[MUSIC] Before we can discuss the economies and systems of governments across the global Arctic, it will be helpful to once again take a stroll around the pole to more closely examine how the economies and governance structures of each Arctic region have evolved over time. Again, we will go through the four arctics which include the North American, the Russian and the Nordic arctic as well as the indigenous arctic. The North American Arctic includes both Alaska and Canada, and because they are quite different politically, we'll look at each one in turn. The Canadian Arctic economy combines traditional subsistence-based economic practices like hunting, fishing, trapping and harvesting, which are based on sharing with market economies, which are founded on monetary exchange. And include activities like wage employment in the resource and government service sectors, which provide different kinds of benefits to the population. In the North American Arctic, the way local economies first connected with the outside world was through European colonization. Many regions across the circumpolar Arctic have been settled according to different strategies of colonization and development. In Northern Canada, this included the government curtailing of indigenous peoples access to many lands and resources that were vital to their interests. This had a dramatic impact on the Inuit and First Nations, whose cultures and economies were based on nomadic or semi-nomadic practices, such as caribou hunting. In some cases, people were forcibly removed from their traditional lands to make way for mining, hydro power and petroleum extraction projects and new settlements to go with them. The criminalization of subsistence practices was also a mechanism by which indigenous peoples were disconnected from their lands and resources. This had a devastating impact, which we can learn about through oral histories, which tell the resultant food insecurity which included mass starvation from the 1930s onward, and have been documented in different parts of the North,. In some parts of the Arctic, Inuit communities were also relocated to extremely harsh environments to assert Canadian sovereignty. For example, Inuit families were forcibly removed from their traditional homeland of Nunavik in Northern Quebec to Ellesmere Island in 1953. >> The residential school system in Canada was one of the means by which the federal government attempted to assimilate indigenous peoples of the Canadian North into the mainstream economy. And force them to abandon the traditional forms of economic activity, including their hunting and fishing practices. Residential schools for the aboriginal people in Canada date back to the 1870s. Over 130 residential schools were established across the country, and the last school did not close until 1996. These government-funded church-run schools were set up to eliminate parental involvement in the intellectual, cultural and spiritual development of aboriginal children. The residential school system had no positive impact economically, but had devastating social and cultural implications. These impacts were the focus of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, a federal process created in 2008 to discover, document and publicize the truth about what happened in the residential schools. The Commission relies on records kept by those who operated and funded the schools. Testimony from the officials of the institution that operated the schools, and experiences reported by survivors, their families, their communities and anyone personally affected by the residential school experience and it's subsequent impacts. The post World War II period was a time of change in the Canadian North. Cold War defense activity and major resource development, aided by both public and private investment in transport, energy and civic infrastructure led to profound economic change. On the one hand, the new wage economy based on mining, construction and transport, brought economic growth, the new resource and administration focus towns. On the other hand, the fur trade which had been the economic mainstay in the small communities for generations went into decline. During the 1950s, governments intentionally took this trend further by purposely undermining the local subsistence economy, hoping to increase levels of education and wage employment. For example, the North Rankin Nickel Mine was established in the early 1950s in response to a rise in the price of medals brought on by the Korean War. The federal Northern administration celebrated the mine and company town of Rankin Inlet as a good example of the modernization of Inuit peoples. The Rankin Nickel mine along with other mines, was seen as the answer to a declining fur trade economy and the solution to the perceived dependency on social welfare. Although Inuit were attracted Regularly for wage employment. They face discrimination, poor working conditions, and many health and social problems developed as a result. When the mine closed in 1962, the community fell into economic crisis. For those who would abandon their traditional economies in pursue of wage labor, it was particularly devastating. >> The Canadian government also implemented other colonization strategies at this time. There were many infrastructure projects such as the Dempster Highway in northern Canada, part of Prime Minister Diefenbaker is roads to resource a strategy. In 1958, the federal government's decision to build the 671 kilometer road from Dawson city Yukon, to Inuvik in the Northwest territories. Was part of a strategy to stimulate the development of the newly discovered oil and gas resources of this region. The road was the first overland supply link from the architect to Southern Canada. Other developments that brought significant change to the north were directly tied to global events. For instance, uranium from the railrock mine and decline, was using the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While this mine wreaked havoc in the community, causing cancer and other health issues. The fact that resources from their land caused so much damage and pain in Japