conditions in the villages. Under current
arrangements, the chairman and vice-chairmen of the CYI are
elected in Territory-wide elections. The chiefs, however, deter-
mine the positions held by the elected representatives. The an-
nual general assemblies, although pre-occupied in recent years
by discussion of land-claims issues, provide an additional forum
for band members to question and challenge the Native
bureaucracy and leadership.
Native organizations in the Northwest Territories have fol-
lowed a similar path. Angered by a lack of consultation with
federal officials, Native leaders assembled in Yellowknife in the
summer of 1968 to discuss a possible federation of the sixteen
Dene bands. The Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Ter-
ritories was formed the following year. Aboriginal solidarity
held much promise for the Dene. As one Dogrib women
declared, 'They could ignore some of us, and beat some us, and
steal from some of us, and pat some of us on the head before, but
they will never be able to do that to us again, because we have
our Indian Brotherhood now."
The Indian Brotherhood of the NWT, working with the Metis
and Non-Status Association of the NWT (formed in 1973),
pressed for a quick settlement of land claims. The proposed
construction of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline fueled their
resolve and gave strength to the radical wing of the organization.
At a joint meeting of the General Assembly of the Indian Brother-
hood and the Metis and Non-Status Indian Association of the
Northwest Territories at Fort Simpson in July 1975, delegates
enthusiastically endorsed the Dene Declaration. "We, the Dene
of the Northwest Territories," the statement began, "insist on the
right to be regarded by ourselves and the world as a nation/'
Such radical and dramatic statements shocked politicians and
government officials, even those who were used to the pas-
sionate negotiations surrounding land claims. In their statement,
Fighting for Control 105
the Dene asserted their nationhood and demanded a recognition
of aboriginal sovereignty. In a breathtaking sweep through
federal and territorial powers, the Dene outlined their determina-
tion to retain control over traditional lands and to ensure the
survival of their language and culture.
The Dene also explicitly addressed the need for land claim
negotiations. Although the area was covered by Treaties 8 and
11, the Dene argued that the accords did not resolve the question
of land ownership: "The Dene regard Treaties 8 and 11 as
covenants of peace and goodwill which served to establish a
special relationship between themselves and the Government of
Canada.... The Dene have never accepted the federal
government's position that the treaties served to extinguish
aboriginal rights to aboriginal title."
As negotiations to resolve the Dene and Metis claims con-
tinued, internal controversy pushed the Indian Brotherhood off
course. The controversy revolved around James Wah-Shee, a
Native worker with the Company of Young Canadians and
president of the Indian Brotherhood from 1971 to 1975. Wah-
Shee was a political moderate, often at odds with the more radi-
cal members in the association. To some of the left-wing,
Wah-Shee had sold out to white interests by participating in the
legislative assembly, which they viewed as an "alien institution."
There was also considerable concern within the organization
about the influence exerted by non-Native advisors. The conflict
— personal, political and ideological — climaxed in the
Brotherhood's statement in October 1975 that it had lost con-
fidence in Wah-Shee. The president struck back, accusing Indian
Brotherhood staff and outside consultants of interfering with the
work of the organization. Having lost support, however, Wah-
Shee had little option but to resign, which he did in December
1975. Tempestuous conditions continued until the next summer,
when Georges Erasmus, promising to ensure community control
over the affairs of the Indian Brotherhood, was elected president.
The 1975-1976 turmoil among the Dene reveals the tension in
the newly founded Native associations. The role of consultants,
typically white, well-paid and often southern-based, has been a
matter of contention in all northern Native organizations. So, too,
106 The Modern North
has the struggle between the Native bureaucracy, in this case
personalized in James Wah-Shee, and the communities. Georges
Erasmus clearly recognized the nature of the split, and saw that
any successful NWT Native organization needed strong support
from the chiefs and in the villages.
The Dene have moderated their demands over the past ten
years, abandoning their quest for sovereign status in the face of
federal refusal to negotiate this issue. The passion, however,
remains very much intact. In 1978, at a Fort Franklin meeting, it
was decided to adopt a new name for the association. Stella
Mendo, a Fort Norman delegate, caught the sense of the meeting:
"When we name our children we given them powerful names.
Names that are strong. Our land is strong. Our people are strong
and our people are one. We need a strong, powerful name to tell
the world who we are. Let us call ourselves the DENE NATION."
The Dene have changed in other ways. They have abandoned
their opposition to participating within the Northwest Territories
legislative framework, particularly after the resignation of Com-
missioner Stuart Hodgson, the last of the old-style colonial ad-
ministrators, in April 1979. The Dene Nation has maintained an
active and prominent presence in the Territories, and not just on
the land-claims issue. It has intervened on a variety of public
issues, from oil-well development to proposed constitutional
changes, seeking always to protect and enhance the position of
the Dene people in the future of the Northwest Territories.
The Metis of the Northwest Territories similarly turned to
political activism to defend their distinctive culture and to seek
recognition of their outstanding aboriginal rights. The Metis have
often had very different priorities than the Dene — their mem-
bership has tended to favour resource development more than
do the Dene — and it is not surprising that the two groups have
had their difficulties.
On its formation in 1973, the Metis and Non-Status Indian
Association of the Northwest Territories joined forces with the
Indian Brotherhood to present a united front to federal govern-
ment negotiators. But the passage of the Dene Declaration in 1975
placed the Metis in an unfavourable position. The two groups
could not agree on the status the Metis would enjoy under a Dene
Fighting for Control 107
Nation, a difference that eventually drove them apart. The Metis,
moreover, were determined to protect their culture and identity,
and wondered if that was possible through joint negotiations.
The Metis withdrew from the Dene land-claim team in 1976,
determined to negotiate on their own. The federal government
responded to the Native impasse by cutting off funding, forcing
the Dene to turn to the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches
for emergency support. The Metis, who issued their own Metis
Declaration in 1980, remained determined to gain recognition as
a distinct society, although their political statements were far
more moderate than the early Dene pronouncements.
The process described for the Yukon Indians, the Dene and the
Metis of the NWT had, by the early 1970s, engulfed the entire
North. The Inuit, widely scattered across the region, developed
a number of their own organizations: Committee for Original
Peoples Entitlement (COPE) for the Western Arctic, the Baffin
Region Inuit Association, the Kitikmoet Inuit Association, the
Keewatin Inuit Association, as well as the Makivik Corporation
of Quebec and the Labrador Inuit Association. While these
regionally based organizations provided a forum for addressing
local concerns, there remained a need for a broader, united voice
on matters affecting the Inuit. The Inuit Tapirisat of Canada
(which means the Eskimo Brotherhood) was formed in 1971,
with representation from six regional associations. ITC is a politi-
cal and cultural lobby group, established to pressure govern-
ments to respond to Inuit concerns and to provide the Inuit with
a strong voice in developments affecting their lives. Unlike the
other major associations, however, ITC does not directly handle
land-claims negotiations. In the Western Arctic, the Committee
on Original Peoples Entitlement broke off from ITC in 1976 and
negotiated on behalf of its people; the Tungavik Federation of
Nunavut, established specifically for land-claims purposes in
1982, negotiates on behalf of the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic.
Organizations like the Inuit Tapirisat have an extremely dif-
ficult task in trying to draw the Inuit together as a national
pressure group at a time when much effort is being directed
towards local control and community-level leadership. With its
head offices in Ottawa, ITC is well-placed to present Inuit causes
108 The Modern North
to federal politicians and civil servants. The association is, how-
ever, having trouble interesting Inuit in its affairs. Turnout for
ITC elections has been low, staff have become demoralized and
complaints have been heard about the absence of powerful
leadership throughout the 1980s. The current leadership, led by
President John Amagoalik, is determined to emphasize the na-
tional role of ITC, leaving regional and local matters to other
Inuit associations.
The role of Native organizations has been vastly underrated
by non-Native Canadians. Interest has often focused on land-
claims negotiations, a central function of most associations, leav-
ing out the important work that CYI, the Dene Nation, Metis
Association of the NWT, ITC and other groups have completed
in other fields. They continue to devote much effort to political
empowerment, urging Native people to assume greater respon-
sibility for their own affairs. Native organizations have also
played a major role in securing changes in territorial education
systems, urging inclusion of Native-language instruction and
cultural studies. Largely as a result of the political effort of the
umbrella organizations, Native representatives have been in-
cluded on a variety of social, economic and environmental
boards in both the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Few of
these gains came at the instigation of federal or territorial govern-
ments. That aboriginal people in the North have greater control
of their lives now than they had fifteen years ago is due, in
substantial measure, to the persistence of native political or-
ganizations.
Native Land Claims: The Background
From the early 1970s to the present, Native land claims have
hung over the North like the sword of Damocles. For the Native
people, the land-claims issue sits at the centre of their plans for
social, political and economic development, and the reluctance
of the federal government to settle the question of aboriginal title
has been a stark reminder of the implicit hostility of non-Native
Canadians to Native aspirations. Many non-Natives, however,
particularly those in the resource industries, see the matter dif-
Fighting for Control 109
ferently. To them, unresolved aboriginal claims are an unwar-
ranted and unwanted interference in economic development.
The issue is not terribly complex. The Indians of the Yukon
and the Inuit of the Northwest Territories have never been taken
under treaty by the federal government. This was contrary to
British colonial policy laid out in a Royal Proclamation of 1763
and Canadian government policy after 1870, which called for
treaty negotiations before any lands were taken from aboriginal
people. The government decided that potential developments in
the North did not warrant the financial and legal commitments
that accompanied treaty negotiations. The Indians and Inuit, of-
ficials agreed, were best left as harvesters, until such time as the
pressures of settlement and development forced a change. Con-
ditions differed somewhat in the Mackenzie River Valley. In
Treaties 8 (1899-1900) and 11 (1921-22), both signed after resource
discoveries suggested a possible development boom, the Dene
were brought under treaty. From the beginning, however, the
Dene argued that the treaty terms had not been properly ex-
plained or understood, and that the federal government had not
honoured the limited promises made under the accords.
When the resource boom finally hit in the 1960s, forcing Dene,
Inuit and Metis off their lands, and when intrusive government
policies started to radically alter aboriginal life, the Native people
responded. In the Paulette case of 1973, the Dene sought an
injunction against future developments unless a land-claims deal
was negotiated. Mr. Justice Morrow of the Supreme Court of the
NWT conducted extensive community hearings throughout the
Mackenzie Valley, listening carefully to the words of Native
elders. He subsequently agreed that certain aboriginal rights still
existed in the area, and issued a land freeze on 400,000 square
miles of land within the boundaries of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11.
Although Morrow's interpretation was overturned on appeal,
the decision gave new life to northern land claims. And there
were other signs that the Native case had legitimacy. The federal
government's willingness to fund aboriginal land-claims re-
search, the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
(1971), the Nishga's partial victory in the Calder case (1973) and
Justice Malouf s acceptance of Cree and Inuit title to Quebec
110 The Modern North
lands in 1974 (overturned the following year), all indicated a
growing acceptance of the need to settle the question of outstand-
ing aboriginal title.
The Berger inquiry, of course, provided a substantial boost to
Dene and Metis claims, specifically, and to aboriginal land claims
throughout the North in general. As noted, Berger's final report
called for the settlement of Mackenzie Valley land claims within
ten years and for a suspension of major development projects
until such an accord had been signed. The Lysyk Inquiry, struck
to investigate the Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline, made a similar
recommendation for the Yukon Territory in its submission to the
government. The combined weight of reports by royal commis-
sioners and generally favourable lower court decisions did not
silence critics, who questioned why the government was devot-
ing time and money to a process that slowed economic develop-
ment. But it did encourage Native organizations to persist.
The path to a resolution of outstanding aboriginal claims has,
however, proven tortuous and controversial, dominated by false
starts, unfulfilled expectations, political machinations and inter-
nal struggles. The difficulties originate, in part, in the different
parties to the negotiations: the Natives, the territorial govern-
ments and the federal officials. Their respective positions have
changed considerably over the past fifteen years, resulting in an
apparent rush in 1989 to settle many of the outstanding claims.
That the process could take fifteen years is testimony to the
rigidity of government positions, the vast gap between the initial
Native demands and federal offers, the Natives' determination
to strike a deal that provides the means for dealing with the
future, and the unsettling influence of "third-party" interests.
The federal government carried conflicting motives to the
early claims negotiations: a willingness to address its legal
responsibility to sign a treaty with the northern Natives, and a
desire to remove any impediments to future resource develop-
ments in the North. The government was insistent, from the
beginning and to the present, that any land accord extinguish,
once and for all time, any claimed aboriginal title to the land and
resources. In its pamphlet of Native claims, In All Fairness, the
federal government stated its position in unequivocal terms:
Fighting for Control 111
"The government requires that the negotiation process and set-
tlement formula be thorough so that the claim cannot rise again
in the future." Major resource developments, like the Mackenzie
Valley Pipeline, were not to be held hostage by outstanding
Native claims.
The government's stance on land claims has been somewhat
clouded by its initiatives — or lack thereof—in other areas. The
national debate over entrenching aboriginal rights in the
patriated Canadian constitution raised serious questions about
the federal government's commitment; Inuit children in Arctic
Bay were kept out of school for two weeks in protest over the
government's position. The promising Penner Report on Indian
Self-Government raised hopes of a new enthusiasm for shared
responsibilities, but the legislation arising out of the special com-
mission died with the short-lived Turner administration in 1984.
New messages also appeared from the Tory government. The
Task Force to Review Comprehensive Claims Policy, chaired by
Murray Coolican, offered similar support for aboriginal self-
government/ supported an elimination of the government's
blanket insistence on extinguishment, and called for a broaden-
ing of the land claims mandate to include political matters. To
critics who argued that the these proposals offered little to non-
Natives, Coolican responded:
Canada will be enriched if aboriginal peoples become
contributors to Canadian life, rather than wards de-
pendent upon the state. The economies of the region
of the country will be stronger if their aboriginal com-
munities are strong and healthy. Economic growth
often has been dampened or new development
delayed by the uncertainty of unresolved land claims.
Agreements will resolve the uncertainty and will allow
both aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians to
benefit from new economic developments.
These were strong, encouraging words which offered hope to
Native negotiators tired by years of unresolved discussions. Yet
at the same time, the Natives' battle for constitutional guarantees
112 The Modern North
of aboriginal rights and their enthusiasm for some of the ideas
contained in the Penner and Coolican reports interfered with
land claims. Northern Natives were, understandably, reluctant
to make a final deal when it appeared that the federal govern-
ment might relax or even abandon its negotiating position.
Despite Coolican's recommendation to the contrary, however,
the government was not prepared to surrender its demand for
extinguishment of aboriginal title. Furthermore, while Ottawa's
politicians and negotiators were committed in principle to Na-
tive participation in planning and administration — the govern-
ment was prepared to ensure Native access to wildlife and
aboriginal representation on management boards and planning
committees — they were often reluctant to surrender real
authority to aboriginal organizations or bands. In this respect,
the administrators were particularly guilty of foot-dragging. Not
until the mid-1980s, and particularly during the tenure of David
Crombie as minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Develop-
ment, did the federal civil service truly accept the concept of
shared responsibility. The significant steps taken over the last
four years have done much to lessen the tensions within the
land-claims negotiations and to indicate that a true realignment
of administrative responsibilities is underway.
The governments of the Yukon and Northwest Territories
have also played an important, although not always helpful, role
in the negotiations. Initially, the federal government proceeded
on its own, a situation territorial politicians found unacceptable.
Many in the Northwest Territories were angered or frightened
by the apparent radicalism of the Indian Brotherhood and the
Dene Nation, and the territorial government, then dominated by
non-Natives, opposed the Dene plans on land claims and other
issues. At one point, in a deliberate attempt to challenge the
legitimacy of the Dene and Metis representatives, the NWT
government published a provocative pamphlet entitled You've
Heard From the Radical Few About Canada's North. "Excuse us for
being blunt," said one statement from the Territorial Council,
"but we really feel that the Indian Brotherhood of NWT should
be renamed the Radical Left." Similar scorn was reserved for the
churches which rushed to the aid of the Indian Brotherhood
Fighting for Control 113
when the federal government cut off its funding: "We appreciate
that Canadian churches mean well by supporting the IBNWT.
Frankly, though, we believe the churches have been conned."
This position enjoyed considerable currency among non-Natives
in the NWT through the first decade of land claims negotiations.
By the late 1970s, particularly with the appearance of a Native
majority in Territorial Council, efforts were made to smooth rela-
tions between Native organizations and the government. A spe-
cial committee on unity, established in 1979, sought a means of
determining the wishes of Native people in the NWT and bring-
ing those concerns into the political process. Understandably,
much of this effort centred on the land-claims process. In 1980,
the legislative assembly gave the Government of the NWT
authority to participate in negotiations "in a way that is both
cooperative and supportive of native rights, but is also respon-
sible to all Northwest Territories residents including non-Native
people." The government created the Aboriginal Rights and Con-
stitutional Development Secretariat in 1980 to coordinate the
NWT participation at the negotiating table.
The NWT position has, over time, become very supportive of
the Native position. The government urged a broad definition of
aboriginal rights and supported the Dene's longstanding posi-
tion that a deal affirm, not extinguish, aboriginal rights. On the
contentious issue of land selection, which the federal govern-
ment wished to limit to traditional lands now used and occupied,
the territorial government stood with the Dene, Metis and Inuit
in calling for a more generous interpretation of the areas avail-
able. The territorial government also questioned some of the
federal government's assumptions, as on the Natives' retention
of sub-surface rights on lands they were not to develop: "It is
nonsense to stipulate, as In AH Fairness did, that subsurface rights
be granted in order that they not be developed." As an overall
objective, the NWT government declared, all parties should view
the negotiations as a "social compact between Canada and the
aboriginal people" and should seek an accord that was "open
rather than limiting."
Conditions in the Yukon were, for much of the 1970s and early
1980s, less favourable. The Conservative territorial government,
114 The Modern North
unabashedly pro-development, often expressed the frustrations
of the non-Native people with the slow, tortuous progress of
Yukon land claims. Yukon politicians had little desire to share
power with aboriginal people, and protested any erosion of
newly gained territorial responsibilities. Many were, to put it
more simply, unsympathetic to Native aspirations and to the
settlement of Native land claims. The hostility rested on several
factors: misunderstanding of the Indians' position, unrealistic
fears of losing land rights and the possibility that a land settle-
ment would interfere with economic development. In 1979, in the
midst of intense negotiations between the Council of Yukon In-
dians and the federal government, the Yukon administration
introduced its own "land claim," demanding transfer of Yukon
lands to the territorial government along with the settlement of
the Indians' demands.
There were additional complications, caused by the extension
into the Yukon of the COPE negotiations. The government under
Chris Pearson was furious at being left out of negotiations in-
volving territorial lands, and launched a publicity campaign in
1980 to outline its opposition to the COPE deal. Critics assailed
the government's position, arguing that it misrepresented the
issues and displayed a strong bias against aboriginal land claims.
In the early 1980s, the Conservative government of the Yukon
continued to struggle with the land claims process, determined
to protect the rights of non-Native Yukoners — the majority of
the Territory's population. Concern was expressed, for example,
that the Indians would claim much of the Territory's valuable
mining lands; the government argued that a major portion of the
revenue-producing land must be reserved for general use. The
Conservative government had tapped a sympathetic vein in the
Territory, for there was much support for their position. Its op-
ponents argued, however, that the Yukon government was simp-
ly ignoring the inevitability of both a land claims settlement and
a permanently enhanced level of Native participation in Yukon
affairs.
The federal government, for its part, was not favourably dis-
posed to the Yukon administration's demand for land. John
Munro, minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,
Fighting for Control 115
announced in the spring of 1982 that a major land transfer was
not in the works. He was, however, prepared to consider a tripar-
tite negotiation on constitutional development, involving both
the Natives and the territorial government. After a bitter ex-
change, the Yukon negotiators walked away from the land-
claims table, arguing that the "new pact between the CYI and
DIAND clearly indicates a desire by those parties to negotiate
additional benefits after a land-claims "settlement." This the
Yukon government could not accept, stating that "to be fair, the
land-claim settlement must be final" and that "aboriginal rights
must be exchanged once and for all." Not all non-Natives sup-
ported the government's withdrawal from negotiations. As one
commentator observed, "Many Yukoners were deeply disturbed
by the Yukon government's political jockeying, which they
believed showed both a lack of genuine commitment to Native
land claims and a willingness to jeopardize the negotiating
process and subagreements." But the government remained un-
repentant. In the spring of 1983, it published a land claims infor-
mation package, Yukoners deserve a fair deal. Chris Pearson
summarized his government's position by saying, "We cannot
go back to the table only to lend credibility to a process that is
going in the wrong direction. We got involved in negotiations to
ensure that a land-claims settlement will be fair to all Yukoners.
We will not sign an agreement with which we do not agree."
The election of a New Democratic government in 1985, which
found much of its support in the Native communities, altered the
territorial position radically. The new administration backed the
Council of Yukon Indians more enthusiastically and made
greater provision for Native involvement in local and territorial
affairs, a position the outgoing Conservative government had
accepted only very reluctantly. CYI input was sought on a wide
range of government programs, from a major review of the
education system to the implementation of major federal-ter-
ritorial economic development programs. While this level of in-
volvement does not yet meet Native expectations, it is a major
improvement over conditions of fifteen years ago, when Native
people had little say in territorial affairs.
116 The Modern North
Conditions have changed markedly from the early 1970s. The
maturation to a more moderate stance on the part of Native
organizations/ the increasing acceptance of aboriginal aspirations
by non-Natives, the politidzation of northern Natives and the
accompanying softening of territorial resistance to settlements,
and the increasing evidence of federal sincerity at the negotiating
table have created an atmosphere conducive to the final settle-
ment of land claims. There has already, in fact, been one com-
pleted settlement — the COPE agreement of 1984 — and several
others are on the verge of being settled.
The COPE Settlement
The COPE settlement in the Territories involved the 2,500 In-
uvialuit of the Western Arctic. The people of this region had
originally negotiated through the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, but
in 1976, after a dispute over the structure and intent of the land-
claim agreements, they separated to form the Committee for
Original People's Entitlement (COPE). COPE applied to the
federal government for separate funding to prepare its own
claim, and in May 1977 it tabled a claim for 181,000 square
kilometers of land, 133,000 square kilometers of water and a
share of future resource revenues. The Inuvialuit also wanted
power over education, game management, policing and
economic development. An Agreement in Principle was signed
in October 1981 at Sachs Harbour.
The pact, seemingly on course for an early acceptance, soon
ran afoul of national politics. The election and rapid defeat of the
Conservative government in 1979, followed by the re-election of
the Liberals in 1980, derailed discussions. In December 1980, the
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development indi-
cated that the terms of the agreement were too generous, par-
ticularly with regard to sub-surface rights. Negotiations were
suspended and only resumed in the fall of 1982. Then the In-
uvialuit had to negotiate with the federal government while also
settling overlapping claims with the Council of Yukon Indians,
the Metis/Dene of the Mackenzie, and the Tungavik Federation
of Nunavut. A final agreement was reached in December 1983.
Fighting for Control 117
Ratification votes were held in the Inuvialuit communities in
May 1984; eighty-one percent of voters supported the accord:
Parliament passed the Western Arctic (Inuvialuit) Claims Settle-
ment Act in June 1984.
Under the agreement, aboriginal rights were extinguished. In
return, the Inuvialuit were to receive $45 million (1977 funds),
paid out in annual instalments between 1984 and 1997, plus
almost $10 million to promote economic enhancement, $7.5 mil-
lion for social development and title to 91,000 square miles of
land. The latter figure included surface and sub-surface rights to
700 square miles around each community. Rights for sand and
gravel, but not oil and gas, were granted for an additional 30,000
square miles. The Inuvialuif s hunting needs were also protected.
They won exclusive right to hunt bears and musk-ox, and they
were also to enjoy preferential rights to all other species except
migratory birds. Representatives of the six Inuvialuit com-
munities were also guaranteed participation on advisory boards
responsible for land and resource management.
The COPE agreement set the parameters for future negotia-
tions between the federal government and northern Native
groups. The Inuvialuit settlement accepted the government's
demand that the claim to aboriginal rights be extinguished; this
issue has long been the major stumbling block in land-claim
discussions. The final agreement also illustrated COPE's conten-
tion that control over land was more important than cash, con-
trary to what many non-Native observers expected. The rationale
was simple—retaining ownership of the land is central to Native
efforts to protect the traditional economy. The federal govern-
ment was also pleased with the precedents established in this
first comprehensive claim settlement. The COPE agreement ac-
knowledged national control of the offshore, permitting un-
hindered exploration in the Beaufort Sea. The turning-point,
however, was COPE's acceptance of extinguishment, a provision
which guarantees that aboriginal rights will no longer interfere
with economic development in the Western Arctic.
A land-claim settlement is a necessarily complex legal arran-
gement, involving financial compensation, definitions of specific
rights and responsibilities and ongoing legal arrangements be-
118 The Modern North
tween the Natives and the federal government. The final accord
called for the establishment of non-profit Inuvialuit Community
Corporations in each of the communities affected by the claim.
These organizations/ in turn, control the Inuvialuit Regional Cor-
poration, which holds all of the lands and monies flowing to the
Inuvialuit. Several agencies were established to administer
specific aspects of the agreement, including a Lands Administra-
tion Division, a Land Corporation, a Development Corporation,
an Investment Corporation and the Inuvialuit Trust.
There were some protests over the terms of the accord. The
Yukon government complained about the allocation of Yukon
lands without compensation and a built-in preference for In-
uvialuit contractors. A compensation grant from the federal
government silenced the opposition. The Gwitch'in of Old Crow
also expressed displeasure with the allocation of harvesting
rights in the northern Yukon. Further negotiations between Old
Crow, COPE, CYI and the federal government have resulted in
an agreement on the establishment of a national park in the area
north of the Porcupine River and a more specific delineation of
Inuit and Gwitch'in harvesting rights in the area.
Problems also arose among the Inuvialuit. As Steve Kakfwi
observed, "Although all the people walked into the negotiations
together they didn't walk out together." There were struggles
between COPE, which negotiated the claim, and the Inuvialuit
Regional Corporation, established to administer the claim.
Kakfwi commented, "In COPE if s really clear what happened
over there. The main organization that negotiated the claim is
disowned by the corporation that is set up to implement the
claim/' Although COPE retained its responsibilities for political
and constitutional affairs, Kakfwi claimed that "the Inuvialuit
Regional Corporation is taking control of everything.... [It'sj
moved them right out." In February 1987, an attempt was made
to dissolve COPE and to transfer all of its assets to the Corpora-
tion. Roger Gruben, who initiated a successful resolution, argued
that the Inuvialuit should be represented by a single voice, not
by two different organizations.
It is too soon to gauge the full impact of the COPE settlement.
The influx of settlement funds has coincided with the collapse of
Fighting for Control 119
Beaufort Sea oil and gas exploration, which, ironically/had
spurred the government to negotiate a settlement. As a result,
government and Inuvialuit plans to use the proceeds from the
settlement to integrate local residents into the resource economy
have not yet materialized. Still, the 1984 land-claim agreement
provides the Inuvialuit with the financial and legal tools they
long desired in order to control their own future. Only time will
tell if these tools offer adequate protection for the residents of the
Western Arctic.
The Council of Yukon Indians Claim
With the exception of the Tory interlude in 1979, the federal
Liberals were in power throughout the early period of land-
claims negotiations. John Munro, Minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development, steered the COPE agreement through
cabinet and presented an Agreement in Principle with the Coun-
cil of Yukon Indians to his colleagues. The latter deal, however,
did not move quickly to a final resolution, continuing a tangled
and controversial process that had started in 1973.
The tabling of Together Today for Our Children Tomorrow was
surrounded with controversy. The document included a critical
review of Yukon history and sweeping demands for land trans-
fers, financial compensation and guaranteed political rights for
Natives. Many non-Natives believed, incorrectly, that the pack-
age represented the work of a small cadre of radical outsiders,
and as a result were not prepared to support the negotiations.
From the beginning, the pro-development Yukon Government
acted as a brake on discussions, as it staunchly defended "third-
party" interests in land and resource development.
Land claims were, however, really a matter for the Native
people and the federal government. Territorial representatives
were included on the negotiating team — and their influence
increased over time — but Ottawa and the CYI were clearly the
major players. In 1976, it appeared as though a deal had been
reached. The press announced that a settlement, involving over
$90 million in cash and large blocks of land, had been struck. The
announcement, however, was premature and in the end actually
120 The Modern North
served to slow negotiations. Band chiefs, supported by the Na-
tional Indian Brotherhood, believed that the CYI executive had
moved far too quickly, nearing a final settlement when many
people at the community level had only a rudimentary under-
standing of the issues at hand. At the May 1976 General Assemb-
ly, the Council of Yukon Indians voted to suspend negotiations.
The decision was more than a pause in discussions; it repre-
sented a strong signal to the negotiators and political leadership
that the communities had to be consulted regularly.
Pressure increased on government and Native negotiators,
particularly with the announcement of plans to build an Alaska
Highway natural gas pipeline. But the Indians would not be
rushed, and the federal government was reluctant to up the ante
significantly. In 1977, the CYI outlined its expectations — a
separate Indian government, authority over resource manage-
ment and control over social and education programs. The
federal government rejected the sweeping requests, while the
territorial administration strongly opposed the Indians'
demands. As negotiations dragged on, highlighted by the
negotiation of over sixty sub-agreements but without a decision
on the major issues, Natives began to wonder if the non-Native
politicians truly intended to settle the outstanding claim. There
was increasing talk of taking the federal government to court, in
light of the fact that Canada had never signed a treaty with the
Indians of the Yukon.
The political will appeared in 1984, at the time of the COPE
agreement and as the federal Liberal mandate was due to expire.
Minister John Munro announced an agreement-in-principle early
in the year, setting the end of December 1984 as the final date for
the resolution of outstanding issues. The proposal, in exchange
for extinguishing claims to aboriginal title, called for financial
compensation and close to five percent of the Yukon's land.
There were to be additional guarantees of Native harvesting
rights and participation on management boards. The existing
negotiating structure required ratification by ten of the twelve
Yukon bands; by mid-summer, eight of the communities had
voted in favour of the accord.
Fighting for Control 121
But their excitement and sense of achievement soon dis-
sipated. Even during negotiations, several bands claimed that the
communities knew far too little about the details of the accord
and their opposition to the extinguishment provisions threatened
the deal from the beginning. The Carcross band followed
through by voting against the deal. There was also increasing
interest among the Yukon Indians for enhanced self-government
provisions, which seemed possible in the wake of proposed
changes to the Canadian constitution on aboriginal rights. By the
fall, the CYI was demanding substantial changes in the land-
claim deal, including a removal of the demand for extinguish-
ment, more land, greater control over resources and the
possibility of eventual self-government.
The election of a Progressive Conservative government in Sep-
tember 1984 quickly changed the structure and tone of negotia-
tions. Although the new minister of In'dian Affairs, David
Crombie, made conciliatory gestures on his first post-election
trip to the Yukon, it was clear that his cabinet colleagues were
not prepared to re-open talks. Few discussions were held for the
remainder of the year; Crombie even cut off funding for the CYI,
forcing the association to lay off many of its employees just
before Christmas. Negotiations did begin again in 1985, but in an
atmosphere of confusion and distrust.
Anxious to prevent a repeat of the 1984 experience, the federal
government restructured the claims process. Instead of requiring
substantial support in the communities (ten of twelve bands), the
government now called for the settlement of an agreement-in-
principle with the Council of Yukon Indians. Once individual
bands had selected their lands and negotiated specific terms in
light of the Framework Arrangement, the land settlement would
be in effect. Bands could, of course, opt to stay out of the deal
but if they did they would not share in its benefits. The govern-
ment also moved on other fronts, opting for band-by-band
negotiations and declaring a willingness to consider greater self-
government and resource-revenue sharing. The new policy was
much more flexible than the approach taken by the Liberals,
providing the community with "hands-on" participation in the
negotiations. Natives were still concerned about such fundamen-
122 The Modern North
tal issues as extinguishment, but negotiations moved more
steadily towards a resolution.
In the summer of 1988, the Council of Yukon Indians an-
nounced that an understanding had been reached on a tentative
agreement, the terms of which were not made public. Several
details remained to be worked out, at which time the pact would
be presented to a special General Assembly. Pockets of opposi-
tion remained throughout the Territory. Some Natives were
angry over the requirement that aboriginal rights be extin-
guished by the accord, and some were also dissatisfied with what
they considered to be "secret" negotiations. In one particularly
unusual—and unwise step — a petition was circulated demand-
ing that the government submit any settlement to a Territory-
wide plebiscite (where there would be a substantial non-Native
majority) for ratification. Still, despite these signs of unhappi-
ness, the resounding re-election of CYI president Mike Smith
indicated general satisfaction with his negotiating style and the
tentative framework agreement.
The CYI land claim is a particularly complex undertaking.
Non-Natives, for example, have considerable investments in the
Territory, particularly in the resource sector. Their interests have
to be protected, but negotiators have had considerable difficulty
defining legitimate limits on these third-party claims. In addi-
tion, the Yukon Indians are surrounded by other outstanding
land claims: with the Kaska Dene to the southeast, with COPE in
the north, with the Dene/Metis to the east and with Tahltan and
Tlingit in the southwest. Overlapping claims are difficult to
resolve, particularly when they involve on-going harvesting
rights and land allocations.
The CYI and the federal government reached a framework
agreement in November 1988. The proposed deal provides for
over $230 million in financial compensation and will give the
Natives control of over 16,000 square miles of land under two
categories of ownership. Perhaps more significantly, the
Framework Agreement provides guaranteed Native participaton
in a variety of management and supervisory boards, ensuring
continued Native input into the governing of the Yukon Ter-
ritory. The focus now shifts to the band level, as cornmunity-by-
Fighting for Control 123
community negotiations are required to finally settle the long-
outstanding aboriginal claim.
The Dene/Metis Claim
For the Dene and Metis of the Mackenzie River Valley, whose
struggles with the federal government have been even more
contentious, the land claims process has followed a similar
course. The Dene Declaration was perceived as being so radical
and outlandish that the federal government cut off funding to
the Dene negotiators. The expectation that a massive pipeline
would be built down the Mackenzie River Valley, however, put
pressure on the federal government to reach a settlement, par-
ticularly in the aftermath of the highly publicized Berger inquiry
and amidst observations by some Natives that construction
would not be permitted to proceed without a settlement.
By far the most politically radical of the northern land claims,
the Dene/Metis negotiations were repeatedly interwoven with
Dene demands for political autonomy. From the announcement
of the Dene Declaration on aboriginal rights and demands in
1975, the Dene sought a political arrangement that, alongside a
reasonable and just resolution of outstanding land claims, would
assure Native people control over their future. For example, their
plan for a new Territory called Denendeh provided for lengthy
residency requirements for voting, guaranteed Native repre-
sentation in the assembly, Native participation in resource
management and aboriginal self-government. These proposals,
intermingled with land-claims negotiations, slowed discussions
and generated considerable concern and antipathy in the non-
Native community.
Negotiations appeared to be headed for a settlement during
the tenure of Warren Allmand as minister of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development. Unlike his predecessor, Judd Buchanan,
who dismissed the Dene Declaration as "gobbledygook,"
Allmand openly sympathized with the Dene and Metis position.
He appeared, for example, to accept the Dene statement on self-
government and seemed prepared to settle the land claim on that
basis. In the fall of 1977, however, he was replaced by Hugh
124 The Modern North
Faulkner. Faulkner distanced himself from Allmand's proposal,
offering a cash settlement and "reserve-like" land allotments. He
balked at providing the Dene and Metis with control over resour-
ces. The Dene dismissed Faulkner's proposal as "totally
ludicrous"; the Metis referred to it as a "beads and trinkets
philosophy." Faulkner responding by cutting off further loans
for negotiations. Discussions all but ceased until 1981. The
negotiations were also stalled by heated struggles between the
Metis and Dene leadership over the course of negotiations.
The 1983 election of Steve Kakfwi by the Dene Nation and
Wally Firth by the Metis Association put negotiations back on
track and the federal government restored funding for the
negotiations. But the Dene/Metis claim, like the Yukon discus-
sions, soon became tangled in a continuing maze of mixed mes-
sages coming out of Ottawa. The report of the Task Force on
Land Claims Policy, headed by Murray Coolican, argued that
Native people need not surrender aboriginal title through a land
claim deal. However the Conservative government, represented
by Bill McKnight, the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, would have none of it. The government's demand
for certainty — extinguishment — remained unaltered; this, to
McKnight, was the sine qua non of the entire land-claims process,
ensuring that the North would be truly open for future develop-
ment.
With the framework for negotiations firmly and, it appeared,
unalterably set, the Dene/Metis and the federal government con-
tinued discussions. Much remained to be resolved, including
aboriginal interest in future oil and gas revenues, treaty rights,
and land allotment. Finally, in September 1988, Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney travelled to Rae, a small Dene settlement on the
shores of Great Slave Lake, to sign a framework agreement with
the Dene Nation and the Metis Association of the Northwest
Territories. The deal left existing treaty rights, stemming from
Treaties 8 and 11, intact, except where specifically amended by
the new accord. It provided the Dene/Metis with $500 million
(1990 dollars), as well as an additional $75 million mini-package
relating to Norman Wells developments and a $20 million capital
fund. Other entitlements included a share of resource royalties,
Fighting for Control 125
special harvesting rights and guaranteed participation on
management boards and title to 70,000 square miles of land (with
3,900 miles of subsurface rights).
The signing of an agreement-in-principle has not ended the
process. Considerable negotiations remain before a final accord
is reached, including band-by-band land selections and the
resolution of several major issues, such as extinguishment of
aboriginal title and aspects of Native self-government. Southern
commentators were impressed by the size of the land transfer,
repeatedly referring to the Dene/Metis as the largest private
landholders in North America. But more impressive, by far, is
the fact that the most radical and emotional of the northern
Native land claims is nearing a successful conclusion. Surely this
tentative accord is a symbol of how much has changed in the
North — and in Ottawa — over the past fifteen years.
The Eastern Arctic Claim
If the Dene/Metis land claim is the most highly publicized in the
Canadian North, the negotiations involving the Inuit of the East-
ern Arctic have received the least attention. This is not to suggest,
however, that the Inuit, represented by the Tungavik Federation
of Nunavut, have not made the settlement of this issue a top
priority. James Arvaluk, president of Inuit Tapirisat of Canada,
spelled out the Inuit perspective on their negotiations with Ot-
tawa: "We are offering to share our land with the rest of the
Canadian population in return for a recognition of rights and say
in the way the land is used and developed." Much like other
northern Native groups, the Inuit of the Nunavut have sought a
lasting accord that accommodates their cultural and political
aspirations.
Initially, the Inuit packaged their land-claims proposal
together with a demand for political autonomy, through the es-
tablishment of the new territory of Nunavut. After a detailed
study of their people's needs and expectations, the Inuit Tapirisat
voted in November 1975 to begin negotiations with the federal
government. It then tabled a formal proposal, asking for rights
to large blocks of land and ocean, plus assurances that harvesting
126 The Modern North
rights would be protected. The government was pleased with the
proposal, which was a marked departure from the radical Dene
submission. But the Inuit people themselves were not impressed,
particularly with the suggestion that aboriginal rights would be
extinguished and with the absence of a guarantee for political
autonomy. Opposition from the communities forced the ITC to
withdraw its initial proposal and to develop a new slate of
demands, closer to the Dene position. But negotiations continued
to go badly. The people of the Western Arctic, facing develop-
ment pressure from Beaufort Sea oil and gas exploration, pulled
out of joint negotiations and proceeded on their own (the COPE
claim). Discussions with Ottawa reached an impasse, forcing the
Inuit to re-think the purpose and mandate of their land-claims
approach.
The Inuit, represented by the Tungavik Federation of
Nunavut, approached the government again in 1980, and
negotiations resumed. This time, however, discussions focused
on a carefully considered Inuit proposal entitled Parnagujuk or
"A Plan for Progress." Parnagujuk offered a sensitive com-
promise, avoiding rigid claims to oil and gas resources and
demanding far less in the form of aboriginal self-government
than the earlier proposal. Quinn Duffy commented: "The Inuit
made it clear that they were in favour of economic and industrial
development in the North and that they wanted to participate
fully in the modern evolution of their Territory. They favoured
future development so long as it was under Inuit political control
and in harmony with Inuit needs." He went on to observe that
"Rapid progress could have been made with this settlement and
the process of negotiation of native claims revolutionized. But
such progress required clear thinking on the part of the federal
government, and that kind of clear thinking has been con-
spicuously absent in Ottawa."
While they were regarded by many observers as being the
most pragmatic of the northern claimants, the Inuit did not find
a particularly welcome response in Ottawa. Federal land claims
policy, administered by a succession of different ministers and
captured by the shifting tides of national politics, had trouble
keeping up with the Native representations. The Inuit claim was
Fighting for Control 127
further complicated by the simultaneous pursuit of territorial
status for Nunavut, a process which promised to answer many
of the Inuit requests for greater autonomy. Only with the
clarification of government policy after 1984 and a government
determination to settle northern land claims in the interest of
opening the region for resource development, was real progress
made towards a settlement.
Inuit claims to Nunavut have proceeded in a markedly dif-
ferent direction than other negotiations. In the COPE, CYI and
Dene/Metis cases, government and Native leaders have em-
phasized the broad structures of a land-claim agreement, leaving
the specific details and even some central aspects of a final set-
tlement for resolution after an agreement-in-principle or
framework agreement has been reached. In the case of the COPE
arrangement, five years passed between the signing of an agree-
ment-in-principle and the final settlement in 1984. The
Dene/Metis and the government, who signed an accord in the
late summer of 1988, anticipate that it will take two years of
negotiations until a final agreement is in place. The Inuit, conver-
sely, have already negotiated a series of sub-agreements, cover-
ing such issues as wildlife management and the protection of
Inuit outpost camps (which must be included in the final settle-
ment as Inuit lands). According to government sources, an agree-
ment-in-principle on the Inuit claim is anticipated in 1989.
Federal officials anticipate rapid progress after that date towards
a final resolution of aboriginal claims in Nunavut.
When the Inuit of Nunavut first approached the Canadian
government, they sought wide ranging political rights through
their land-claims negotiations. Faced with resistance on that
front, and recognizing an opening in another quarter, the Inuit
proceeded with demands for greater autonomy through the
division of the Northwest Territories. They estimated that the
Inuit would form over eighty-five percent of the voting popula-
tion in Nunavut, a guarantee that the Native majority would be
able to govern in its own interests. The Dene/Metis responded
to the Inuit demand with their request for the establishment of
Denendeh, which would have provided province-like status for
the Mackenzie district with specific guarantees for Native par-
128 The Modern North
ticipation in government. Division, as already noted, seemed
destined for success, winning the support of a majority of voters
in the 1982 plebiscite. Conflict over the boundary continued,
however, and the citizens of the more populated Mackenzie dis-
trict remained lukewarm to the proposal. As a consequence,
division remains on hold, awaiting a re-establishment of political
will in the Northwest Territories and a resolution of several
outstanding issues before the Inuit of Nunavut regain control of
their political future.
Reviewing the Record
Native political organizations — embryonic, fractious and con-
troversial in the early 1970s — have entered the political
mainstream in the Canadian North. The Council of Yukon In-
dians, the Dene Nation, the Metis Association of the Northwest
Territories and the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada are all major players
in the governance of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. The
land claims, settled in the case of COPE, at the agreement-in-
principle stage with CYI and the Dene/Metis, and nearing com-
pletion with the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic, promise to shape the
economic, social and political future of the Canadian North.
The last fifteen years have clearly witnessed a major re-order-
ing of political power in the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
Native people have been fully integrated into the region's politi-
cal structures. Natives dominate the NWT Legislative Assembly
and, largely as a result of their perspective, have maintained that
body's unique consensus orientation. Indians in the Yukon have
not had the same political clout, being a minority in their own
homeland, but they nonetheless exert a considerable influence on
territorial affairs. Native people sit on most major boards and
agencies, participate in community affairs and help to set the
political agenda for the Territories. Such status and involvement
represents a major advance from the early 1970s, when Native
politicians and organizers were often dismissed as
troublemakers and agitators. Clearly, non-Native Northerners
underestimated the strength and persistence of northern Native
Fighting for Control 129
people and the broad community-based support for the work of
Native political leaders.
Many non-Natives believed, and some evidently hoped, that
the Natives would not be up to the administrative and political
challenges of the North. But they have been proven wrong.
Through years of adversity and conflict, the Native organizations
have changed and matured. They have moved rapidly from the
radicalism and evident frustration of the early years to the con-
fidence and determination of the mid-1980s, while still sustaining
the passion that underlies much of their approach to govern-
ment. There have been set-backs, such as the bitter Dene-Metis
infighting, occasional problems with leadership and struggles
between the communities and the Native organizations. But
these difficulties stand alongside some impressive accomplish-
ments, from the negotiation of land claims to the administration
of Territory-wide Native programs.
Never again will Native people be pushed to the political and
administrative periphery in the Yukon and Northwest Ter-
ritories. Their voting power, aided by a favourable distribution
of legislative seats, will ensure future Native representation in
the legislative assemblies, particularly in the Northwest Ter-
ritories. Agreements guaranteeing aboriginal participation on
management boards and government agencies, negotiated
separately or through the land claims process, assure Native
people of a permanent voice in the administration of federal and
territorial programs. Most important, the imminent resolution of
outstanding land claims, to go along with the COPE settlement,
provides Native people with the land base, harvesting rights and
financial resources necessary to sustain traditional economies
while participating fully — as partners — in the future develop-
ment of the Canadian North.
Looking back over the past fifteen years, one can understand
the Natives' frustrations — with confused federal governments,
interfering territorial administrations and non-Natives anxious
to involve themselves in land-claims negotiations. At the same
time, much has changed, and a great deal of that for the better,
as a result of Native activism. Of course, there remain many
economic and social problems in the Native communities, as
130 The Modern North
Native leaders know only too well. Their work will not end with
the resolution of the outstanding land claims and political
debates. Rather, the battles of the 1970s and 1980s have been
simply to win the tools and resources necessary to address the
crises that threaten to overwhelm aboriginal peoples across the
North. In the years to come, assuming the negotiations with the
federal and territorial governments go well, Natives will be able
to turn their attention inward and to address the pressing social,
economic and cultural problems of the their communities. That
they will have the resources and time to do so will stand as the
true accomplishment of the past decade.
Northern Culture: Birth and
Rebirth
N
orthern culture exists on at least two levels. On a national
scale, there are the symbols of the Canadian North that
find their way onto the bookshelves and coffee tables and into
the art collections of thousands of Canadians. Inuit prints and
carvings, Native handicrafts, published diaries of Arctic adven-
turers and books by Pierre Berton and Farley Mowat provide
ample evidence of a national fascination with certain aspects of
northern life. But culture also exists, obviously enough, for
Northerners themselves, as an integral part of their lives, not as
a consumptive good to be marketed outside the region. Here, in
the vigour and distinctiveness of northern culture, one finds the
strongest evidence of the vitality and potential of the people of
the Canadian North.
Few northern artists or writers as yet command much of a
national audience. There are exceptions. Ted Harrison's vibrant
and simple paintings capture both the essence of the northern
landscape and the imagination of southern consumers. A num-
ber of Inuit printmakers and carvers have solid international
reputations. What is particularly distinctive about contemporary
cultural activity, however, is the determination to harness that
energy, talent and spirit for the North itself.
132 The Modern North
Education
External control of education is one of the best indicators of, and
the most powerful means of perpetuating, a colonial relationship.
If a region or social group is forced into an educational system
that pays scant attention to its heritage or culture, the results can
be devastating. In the years after World War II, Natives across
the North were required to participate in an educational system
that expressed little interest in, and certainly little sympathy for,
Indian, Inuit or Metis cultures. The curriculum emanated from
the south, supposedly offering Native children access to the
Canadian mainstream. The problem, which was realized far too
late, was that these same children would leave school poorly
equipped for northern life and with little access to the world they
had studied in the classroom.
The problems were particularly acute in residential schools.
Children were separated from their parents for months at a time,
placed in dormitory settings and expected to conform to a rigid
and formal system of discipline and social control. The mis-
sionaries who founded the schools and ran them in the early
years and the government administrators and teachers who fol-
lowed them certainly meant well, but their inattention to the
needs of their students left a deep scar that is still felt across the
North. R. Lechat, an Oblate priest from Igloolik, described the
problem:
When a child has spent five, seven, ten, twelve years
in school and thinks of getting out, he finds himself in
a desert. Not in the promised and boosted land of
plenty, but in a dry country, without water, I mean a
country without jobs. For many, the end of schooling is
even worse: it is an abyss of delinquency. The educated
one knows no longer how to live in a country where
there are no jobs, no work.
Conditions were, typically, much better for non-Native children.
Most stayed with their parents and were educated in a school
system which reflected their cultural traditions and personal ex-
Northern Culture 133
pectations. But here too there was little evidence of a commit-
ment to the North. Schools in the Yukon and Northwest Ter-
ritories picked up the elementary and secondary curricula of
British Columbia and Alberta respectively, and offered them
with very few modifications. That was, of course, as the parents
wanted it, for they had come from the south, expected to return
there and saw their children's future in national, not regional,
terms.
The problems of northern education ran deeper than cur-
riculum. School principals and teachers were (and are) among
the most transient of Northerners, particularly in the isolated,
predominantly Native communities. For several decades, the
pattern has been much the same. Teachers come north early in
their career or perhaps for a break in routine. Few plan to stay
in the North; only a small number set down roots and offer some
measure of continuity in the school system. This pattern has been
particularly evident in the smaller villages, which have little to
offer university-educated, urban teachers. In such settings, turn-
over has traditionally been very high.
These are not new problems, and were in evidence before
World War II. And there are abundant signs that the educational
crisis, particularly for Native children, persists. But where, in the
past, there was concern and despair, there is now action. In both
Territories, Northerners are assuming control over the educa-
tional system, working to make it relevant and seeking to ensure
that northern subjects are integrated into the curriculum. But
these changes are very recent, and the problems of restructuring
an established educational system have proved to be trying.
In the Northwest Territories, the Department of Indian Affairs
and Northern Development operated the school system until
1968, when a NWT Department of Education was formed. This
attempted regionalization did not solve all the problems. In 1981-
1982, a Special Committee on Education held public hearings in
thirty-four communities across the Territory. Over 1500 wit-
nesses came forward to discuss their concerns about the educa-
tional system. The comments were, in the main, not favourable.
Part of the problem lay with the unique expectations for northern
residents: "Students should be taught the attitudes, skills and
134 The Modern North
knowledge to be successful both in the traditional economy and
the wage economy." There were particular difficulties, and much
contentious debate, over language instruction. Some parents
wanted their children educated in English, so that they could
integrate more easily into the wage economy. Others valued
traditional languages, and wanted them maintained as a lan-
guage of instruction, not simply a classroom subject.
It became clear that the levels of instruction and accomplish-
ment were not even across the North, causing difficulties for
students and teachers in the regional high schools. Small com-
munity populations required older students to leave their homes
for the larger centres, where they lived in residence while attend-
ing school. Concerns were also expressed about the high turn-
over rate of teachers — the average length of stay for non-Native
teachers was three years and it was not uncommon for a region
to lose one-third of its teachers and principals in a single year —
and the lack of northern training for teachers educated in the
south.
The committee offered a variety of recommendations. It called
for expanded recruitment of Native teachers, cross-cultural train-
ing for non-Native teachers, improved adult education programs
and far greater emphasis on the creation of a northern-based
curriculum, including the revision of the school year to accom-
modate traditional activities. Echoing the repeated protests from
the communities, it also called for the decentralization of school
administration through the establishment of divisional boards of
education.
The latter proposal generated considerable debate. There
were, for example, no school boards outside of Yellowknife until
1985; local residents had to be content with education committees
that forwarded recommendations to regional education councils.
The residents of Baffin Island were unhappy with this structure.
They broke away from the Baffin Regional Council and formed
a Baffin Regional Education Society. In April 1985, the Baffin
Divisional School Board was established. The distinction be-
tween a society and a school board is important In the former
case, the Baffin representatives simply forwarded recommenda-
tions to Yellowknife; as a school board, with a specified budget,
Northern Culture 135
they are now charged with administering their own affairs. Al-
though Baffin remains the only region with a divisional school
board, other jurisdictions appear to be moving in that direction.
The Den Cho, Kitikmeot and Dogrib areas have been given funds
to explore the possibility of establishing regional boards.
While the administrative struggles continue — difficulties
with Yellowknife now replace earlier battles with Ottawa —
there has been considerable progress made in the area of lan-
guage instruction. Like other Native groups across the country,
Native people in the Northwest Territories see the preservation
of language skills as essential to cultural survival. At an Inuit
Tapirisat Council meeting at Fort Chimo in 1977, for example,
the Inuit requested instruction in Inuktitut, plus specialized
training in traditional lifestyles. The Natives' requests were not
ignored. By 1981, the Department of Education provided, when
requested, Native-language instruction from Kindergarten to
Grade Three. The language was taught as a subject thereafter.
Still, development of Native-language instruction has been un-
even across the Territory. Fort Franklin, an isolated Slavey com-
munity, has one of the better programs in the NWT; mixed
settlements, with members of different Native language groups,
have had some difficulty developing appropriate language
programs.
The Natives have not left the preservation of language entirely
to the educational system. The ITC established the Inuit Cultural
Institute at Eskimo Point in 1973, selecting that community be-
cause of the high number of people still living off the land. The
institute was responsible for translating English-printed
materials into Inuktitut, compiling a dictionary of dialects, col-
lecting elders' stories, creating new words for new technology
and material goods and developing a school curriculum that
would be of use to the Inuit. In 1981, COPE created the Inuvialuk-
tun Language Project with a similar mandate to the Eskimo Point
centre. A language centre was established in Tuktoyuktuk in
1986, funded through a federal aboriginal language enhancement
program. Additional language centres were announced for Fort
Franklin and Fort Simpson.
136 The Modern North
As the Inuit worked on the preservation of their language, they
saw the need for a common writing system to facilitate com-
munication between the communities. After considerable work,
the Inuit Cultural Institute ratified a dual (Roman and syllabic)
orthography in August 1976. The standardized orthography has
been "a godsend to the educational system." Teacher training,
the preparation of teacher aids and the development of audio-
visual materials have improved considerably as a result. Word-
processing systems have been created using the new
orthography; computer programs have been adapted for class-
room use. Further, the widespread acceptance of written Inuk-
titut has made possible the publication of syllabic-based journals
including Inuktitut, Inuit Today and Nunatsiaq News.
A similar effort is underway among the Dene. There are five
Dene languages, but no standardized alphabetic systems as yet.
The languages have Roman orthographies, produced in the 1950s
and 1960s, and spellings differ widely. There have, as a result,
been serious delays in the publication of Dene language
materials. The Dene, like the Inuit, are working to address the
problem. Committees made up of language specialists and elders
are working to establish a standard set of Roman orthographic
symbols and an official alphabet for each language. Further, a
standard set of spellings is required for words. Such a project is
extremely difficult and time-consuming, but its value is unques-
tionable as the Native people race against time to sustain their
language and culture.
The Northwest Territories government has recently proposed
an even more dramatic step. In 1988, the administration an-
nounced that Native-language instruction would be compulsory
for all NWT students, Native and non-Native alike; successful
completion of a program of language studies would be a prereq-
uisite for graduation. This initiative, if passed (which seems
politically unlikely), would raise the level of Native-language
education in the Northwest Territories, and provide an excellent
indication of the government's determination to ensure the sur-
vival and vitality of Inuit and Dene languages.
In some communities, the effort to make education relevant
has expanded in other directions. Concerned about their young
Northern Culture 137
people's limited harvesting skills, the adults of Igloolik took ac-
tion. They wanted Inuit teachers, and turned back two teachers
sent to work in their community, replacing them with local Inuk.
Caleb Apak, first president of the Igloolik Education Society,
began taking the students to harvesting camps in 1980. After
preparation at Igloolik, the 11- to 16-year-old children moved out
on the land, where they were taught hunting, fishing and sealing
and survival skills. The Igloolik action was not based on an-
tipathy to other types of learning; rather, the Inuit initiative
sought to give the children the skills necessary for their area,
skills that would co-exist with the knowledge learned through
the territorial school system.
A few parents have taken an even more radical step. Angered
and fearful of the impact of sedentary life on their communities
and people, some parents have moved their families to outpost
camps. The movement, a small migration that began in the early
1970s and numbers about thirty camps in the Baffin district, was
based on a desire to protect the children from town life while
giving them the skills needed to live off the land. While the
parents are reluctant to give up their camp life, they are also
anxious to ensure that their children receive basic schooling.
Several proposals have been offered to deal with this situation,
including flying supplies and tutors into the camps and using
the outpost camps as training centres for town children. The
existence of such camps, although they are small in number, is a
further indication of the Natives' determination to preserve their
harvesting lifestyle and of their demand for an educational sys-
tem that is relevant and responsive to their needs.
One of the more promising means of "northernizing" ter-
ritorial education rests in the development of an indigenous
teaching corps. The transiency of teachers continues to plague
northern education; in addition, the southern teachers' lack of
cultural understanding limits their effectiveness in the class-
room. The best solution — for cultural, economic, social and
educational reasons—would be to train Northerners as teachers.
Native or non-Native Northerners would be sensitive to the
abilities and problems of their students, would be more likely to
138 The Modern North
stay in the area for an extended period and would be best able
to adapt provincial curriculum materials to local situations.
In the early 1970s, the NWT established the Teacher Education
Program, affiliated with the University of Alberta, in Fort Smith.
A branch was later established at Iqaluit. The two-year program
offered training in early childhood development, curriculum
studies and in-class exercises. Offering little Native-language
training and designed for high school graduates, the initiative at
first followed a traditional southern model. But northern realities
forced the course to be redesigned to suit the needs and abilities
of northern students, and language instruction soon became an
integral part of the program. The full impact has not yet been
felt. In 1980-81, only forty-three of the 738 teachers in the NWT
educational system had graduated from the program. Another
140 graduates were classroom assistants, mostly language in-
structors working with the Kindergarten to Grade 3 classes.
While the northernization of the teaching corps is far from com-
plete, major steps have been taken in a short time.
The development of education in the Yukon Territory has
followed a different path. The dominance of the non-Native
population ensured that educational programming deviated lit-
tle from the British Columbian model upon which it has been
based. Still, the standard northern problems — difficulties for
Native students, transient teachers, and the lack of local materials
for the classroom — hold in the Yukon. And it is here, in the
schools dominated by Native students, where the greatest adap-
tations have been made.
As in the NWT, Native people in the Yukon have long voiced
their complaints about a school system that, to them, seems ir-
relevant and unresponsive. Much of the impetus for change,
therefore, has come from the Native community. Barriers to
Education, a 1976 report by the Yukon Association of Non-Status
Indians, presented the case that the territorial educational system
failed to address Native aspirations and needs. The report called
particular attention to the lack of Native language training and
the almost total absence of Native culture in curriculum
materials.
Northern Culture 139
Some communities were prepared to take dramatic steps to
get the government's attention. In 1978, the Kluane Tribal
Brotherhood withdrew their children from the Yukon school
system. They demanded direct funding from Ottawa, without
the involvement of the Yukon Territorial government. At one
point, the KTB temporarily occupied a part of the Kluane Game
Sanctuary as a site for teaching traditional skills. The struggle
ended with a compromise. The KTB provided a school building,
staff and curriculum development and was to establish a school
committee. The Yukon government retained responsibility for
operating costs and promised to provide funding for further
curriculum development.
As in the NWT, Native-language education has been the most
successful and popular program. Under the direction of linguist
John Ritter, and with enthusiastic participation from Native
leaders and elders throughout the Territory, the Yukon Native
Languages Project was established to study and promote the use
of Native languages. The YNLP mandate wa s impressive: to train
Native people to read, write and speak in their own languages,
to develop a system for writing Native languages and to publish
dictionaries, grammar books and reading materials in Yukon
languages. The work of the YNLP has expanded into other areas,
developing adult literary and conversation classes, collecting
stories, recording place names and preserving local history. In
1983, Yukon College developed a Certificate course for Native-
language instructors; in 1986, thirteen Yukon Natives graduated
from the three-year course. Yukon Native-language classes are
now available in most Yukon schools, although a recent con-
troversy at one local school suggests that school administrators
are not always supportive of the initiative.
Native concern over education culminated in the Joint Com-
mission on Indian Education and Training, established in 1986.
The commission cast a broad net in its investigation the problems
and possibilities of territorial education. The final report, issued
in 1987, found much to applaud, including the Native-language
programs, cross-cultural co-ordinators and counsellors in the
schools, the development of curriculum relevant to northern and
Native students, and cultural awareness programs available for
140 The Modern North
teachers. Still, the commission concluded that the existing school
system fell far short of meeting Native needs. Most Native stu-
dents still do not graduate from high school, and continue to feel
uncomfortable within the mainstream system. Debate continues
on the best means of addressing Native concerns. Some Natives
wish to establish a separate Native school system; many object
to a segregated system and argue that modifications of the exist-
ing school curriculum and structure could address Native con-
cerns while preserving the integrity of the territorial school
system.
The demand for northern educational reform extends beyond
the elementary and secondary school level. Despite Canada's
northern location, this country has invested comparatively little
in higher education in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. There is a well-
developed and innovative network of northern scholars, co-or-
dinated through the Association of Canadian Universities for
Northern Studies (ACUNS). A number of northern research sta-
tions and government initiatives like the Northern Scientific
Training Program have been designed to attract university stu-
dents to the North on research trips. Yukon and NWT students
wishing to pursue post-secondary studies receive generous
grants (Native students are supported directly by IAND), an
answer to a personal dilemma but not a solution to the absence
of a post-secondary institution in the Territory. Until the 1970s,
attempts to establish sizeable post-secondary educational institu-
tions in the Yukon and Northwest Territories fell far short of
expectations. That has changed of late, providing a vital boost to
academic training and academic inquiry in the North.
The present Yukon College, recently moved into an impressive
new campus overlooking Whitehorse, has gone through a series
of transformations over the past two decades. Founded as the
Yukon Vocational and Technical Training Centre, the institution
offers a variety of career and technical programs. In 1983, the
vocational school was transformed into Yukon College; a two-
year university-transfer program attached to the University of
British Columbia was added to the existing offerings. As the
main campus expanded, Yukon College developed community
learning centres throughout the territory. By 1986, Yukon College
Northern Culture 141
offered a range of academic, business, arts and technical
programs. Building on its impressive and rapid growth, Yukon
College was granted an independent charter in 1988, and is in
the process of developing a Northern and Native Studies
Diploma Program.
Post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories is more
complex, reflecting the effort to address the basic educational
needs of a small and scattered population. For many years, the
NWT government's commitment to post-secondary education
consisted, in the main, of grants to territorial residents. The sums
were considerable; in 1986, subsidies for 354 students cost almost
$950,000. Support in 1982-1983 consisted of free tuition, two
return trips per year, books and supplies, forgivable loans
(provided the student returned to work in the NWT) and sup-
plementary living allowances for Dene, Inuit and Metis. Such
programs, however, have helped only a small number of in-
dividuals — those with the academic credentials acceptable for
southern institutions and those willing to relocate for up to four
years while they pursue an education.
As in the Yukon, the development of post-secondary educa-
tion in the Northwest Territories began with the establishment
of a vocational school. The Adult Vocational Training Centre
opened at Fort Smith in 1968, offering a variety of trades and
apprenticeship programs. New facilities and programs were
added over the years, many with a uniquely northern flavour. In
addition to the standard academic upgrading, technical and busi-
ness courses, the Fort Smith centre offered an Arctic airports
program, training in renewable resource planning and prepara-
tion for work as a community service worker. The institution was
designated as a college, Thebacha College, in 1981; the name was
changed to Arctic College in 1985.
The newly designated Arctic College spreads far beyond the
original Fort Smith campus. There are now three sites —
Thebacha at Fort Smith, Iqaluit and Aurora at Inuvik. Thebacha,
which specializes in vocational and technical programs, lost
Teachers' Education to Aurora in 1987, although that program is
now being adapted to a field-based study. The Inuvik facility,
located at the old Department of National Defence, offers addi-
142 The Modern North
tional courses in business management and book-keeping. Tuk
Tec, a joint venture by Thebacha College, Dome Petroleum and
Employment and Immigration Canada offering training in oil-
drilling technology, was absorbed into Aurora. The Iqaluit cam-
pus, specializing in adult upgrading, has only seventy students
on site and another 200 extension students throughout Baffin and
Keewatin. Arctic College, like Yukon College, is also making a
major outreach effort; in 1985, the NWT college offered over
eighty courses in thirty communities.
Twenty years ago, the Territories had little to offer northern
residents anxious to pursue a post-secondary education. Those
with the scholastic abilities, financial resources and personal
motivation to continue their education received a sizeable
measure of monetary support from the territorial governments,
but there was little available for those who stayed in the North.
With the establishment and expansion of Yukon College and
Arctic College, and the continued development of distance, in-
teractive and community-based courses, a wide range of busi-
ness, technical and academic subjects are readily available
throughout the North. The development is a vital one, sure to
draw an increasing number of Native and non-Native students
into the post-secondary network, a level of educational attain-
ment once thought by many to be inaccessible.
The redirection of northern education, away from its colonial
roots to a more indigenous system, holds great promise for the
North. Educated in the history, language and culture of their
own land, Native and non-Native Northerners alike stand to gain
immeasurably. The opportunity to pursue a post-secondary
education, at least in part, in the North also promises to attract
many non-traditional students into the system. The new cur-
riculum and priorities offer the North a solid foundation for the
renaissance and expansion of its culture.
Preserving and Expressing Northern Culture
Northern culture is clearly at a cross-roads. For a long time the
North, complacent in its status as a colonial appendage of
Canada, was content to import its entertainment and culture. In
Northern Culture 143
recent years, however, Native people have demanded an end to
this state of affairs and, in the midst of the political turmoil
surrounding their land claims, have sought to preserve and en-
hance traditional culture. At the same time, although for very
different reasons, non-Native artisans have begun to pursue their
artistic ambitions in the North. The result has been the renais-
sance of Native culture and the creation of a distinctive non-Na-
tive northern culture.
The resurgence of Native culture, in a variety of forms and
from many directions, has occurred at a pivotal moment. As
alcoholism, suicide, illness and other crises attack Native society,
the restatement of Native values and self-worth through expres-
sive culture has provided a means of sustaining Native society.
Part of this development rests on the perceived urgency of the
situation. With Native language use in decline and the passing
of elders connected to the pre-World War II era, there is great
concern that the stories, legends and memories of earlier genera-
tions will be lost forever. The various language programs across
the North, therefore, have the specific objective of gathering
stories, place-names, and other oral testimony before time runs
out. In the Yukon, for example, Julie Cruikshank of the Yukon
Native Language Project worked with a number of Native
women, helping them to record and preserve their stories and
legends. This form of "rescue ethnography" has more than an
archival component. The material being collected across the
North fits nicely into new, locally based school curricula,
provides documentation for those wishing to pursue further
studies and engenders a certain pride among family and com-
munity members associated with the projects. A recent highlight
of the new attention to story-telling came in June 1988, when
storytellers from across the North, including representatives
from Alaska, Greenland and Scandinavia, met in Whitehorse.
There has been a similar resurgence of interest in Native musi-
cal performance, often associated with fiddle and country and
western music. In 1982, Inuit musicians from across the North
met in Igloolik for an Inuit Music workshop. The CBC and, more
recently, Native broadcasters, have encouraged this activity. Na-
tive musicians like William Tagoona, Charlie Panigoniak, Charlie
144 The Modern North
Adams, Alex Utatnag and others are developing sizeable follow-
ings across the region. Summer musical festivals, the Den Cho
Festival of the Arts held in Fort Providence in 1988, the annual
True North Concert and the regular appearance of local artists
on radio programs have led to a wider interest in Northern
musicians.
Native artistic expression has expanded in other directions.
There has been a particular resurgence of Native arts and hand-
icraft production, led by the renowned Inuit printmakers and
carvers of the Eastern Arctic. In 1976, arts and crafts ranked as
the third most important productive activity in the Northwest
Territories, a sign of its growing economic importance.
The Yukon has a similar group of Native carvers and artists,
although they do not yet have the national following of their
counterparts in the Northwest Territories. Keith Wolf Smarch, a
young Tlingit carver, painter Jim Logan and carvers Fred and
Allen Edzerza from the Dease Lake area of northern British
Columbia, are but three members of an active group of Native
artists who are rediscovering aboriginal skills and seeking to
broaden their artistic horizons.
Although it is often seen primarily as a business venture, the
production of Native handicrafts has an important cultural
dimension. Moose-hair tufting, beadwork, the making of moc-
casins and coats are increasingly targeted at the tourist trade.
This work, however, affords Native craftspeople — the majority
of them women — an opportunity to practise traditional skills,
integrate Native and non-Native artistic concepts and interpret
their world. The production of coats, to provide one example,
illustrates the important cultural and regional variations in
northern handicrafts. Communities and regions across the North
— Inuvik, the Yukon, Pangnirtung, Iqaluit, Coppermine and
Spence Bay — each have a distinctive style. Several groups —
Iqaluit, Igloolik and Baker Lake — produce amautit (parkas with
large hoods for carrying babies). The Spence Bay parka is par-
ticularly renowned: "Its duffel is adorned with lovely natural-
dyed wool embroidery, and buttons fashioned from caribou
antler or muskox horn. The finished piece is so beautiful it's not
even sold with a shell."
Northern Culture 145
Northern art work, however, is facing a major challenge from
the same animal rights groups and sentiments that have
threatened to undermine the northern fur trade. When the
United States tightened imports of whalebone and ivory in 1975,
Canadian Arctic Producers complained strongly. The measure,
designed to halt the importation of newly killed materials, cut
into the Inuit artistic production. As the Inuit pointed out, the
whalebone used for artwork was at least twenty-five years old,
and the animals had not been killed for artistic purposes. Once
again, however, the Inuit had been trapped in a legislative initia-
tive beyond their control. Although whalebone and ivory carving
continues, production has changed to include caribou and moose
antler as well, items free from the exclusionary regulations.
The Native people have not been alone in their efforts to un-
derstand and interpret the northland through their art. Ted Har-
rison, a Carcross-based painter famous for the "studied naivete"
of his brilliantly coloured works, is probably the best known. But
Harrison is far from alone. Jim Robb, an unassuming artist with
a practised eye for depicting the transition of northern life, has
found a ready market in the North for his material. Others, like
Sherman Hines, Richard Harrington and George Caleb, use
photography to bring their vision of the region to life.
A few decades ago, the non-Native artistic impulse was almost
entirely southern-based, left to travellers and adventurers who
passed briefly through the North. Not surprisingly, their
materials focused on the region's geography and not on human
adaptation to the land. This is now changing. Non-Native art
work has become increasingly connected with the North itself,
generated in the North by people who call the Yukon or the
Northwest Territories their home. Regionally based painters,
photographers and other artists are now offering a more norther-
ly-oriented interpretation of life in the region.
The development of cultural societies and the building of
suitable facilities for the visual and performing arts have long
been a preoccupation of cultural aficionados. The North's major
coup in this field came with the opening in April 1979 of the
Prince of Wales Heritage Centre, an $8 million museum and
performing arts complex. Although NWT officials had long sup-
146 The Modern North
ported the idea of a major cultural complex for the territory, it
was not until a band of southern supporters — cultural en-
thusiasts and philanthropists — threw their organizers and
financial weight behind the project that construction actually
began. The centre offers auditorium space, professional exhibits
of the North's history and culture, consulting services to
museums in smaller communities and a range of other profes-
sional and cultural services. There has been agitation in the
Yukon for a decade or more to build a similar centre in
Whitehorse; plans are now under consideration for the construc-
tion of a suitable facility on the campus of Yukon College.
Northern publishing is also struggling to find a commercial
toehold. Costs of production and limited access to the crucial
book-selling markets in southern Canada long conspired to
limited the prospects for northern publishing. The barrier is now
being broken. Heading the effort is a unique Yellowknife com-
pany, Outcrop Publishing, which has published an extensive list
of northern books (the most well known are Great Bear and
Christmas in the Big Igloo)and annual data books on the Yukon
and Northwest Territories. Several years ago, they produced a
magazine about the North, Up Here, marketed largely to southern
audiences who are, in one observer's words, "attracted to an
element of fantasy. Reading about the North is a surrogate ex-
perience for something they may never do/' A second magazine
venture, Business North, operated for only two years before
suspending publication. The Inuit Tapirisat produces a monthly
newsmagazine, Inuit Today, providing an Inuit perspective on the
affairs of the region. The North is just reaching the point where
it can truly start to celebrate its indigenous literature. That litera-
ture is still small in scale but it carries a unique perspective that
until now has been missing in writing on the North. Kenn
Harper's powerful story, Give Me My Father's Body: The Story of
Minik, the New York Eskimo, is an excellent example of this, as is
Jane Griffin's anecdotal history of northern mining, Cashing In,
and E. Davignon's The Cinnamon Mine, reminiscences of her life
along the Alaska Highway.
Interest in the North among southern publishers has not
waned. Each years, dozens of picture books, memoirs and il-
Northern Culture 147
lustrated histories about the North find their way on the nation's
bookshelves. Two of the most prolific northern Canadian pub-
lishers are, ironically/ based in the United States. Alaska
Northwest Publishing, based in Washington State and publisher
of the famous Milepost travel guide, and Stan Cohen's Pictorial
Histories Publishing Company of Montana produce specifically
for the tourist market.
Only recently have northern companies begun to move in this
same direction. The Champagne-Aishihik Indian Band and Sha-
Tan Tours produced a travel guide to the Whitehorse-to-Haines
Alaska roadway, From Trail to Highway. This kind of publishing
initiative has the added benefit, beyond any financial rewards,
of permitting the Native people to include their own culture and
history in such guidebooks, a sharp departure from the other
material available for the region.
The most vibrant publishing arm in the North, however, is that
of northern newspapers. The region has a long and lively history
of journalism. During the Klondike Gold Rush such papers as
the Dawson Daily News and the Klondike Nugget entertained and
often provoked northern readers. The Whitehorse Star has pub-
lished continually since 1900 (its motto is "Illegitimus Non Car-
borundum"). The newspaper industry got off to a slower start in
the Northwest Territories, due to the small and scattered popula-
tion. A small sheet, The Yellowknife Blade, was run off in the 1930s
and 1940s, proudly proclaiming itself to be "The Voice of the
Voteless North" and "The Only Newspaper in One Million
Square Miles."
Newspapers have proliferated over the past two decades. In
addition to the papers in Whitehorse (The Star and Yukon News)
and Yellowknife (Yellowknifer), there are a number of other
regular publications. Nunatsiaq News, based in Iqaluit, publishes
in English and Inuktitut and covers the Eastern Arctic.
News/North, published by the owner of the Yellowknifer, offers
coverage of the entire Northwest Territories. Native publication
societies in both Territories have regular papers. Dan Sha,
produced by Ye Sa To Communications Society in the Yukon,
recently switched its monthly paper from a newspaper to a
magazine format. Native Press, operated by the Native Com-
148 The Modern North
munications Society, provides a similar monthly service for the
Western Arctic, keeping Native readers abreast of news and com-
munity events in the region. And there are more: The Inuvik
Drum, The Hub (Hay River), Slave River Journal (Fort Smith) and
L'Aquilon, a Yellowknife-based French-language monthly.
While there is much to get excited about in the development
of northern artistic expression, this output is often obscured by
the stifling fog of North American popular culture. The
widespread availability of television brings the culturally numb-
ing images of mass-market America into even the most remote
northern village. The onslaught of southern culture was, at first
glance, both dynamic and exciting. Initially, television offered a
great deal to people who had little practical experience with the
world beyond their community or region. It offered a new
variety of role models and vicarious experiences, a much dif-
ferent reality than the life of the northern settler or harvester. For
non-Native residents, many of whom had been raised in the
south and were familiar with both the medium and message, the
introduction of television represented the maturation of the
North, further evidence of the region's coming of age.
The effects of television on aboriginal people were quite dif-
ferent. What had been a relatively simple world, with few op-
tions and opportunities, suddenly became complex and diverse.
For many Native children, the lives and situations of the
television personalities offered a welcome contrast to the life of
the northern settlement. Elders and parents were displeased, for
the childrens' enthusiasm for the new images detracted even
further from their interest in harvesting and northern lifestyles.
That television dreams were, for Natives and non-Natives alike,
almost inaccessible added to many Northerners' dissatisfaction
with their surroundings. Introduced with much fanfare and wel-
comed enthusiastically in all but a few northern communities,
the new technology actually represented yet another disruptive
force.
While taped television was available in the major communities
in the 1960s, live television did not come North until 1972, when
the Anik satellite came on line. The Canadian Broadcasting Cor-
poration added receiving dishes in communities across the
Northern Culture 149
North; by 1981, almost every community with a population of
over 500 people received the CBC Northern service. Igloolik, an
eastern Arctic settlement of 700 people, was one exception; it
refused the CBC permission to set up a receiving station until
more Inuit programming was provided. The community
relented in 1983 after the establishment of the Inuit Broadcasting
Corporation.
From the beginning, Northerners, particularly the Native
people, sought ways of turning the new technology to their own
use. The Anik satellites formed the core of the new communica-
tions system, handling television and radio signals but also car-
rying telephone, teletype and computer messages. The Anik B
satellite, with dual band capacity, was used in a series of ex-
perimental communications projects. In one instance, the
Northwest Territories' assembly met in Baker Lake for an eight-
day session. For two-and-one-half hours each day, officials were
linked with their offices in Yellowknife, allowing the normal
government operations to continue at great distance.
There were a variety of filmmaking initiatives in the early
1970s, designed to capitalize on northern interest in television.
The National Film Board made films on Inuit artists like
Kenojuak and Petseolak and enlisted the assistance of North-
erners in preparing animated films on Inuit legends. Participants
in a workshop at Cape Dorset, and a later one at Frobisher,
worked with the NFB and CBC to produce northern Native films.
Nunatsiakmiut, a non-profit society, began creating Inuktitut
language programming in the mid-1970s, producing a number
of twelve-minute programs and several larger special documen-
taries. Northern Natives, particularly the Inuit, were clearly
anxious to capitalize on the new technology.
The Inukshuk Project, started in 1978 by the Inuit Broadcasting
Corporation, established a television link between six Arctic
communities: Iqaluit, Eskimo Point, Baker lake, Igloolik, Pond
Inlet and Cambridge Bay. Production centres were established at
Iqaluit and Baker Lake. The purpose was to permit people in
isolated northern villages to meet via television to discuss com-
mon problems and concerns. Harvesting associations, health care
committees, political organizations, politicians wishing to meet
150 The Modern North
with constituents and other individuals and groups tapped into
the service. The Inukshuk project also included a major Inuit
training component. Trainees put together a variety of programs
during the test period, including children's shows, a series on
cooking food from the land and shows on folk tales, arts and
crafts and public affairs. In the eight months of the Inukshuk
Project, over fifty Inuit trained in various aspects of television
production and more than 130 hours of Inuktitut language
programming were developed.
The Inukshuk Project was but one example of Northerners'
eagerness to capitalize on the opportunities presented by the new
technology. Following on the success of this initial venture, the
Inuit Broadcasting Corporation expanded its activities. Formed
in 1981, IBC began broadcasting in January 1982. One year later,
the company was producing five hours per week of educational,
cultural and documentary programs. IBC had a major impact
from the beginning. The founders recognized both the problems
inherent in receiving television transmissions in the North, and
the power to be had through television production. A technology
that was doing much to undermine Inuit culture could, they
realized, similarly be used to promote Native lifestyles, lan-
guages and traditions.
By the end of 1987, IBC was broadcasting seven-and-a-half
hours per week of Inuktituk language programming, maintain-
ing studios in Igloolik, Iqaluit, Baker Lake, Cambridge Bay and
Rankin Inlet. Much of the programming, which is received
throughout the Eastern Arctic, in northern Quebec and in Green-
land, is largely oriented towards northern news and traditional
pursuits, is broadcast exclusively in Inuktitut and makes a par-
ticular effort to develop suitable pre-school programming. IBC
would like more broadcast time, and suffers from limited access
to the Anik-B satellite, but that problem is about to be addressed.
There is also a Native Communications Society (NCS) for the
Western NWT and an Inuvialuit Communications Society for the
Western Arctic. These organizations are oriented primarily
towards staff training and language development, so have not
yet achieved the same level of production — or impact—as IBC.
Northern Culture 151
The Yukon also has its own Native broadcasting company.
Northern Native Broadcasting Yukon (NNBY), founded in 1981
as a non-profit communications company, has had a major im-
pact in the Territory. NNBY began slowly, establishing CHON-
FM, a radio station picked up throughout the Territory. In 1986,
the company went to air with its first NEDAA ("Your Eye")
program, a weekly half-hour news and information program.
The following year, NNBY introduced special documentaries on
such topics as teen suicide, residential schools and aboriginal
land claims in the Yukon. The programs were well received in
both the Native and non-Native communities, and represented
the first effort by Yukon Native people to counter the barrage of
southern, non-Native programming reaching the territory.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has also developed
northern production facilities of its own (the Native broadcasting
companies have access agreements providing them with broad-
casting time). The CBC maintains a production staff in Yel-
lowknife and Whitehorse, preparing such programs as Focus
North, a current affairs show, and Northland, a program on the
cultural heritage and lifestyle of northern people. Approximately
three hours per week of northern CBC programming originates
in the region. Other northern programs, like Targravut (produced
in Inuktituk), are developed in the south.
Northern communication services are not limited to regional
television. The Whitehorse-based Cancom (Canadian Satellite
Communications Inc.) operated fifteen northern receivers in
1982/83 and has expanded since that time. In 1983, the CRTC
gave Cancom permission to expand its programming, giving it
a total of eight channels (four Canadian, four American) and ten
radio stations. Until the development of Native communications
and Cancom, the radio arm of the Canadian Broadcasting Cor-
poration had the North much to its own. The Northern Service
of CBC radio began in 1958 as a small network of local stations.
It now blankets the North, with radio production centres in
Whitehorse, Yellowknife, Inuvik, Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet.
Broadcasts are conducted in English and seven Native languages
and reach throughout the North.
152 The Modem North
A number of northern communities maintain their own radio
societies, a further adaptation of the new technology. The idea
came out of Northern Quebec, where unlicensed radio stations
transmit in Inuktituk. Most Inuit communities, operating on min-
imal budgets (often paid with the proceeds from bingo) and with
simple equipment and usually volunteer labour, offer a modest
FM service, playing music, making community announcements
and keeping the village informed of the weather and hunting
conditions. In the NWT, there are thirty community radio
societies; in the Yukon, Carmacks, Dawson, Old Crow and Pelly
Crossing have community radio services.
The central issue with radio communication is not access, but
content. As with television, the proliferation of northern radio
networks has helped to speed the assimilation of the region into
North American popular culture. But these same networks, par-
ticularly the CBC Northern Service, have encouraged Native cul-
ture. In the early 1970s, long before the establishment of Native
broadcasting societies, CBC offered Native-language program-
ming from Churchill, Manitoba, Yellowknife and Frobisher Bay.
Dun Quandro, in the Yukon, and Native Voice, in the Northwest
Territories, were developed in consultation with Native or-
ganizations and offered Native affairs and language programs
for their districts. The utility of having northern-based news
media has been demonstrated repeatedly through the 1970s and
1980s. For example, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, for
example, was carefully followed on radio throughout its
proceedings. (Most of the Native-language reporters working for
the inquiry were later recruited by the CBC.) As Thomas Berger
himself commented,
In this way the people in communities throughout the
North are given a report in their own languages
regarding the evidence that has been given each day
at the formal hearings.... The broadcasts mean that
when we go into the communities the people who live
there understand something of what has been said by
the experts at the formal hearings, and by people in the
communities we have already visited.
Northern Culture 153
Later, the CBC Northern Service provided full coverage of NWT
interventions on the constitution and in a variety of political,
environmental and economic hearings. Perhaps most important
was the extensive coverage offered to the complex debate over
the division of the NWT. When the NWT Legislative Assembly
held a debate on the issue in Iqaluit, the Northern Service carried
the week-long debate live across the Territory. The CBC makes
a major contribution to northern affairs. In 1986, CBC Yukon
provided over forty-six hours per week of local programming,
in addition to the national programming offered across the
country.
Regional television and radio programming has clearly had an
impact, breaking the dependence on the southern news media
and carrying regular coverage of events and issues of primary
importance to northern Canadians. Access to the international
media has broadened the horizons of all Northerners, often al-
tering images and expectations in the process. A study per-
formed by Gary Coldevin in Frobisher Bay demonstrated that
Inuit youth exposed to television were oriented towards the
south in terms of career goals, travel plans, skills and preference
for English. A follow-up study, after several years of Inuit broad-
casting, suggests that there has been a return to a more northerly
orientation. Native and northern responses to southern program-
ming have had an important countervailing effect. As one com-
mentator phrased it, indigenous television "allowed Inuit to
break out of the bonds of the cultural imperialism imposed by
southern television."
The commitment to expanded northern broadcasting received
a major boost in the spring of 1988. The federal government
announced that it would provide a grant of $10 million towards
the establishment of TVNC (TV Northern Canada), a region-
wide network that would combine the prograrnrning of CBC
Northern Service with that of the six northern communications
societies: IBC, Tagramiut Nipinget Inc., Inuvialuit Communica-
tions Society, Native Communications Society (western NWT),
Ohalahatigect Society of Labrador and Northern Native Broad-
casting Yukon. This network would free the northern com-
munications societies from their dependence on access to CBC
154 The Modern North
time, and provide for a region-wide television network. With the
advent of TVNC, which is scheduled to go on the air in 1989, the
North will have the best regional broadcasting system in the
country, a strong tool to counterbalance the pervasive incursions
of southern popular culture.
Forging an Identity
There is really not a great deal to distinguish northern cultural
activity from the complex mix of government, professional, Na-
tive, non-Native and amateur cultural production to be found
throughout Canada. And that, by itself, is a major point. Twenty
years ago, the federal government was sponsoring tours by na-
tional performers — like Anne Murray and the Irish Rovers —
to bring culture into the Canadian North. While interest in such
concerts continues — symphony and rock concerts alike attract
large crowds and music festivals have enthusiastic followings —
the North no longer has to rely on imported culture.
Although far from complete, the transformation has been
dramatic. Aboriginal skills and traditions, long kept under wraps
by Native people who were only too aware of the hostility
towards their culture among the non-native population, have
been unleashed and are enjoying a renaissance. The more per-
manent non-Native population is also starting to develop artistic
roots, seen in the paintings, writings and music that is proliferat-
ing across the North. Nothing, perhaps, is more important that
the northern people's ability and willingness to capture new and
advanced technologies for their own benefit. The development
of radio and, more recently, television production in the North,
and by Northerners, holds tremendous potential for a region that
is struggling to come to grips with its identity and its future.
Epilogue
F
ifteen years ago, Canadians paid scant attention to the Yukon
and Northwest Territories. Oil changed that attitude and, for
a brief time, the region seemed to hold the country's hopes for
energy self-sufficiency. Then Thomas Berger and the Mackenzie
Valley Pipeline Inquiry put a brake on hopes for rapid develop-
ment. More important, the well-publicized community hearings
alerted the nation to the aspirations and determination of the
North's aboriginal peoples.
The North has changed a great deal in the years since the
pipeline inquiry. Land claims, then wrapped in a cloak of Native
anger and polemic, have been, or are about to be, settled. Native
organizations, which initially felt the antipathy of the non-Native
people and resource developers, have now been accepted as an
integral part of the administrative structure. The federal govern-
ment, once proud guardian of paternalistic domination, has
loosened the apron strings, passing on substantial control and
authority to Native people. Once outsiders in their homeland,
aboriginal people now participate fully in the political life and
government of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. It is easy,
in the face of continued negotiations, arguments and struggles,
to forget the impressive gains made by the Native people, and at
their insistence. But those gains are very real and, in the short
term at least, are irreversible.
The entire territorial North, Native and non-Native alike, has
shared in the years of transition. In the early 1970s, both the
Yukon and Northwest Territories battled against their colonial
masters, demanding greater autonomy and less federal inter-
ference. The politicians and civil servants in Ottawa resisted
change, holding on to the vestiges of colonial domination. But
156 The Modern North
these battles, too, were slowly won by the Territories. Respon-
sible government arrived, although in several different guises. In
the Yukon, the introduction of party politics and the practical
dethroning of the commissioner gave the electorate substantial
control over its destiny. The Northwest Territories has, to date,
avoided southern and foreign political models, preferring to
preserve a consensus-style administration that seems particular-
ly suited for the largely Native population of the region.
There are signs that this process will continue, perhaps not to
provincial status in the near future, but to a point where ter-
ritorial authorities can legitimately claim to govern their own
affairs. On Sept. 6, 1988, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and
Dennis Patterson, Government Leader for the Northwest Ter-
ritories, signed an Agreement in Principle on a Northern Accord.
This pre-election deal, the final details of which remain to be
negotiated, offered the Northwest Territories responsibility for
the management of oil and gas and control over the revenues
derived from these resources. While the accord stops short of
"province-like" control of natural resources, particularly over the
crucial question of administration of land, it provides the
Northwest Territories with the ability to regulate and benefit
from this crucial sector of the economy. In addition, the revenues
from the development of these resources promise to free the
NWT from continued dependence on federal government grants.
A similar deal is currently under negotiation with the Yukon
government.
Many of the benefits and changes, however, have been ad-
ministrative and legislative, a vital underpinning for future im-
provement, but not a solution to immediate problems.
Aboriginal communities remain in considerable crisis, despite
unrelenting efforts to address the problems by local and region
Native organizations. Frightening rates of teenage suicide, crime,
alcoholism, wife and child abuse, medical problems and un-
employment provide blunt evidence of a social and cultural
malaise. There is, too, the particularly debilitating realization that
most non-Native Canadians, in the North and outside, are
prepared only to tolerate Native values, traditions and customs.
There is little sense in the Native communities that their culture
Epilogue 157
is valued by the public at large — a sad reality as they struggle
to preserve their way of life in the face of unrelenting pressures
to change. Land claims deals, self-government and devolution
may provide long-term answers, but the current pain in the com-
munities must not be ignored.
There are glimmers of hope: the restatement of aboriginal
spirituality, the inclusion of Native cultural and language in-
struction in school curriculums, women's groups that refuse to
tolerate the suffering in their communities, major advances in
Native communications, the re-emergence of aboriginal
medicine and the continued expansion of Native artistic expres-
sion. Against the background of these encouraging signs, there
is a belief that the processes of cultural re-assertion and political
affirmation will give Native people the skills needed to deal with
a modern and changing world. But there is also a sad familiarity
with the seriousness of the problems and only modest expecta-
tions of improved economic and social conditions.
The problems in the non-Native communities are less obvious,
and far less painful. These are, after all, prosperous settlements
filled with civil servants, resource workers and entrepreneurs.
The non-Native population is generally well-educated and well-
trained, and ready to take advantage of the many opportunities
available in the North. Led by a core of bureaucrats, educators
and politicians who are determined to end the boom-and-bust
patterns and unenviable transiency that have formed the basis of
northern life, the non-Natives have created an exciting and
dynamic society characterized by its vibrant cultural and
economic outlook. This group, far more than ever before, is also
including the Native people in its plans for the future. While
more can be done to integrate the Native and non-Native com-
munities, major strides have been taken in the past decade.
It is, of course, the environment that defines the northern
character of the Yukon and Northwest Territories. Despite the
strong and seemingly inexorable forces of modernization, sub-
Arctic and Arctic conditions will ensure a distinctive social and
economic world. Development threatens the North's fragile
ecosystems, particularly the offshore regions and transportation
corridors, but the headstrong rush to exploit the region's
158 The Modern North
resource has now been partially offset by increased environmen-
tal awareness. The merger of environmentalists' efforts and the
Natives determination to protect the integrity of their land
provides a potent counter-balance to the developers. There is still
cause for concern, and an ever-present fear that renewed
southern interest in northern oil and gas will overwhelm en-
vironmental considerations. The bitterly protested proposal to
open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge — site of the Por-
cupine River caribou herd calving grounds — for oil exploration
suggests that Native groups and conservations cannot afford to
relax their vigilance. On the environmental front the North
remains both a treasure trove of resources, to be developed in
the "national interest/' and a delicate ecological preserve, to be
treasured and protected at all costs. The two uses are not, for the
most part, compatible; the battle between these conflicting defini-
tions of the North will undoubtedly remain at the forefront of
political life in years to come.
In the mid-1970s, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry
dragged Canadians vicariously into the Canadian North. The
country learned of the persistence of aboriginal cultures and of
the Natives' determination to survive as a distinct people. It
discovered the inherent contradictions in the Native and non-Na-
tive visions of the North's future, as well as the diversity of a
land often dismissed in simplistic terms. Underlying all of this,
Canadians also were forced to face their role as colonizers, to
accept the fact that their country ruled the Yukon and Northwest
Territories much as Great Britain had ruled its colonies a century
earlier. While there was no quick or easy consensus on how to
address these political and cultural abnormalities, a surprising
amount of effort and resources were devoted to finding solu-
tions. Canada still has its colonies, and many problems remain.
But much has been accomplished in the past decade and a half,
perhaps more than Canadians might have expected, if not as
much as Northerners need.
The North in the late 1980s is remarkably close to what
Thomas Berger envisaged. Land claims are about to be settled,
Native people have an assured role in future developments, ef-
forts have been made to protect and enhance aboriginal harvest-
Epilogue 159
ing and Northerners of all political and ethnic backgrounds are
committed to ending the boom-and-bust cycles that have
hampered social development and drained the region of its most
valuable resources. The challenge of the next two decades is for
the North to build on the promise and opportunity of the land
claims and to fully incorporate the aboriginal people into the
administration and building of the Yukon and Northwest Ter-
ritories.
Canada's colonies remain just that, placated by generous
government subsidies and partially seduced by the process of
devolution. The assault of the Meech Lake constitutional amend-
ments, which threaten to limit the region's evolution to political
maturity and equality, is a bitter reminder of the North's con-
stitutional position. So too is the continued refusal of provincial
premiers to include government leaders from the Yukon and
Northwest Territories in their regular First Ministers' Conferen-
ces. Northerners accept and celebrate their gains, recognizing
that improvements have come in a comparatively short time. But
they await more — they seek an indication that the Yukon and
Northwest Territories have been completely accepted into the
Canadian community, welcomed as partners, not tolerated as
costly appendages.
Sources
T
his book is based on a wide reading of primary and secon-
dary sources on the modern North. The Northern press was
particularly useful. We relied heavily on such publications as
Yukon News, Whitehorse Star, Dan Sha, News North, Native Press
and Nunitsiaq News. The Canadian Annual Review of Politics and
Public Affairs was also very helpful, as were the annual data
books of the Territories published by Outcrop Publishing: Yukon
Data Book and Northwest Territories Data Book. Much of the infor-
mation on the Canadian North is contained in the hundreds of
territorial and federal government reports published every year.
Among the most useful are the statistical publications released
by the Government of the Northwest Territories Bureau of Statis-
tics and the Government of the Yukon Bureau of Statistics.
Individuals wishing to read further on the modern North face
a wonderful array of choices. There are several journals which
contain excellent material on the North. For the general reader,
The Beaver and Up Here are likely to be of interest. Also very
helpful are Northern Perspectives, published by the Canadian
Arctic Resources Committee, and Information North, the newslet-
ter of the Arctic Institute of North America. For those with more
scholarly inclinations, such journals as Arctic, Musk-ox, The North-
ern Review, Arctic Anthropology and Canadian Journal of Native
Studies contain much valuable information. Listed below are
some of the more important recent works.
Berger, Thomas Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland Vancouver:
1988
Brody, Hugh Living Arctic: Hunters of the Canadian North Van-
couver: 1987
Brody, Hugh Maps and Dreams Vancouver: 1986
Sources 161
Brody, Hugh The People's Land: Eskimos and Whites in the Eastern
Arctic Harmondsworth: 1975
Coates, Kenneth and W.R. Morrison Land of the Midnight Sun: A
History of the Yukon Edmonton: 1988
Cox, Bruce Alden Native People/Native Lands Ottawa: 1987
Dacks, Gurston A Choice of Futures: Politics in the Canadian North
Toronto: 1981
Dacks, Gurston and Ken Coates, eds. Northern Communities: The
Prospects of Empowerment Edmonton: 1988
Damas, ed. Handbook of North American Indians Vol. 5: Arctic
Washington: 1984
Dosman, E.J. ed. The Arctic in Question Toronto: 1976
Dosman, Edgar The National Interest: The Politics of Northern
Development, 1968-1975 Toronto: 1975
Duffy, Quinn The Road to Nunavut: The Progress of the Eastern
Arctic Since the Second World War Montreal: 1988
Hall, Sam The Fourth World: The Heritage of the Arctic and its
Destruction New York: 1988
Helm, June, ed. Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 6: Sub-
arctic Washington: 1981
Honderich, John Arctic Imperative: Is Canada Losing the North?
Toronto: 1987
Lopez, Barry Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern
Landscape New York: 1986
Lysyk, Kenneth et al Alaska Highway Pipeline Inquiry Ottawa: 1977
McMahon, Kevin Arctic Twilight: Reflections on the Destiny of
Canada's Northern Land and People Toronto: 1988
Page, Robert Northern Development: The Canadian Dilemma Toron-
to, 1986
Paine, R., ed. The White Arctic: Anthropological Essays on Tutelage
and Ethnicity Toronto: 1977
Rea, Kenneth The Political Economy of Northern Development Ot-
tawa: 1976
Steltzer, Ulli Inuit: The North in Transition Vancouver: 1982
Watkins, Mel, ed. Dene Nation: The Colony Within Toronto: 1977
Wonders, William, ed. Knowing the North: Reflections on Tradition,
Technology and Science Edmonton:1988
162 The Modern North
Young, David, ed. Health Care Issues in the Canadian North Ed-
monton: 1988
Zaslow, Morris, ed. A century of Canada's Arctic Islands, 1880-1980
Ottawa: 1981
Zaslow, Morris The Northward Expansion of Canada, 1914-1967
Toronto: 1988
Index
Aboriginal Rights and Constitutional
Development Secretariat, 113
Adams, Charlie, 144
Advisory Commission on the
Development of Government in
the NWT, 70
Agricultural and Rural Development
initiative, 87
Alaska Highway, 4,48, 50,65,89,93,
146; pipeline proposal, viii;
reconstruction, 60
Alaska Highway Gas Pipeline, viii,
13,110
Alaska Highway Route, 37
Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, 158
Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act,
109
alcoholism in northern Native
society, 15-16,156
Allmand, Warren, 123
Amagoalik, John, 108
American Indian Movement (AIM),
101
anti-trapping lobby, 46-47
Arctic Bay, 10, 111
Arctic College, 141-142; medical
training, 97
Arctic Gas consortium, 23
Arctic Petroleum Operators Associa-
tion, 33
Arvaluk, James, 61,125
Association of Canadian Universities
for Northern Studies (ACUNS),
140
Auyuittuq National Park, 48
Baffin Divisional School Board, 134
Baffin House, 97
Baffin Region Inuit Association, 107
Baffin Regional Education Society,
134
Baffin Regional Health Board, 97
Barriers to Education, 138
Beaufort Sea, 76,117,126
Beaufort Sea Community Advisory
Committee, 41
Berger, Thomas, vi, 36,155,158
Berger inquiry, ix, 110,123
Berton, Pierre, 131
Blair, Bob, viii
boom and bust cycles, 54,159; in Na-
tive economy, 51
Branigan, Don, 61
Business North, 146
Butters, Thomas, 73
Cadieux, Pierre, 83
Cambridge Bay, 9
Canada Tungsten, 27,30
Canadian Arctic Gas Pipeline
Limited (CAGPL), v, 35-37
Canadian Arctic Resource Commit-
tee (CARC), 34
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC), 148-149,151; radio, North-
ern Service, 151-152
Canadian Metis Society, 102
Canadian Satellite Communications
Inc. (Cancom), 151
Canadian Transport Commission, 61,
84
Canol Project, 33
Carcross band, 121
Carrothers, A.W.R., 70
Carrothers Commission, 90
Carrothers Report, 70
Cassiar Asbestos Company, 6
Champagne-Aishihik band, 14
Chiefs' Advisory Council, 102
Chilkoot Pass Park, 50
Chretien, Jean, 83,102
Christensen, Ione, 64
civil servants in northern society, 81
civil service; changing role of, 97-99;
employment and payroll figures,
86-87; native hiring in, 91-92
Clark administration, 59
Clark, Joe, 60, 64-65
Clinton Creek, 6,21, 27
164 The Modern North
Coles, Roger, 68
Committee for Original Peoples' En-
titlement (COPE), vii, 41, 74, 76,
107, 114; land claim, 127; land
claim settlement, 116-119
community health committees, 95
Company of Young Canadians, 100,
105
Consolidated Mining and Smelting
Company (Cominco), 25
Coolican, Murray, 111-112,124
Coolican Report, 112
cooperatives, NWT, 102
COPE Claim, 116-119
Council of Yukon Indians, vii, 87,
103-104, 108, 115, 116, 119-123,
128; land claim, 67, 119-123, 127;
land claim — framework
agreemant with federal govern-
ment, 123; land claim — opposi-
tion to, 121-122
Council of Yukon Indians Claim, 119-
123
country food, production of, 43
country harvests, 15
Crombie, David, 83,112,121
crown corporations, employment
figures in Northern Canada, 86
Cruikshank, Julie, 143
Cullaton Lake, 53
culture, importation to the North,
142,154
Curley, Tagak, 61,71
Curraugh Resources, 29
Cyprus-Anvil, viii, 6,14,25,26-27,28,
57,68
Dan Sha, 147
Dawson City, 4-5; population, 5;
tourism, 50-51 .
Den Cho Festival of the Arts, 144
Dene, language preservation, 136
Dene Declaration, 104,106,123
Dene Nation, 74, 108, 112, 124, 128;
presence in NWT, 106
Dene/Metis Claim, 123-125
Dene/Metis land claim, 123-125,127
Denendeh, 123,127
Department of Indian Affairs and
Northern Development (IAND),
82,90,98,100,102,133; history of,
82-83; Indian and Inuit Affairs
Branch (IIAB), 82-83,84; Northern
Program, 84; overlap with other
government agencies, 84
Department of Northern Affairs and
Resources, 82
Department of Public Works, 89
devolution of North, 66,98-99; — ad-
ministration, 93
devolution of NWT, 75, 77
Diefenbaker government, 25
Diefenbaker, John, 58
Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line
station, 9,14
division of NWT, 75-76
Dome Petroleum, 29, 35, 142; and
relation with Natives in North, 40-
41
Drury, Bud, 73
Drury Report, 73
Eastern Arctic, land claim, 125-128
Eastern Arctic Claim, 125-128
Economic Development Agreement,
88
economic development, overlap in
initiatives, 85
economic development programs in
North, 88
education in the North; crisis, 133; ex-
ternal control of, 132; reform of,
140; post-secondary, 140-142
education in the NWT, 132-138
education in the Yukon, 138-141
Edzerza, Allen, 144
Edzerza, Fred, 144
Ellesmere Island, 10
Employment and Immigration
Canada, 142
Epp, Jake, 64,83
Erasmus, Georges, 105,106
Esso 39
Expo 86, NWT pavilion, 49, 71;
Yukon pavilion, 51
extinguishment of aboriginal title,
110-111, 120, 126; acceptance by
COPE of, 117; federal demand for,
112,124
Faro, 6, 21,26, 68
Faulkner, Hugh, 124
federal expenditures in North, 87-79
federal government, demand for ex-
tinguishment, 112; employment
figures in Northern Canada, 86;
grants to North, 87; Northern Ser-
vice Officers, 90; subsidy
programs to North, 87
federal-territorial assistance
programs; shift in structure, 88
Finlay, Chris, 59
Index 165
First Ministers' Conference on the
constitution, 65
Firth, Wally, 61,102,124
fishing, commercial, 42
Foothills Pipe Line, vii, 36
Foothills proposal, 37; delay in con-
struction, 38
Fort Franklin, 106
Fort Resolution, 26
Fort Smith, 11; history, 11; popula-
tion, 11
Gjoa Haven, 10
Government of the Northwest Ter-
ritories; employment figures, 86;
role in land-claims negotiations,
112-113 See also Northwest Ter-
ritories
Government of the Yukon; employ-
ment figures, 86; role in land
claims, 112,113-116 See also Yukon
Territory
government services, overlap in, 85-
86
Great Slave Lake, 8,124
Great Slave Railway, 26
Greenpeace International, 44-45
Grise Fiord, 10; cost of living, 21
Harrison, Ted, 131,145
harvesting, 42-45; commercial fish-
ing, 42; conflict with animal
rightists and, 45; export of furs, 44;
preservation of skills, 137; tension
with wage labour and, 43; wild
animals, 42,43-44
Hay River, 30; population, 2
Holman, 10
Hudson's Bay Company, 10,11
Igloolik Education Society, 137
importation of culture to the North,
142,154
Indian and Inuit Affairs Program, 84
Indian Brotherhood of the NWT, 104-
105,112-113
Indian Economic Development
Fund, 14
Indian-Eskimo Association of
Canada, 102
Indigenous Survival International, 46
Interprovincial Pipeline, 39
Inuit; relocation of, 10
Inuit Broadcasting Corporation, 149-
150
Inuit carving, 54,131
Inuit Cultural Institute, 135
Inuit Music Workshop, 143
Inuit outpost camps, 127
Inuit printmakers and carvers, 144
Inuit printmaking, 54,131
Inuit Tapirisat of Canada, 62, 71, 74,
107-108,125,116,128,146
Inuit Today, 136,146
Inukshuk Project, 149-150
Inuktitut, 136
Inuktitut language-programming,
149
Inuvialuit Communications Society,
150,153
Inuvialuit community corporations,
118
Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, 118
Inuvialuktun Language Project, 135
Inuvik, 9; cost of living, 21; popula-
tion, 2
Iqaluit, 8-9; population, 2
Ittinuar, Peter, 61-62
Joe, Danny, 68
Joint Commission on Indian Educa-
tion and Training, 139-141
Josie, Edith, 7
Kakfwi, Steve, 45-46,47,118,124
Keewatin Inuit Association, 107
Kitikmeot Administrative Region, 9
Kitikmeot Inuit Association, 107
Klondike gold fields, 4
Klondike gold rush, viii, 4,16,50,92
Klondike Visitors' Association, 50
Kluane National Park, 48
Kluane Tribal Brotherhood — teach-
ing of traditional skills, 139
Kwanlin Dun, 13,103
Labrador Inuit Association, 107
land claims, 65, 155; background,
108-116 See also COPE Claim,
Council of Yukon Indians Claim,
Dene/Metis Claim, Eastern Arctic
Claim
Leverton, David, 61
Logan, Jim, 144
Lysyk inquiry, 110
Lysyk, Kenneth, 37
Mackenzie Valley pipeline, 104, 111
Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry,
vi-ix, 23,36-37,155,158
Macmillan Pass, 7,30
Makivik Corporation of Quebec, 107
McKnight, Bill, 83,124
McLaughlin, Audrey, 61, 62
Meech Lake Constitutional Accord,
58, 61, 77-80
166 The Modern North
Meech Lake constitutional amend-
ments, 159
Meech Lake controversy, 79-80
Metis and Non-Status Indian As-
sociation of the NWT, 104,106
Metis Association of NWT, 74, 108,
124,128
Metis Declaration, 107
Mineral Resources International, 12
mining, 24-32; boom and bust cycle,
27; transiency of workforce, 18
Mowat, Farley, 131
Mulroney, Brian, 60,78,124,156
Munro, John, 74,83,114-115,119,120
Nahanni National Park, 48
Nanisivik, 11-12, 17, 27, 31-32;
development, 31
National Energy Board, 37
National Energy Program, viii, 39
National Film Board , 14 9
National Indian Brotherhood, 102,
120
National Indian Council, 102
national park reserves, 48
national parks, 48
Native art cooperatives, 54
Native Communications Society
(NCS), 150,153
Native communities, 12-16; economic
and social problems in, 129-130;
social crises, 156
Native development corporations,
52; joint ventures, 53
Native economy, 51-54; boom and
bust cycles, 51
Native handicrafts; production, 144;
production — challenge to, 145
Native harvesting, 9,102 See also har-
vesting
Native health care; self-determina-
tion, 95-96
Native integration into mainstream
Canadian society, 102
Native language instruction, 135,
136,138,157; programs, 143
Native language preservation, 135-
Native language use; decline of, 143
Native migration to outpost camps,
137
Native organizations, 101-108, 129,
155; and health care, 95; in NWT,
104-107
Native outmigration, 12-13
Native Press, 147-148
Native relocation, 12-13; to Rankin
Inlet, 14
Native response to economic forces,
52
Native society; crises in, 143
Native villages; modernization of, 13-
14
Native voting power, 129
Natives; relocation, 12-14; tension
with oil industry, 40; unemploy-
ment, 14-15
New Democratic Party in Yukon, 69-
70
News/North, 147
Nickerson, Dave, 61-62
Nielsen, Erik, ix, 59-61, 64, 65, 67; as
deputy prime minister, 60
non-Native art work, 145
non-Native culture, 143
non-Native population, 16-21,21-22
non-Natives, transiency, 16-17,19
non-renewable resources, 23-24
Norman Wells, viii, 33,39,41
North Rankin Nickel Mine, 9
Northern Affairs Program, 82
northern artisans, 44
northern bureaucracy, and health
care, 93-97
northern communities; social
problems in, 15-16; costs of living,
20-21
northern culture, 131-154; influence
of North American popular cul-
ture upon, 148; preservation of,
142-144,154; resurgence of, 154
northern economy, diversification,
54, 56, 57
northern education, 132-142; Native
needs, 140; redirection to in-
digenous system, 142; transiency
of teachers, 133,134,137,138; use
of southern curriculum, 132-133
Northern Frontier, Northern Homeland,
vii
northern harvesting, 42-45 see also
harvesting
northern health care; and
bureaucracy, 93-97; expansion of
facilities, 96
Northern Mineral Exploration Assis-
tance Program, 25
Northern Mineral Policy, 51
Northern Native Broadcasting
Yukon (NNBY), 151,153
northern newspapers, 147-148
Index 167
"Northern Party", 71
Northern Program, Department of
Indian Affairs and Northern
Development, 84
northern publishing, 146-148
northern radio communication, 151-
154
northern radio, regional program-
ming, 152-153
northern resource development, 23-
24
northern tourism, 47-51
northward migration in Canada, 17
Northwest Territories (NWT); civil
service — growth, 90; com-
munities, 8-12; education, 133-138;
education — post-secondary, 141-
142; education — recruitment of
Native teachers, 134; income, of
non-Natives, 17-18; politics, 69-77;
politics — division, 75-76; politics
— consensual format, 70-71;
population, 1; population — Na-
tive, 2-3; population — out-migra-
tion, 18-19; tourism, 49-50
NWT Chamber of Commerce, 72
NWT Constitutional Alliance, 76
NWT Cooperative Business Develop-
ment Fund, 87
NWT Department of Education, 98
Nunasi Corporation, 52-53,71
Nunatsiakmiut, 149
Nunatsiaq (Eastern Arctic), 61
NunatsiaqNews, 136,147
Nunavut, 125,126,127
Nunavut Constitutional Forum, 76
Ohalahatigect Society of Labrador,
153
oil and natural gas, 33-41; develop-
ment, 33-39; development — im-
pact on the North, 40
Old Crow, 7,66,118; cost of living, 20
Outcrop Publishing, 146
OXFAM, 102
Panarctic Oils, 33
Pangnirtung, 10
Panigoniak, Charlie, 143
Parks Canada, 50, 89
Patterson, Dennis, 72,156
Patterson, Donald, 79
Pearson, Art, 64
Pearson, Chris, 63-64, 65, 114; on
land-claim settlements, 115
Penikett administration, 69-70
Penikett, Tony, 55-56, 68, 78, 79
Penner Report on Indian Self-
Government, 111, 112
Petroleum Incentives Program (PIP),
39
Phelps, Willard, 67-68
Pine Point, viii, 11, 14, 21, 26-27, 30,
57; cost of living, 21; development,
25-26
Polaris lead-zinc mine, 12,17, 30-31;
as model of self-contained mine
site, 31
political power in the North; re-or-
dering of, 128-130
politics; in the NWT, 69-77; NWT —
consensual format, 70-71; in the
Yukon Territory, 63-69
post-secondary education; in the
NWT, 141-142; in the Yukon, 140-
141
Prince of Wales Northern Heritage
Centre, 8,145
Progressive Conservative victory in
Yukon, 67
Progressive Conservative govern-
ment in Yukon, 67-68
Project North, 24
protest movements against fur trade,
4447
Prudhoe Bay, 33, 36
Public Works Canada, 65
Rae, 124
Rankin Inlet,9,ll
regional health boards, 95
relationship between Natives and
non-Natives, 21-22
renewable resources, 42-51
Repulse Bay, 10, 71
resource boom; 1960s, 100,109
resource development; overlap, 85
responsible government; in Yukon,
63-64
Robb, Jim, 145
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 5,
83,98
Sachs Harbour, 10,116
sealing; loss of income, 45
Shehtah Drilling, 41,53
Sibbeston, Norm, 79
Skagway-Carcross Highway, 50
Smarh, Keith Wolf, 144
Smith, Elijah, 68,103
Smith, James, 63
Sorensen, Lynda, 71
southern travel, 19-20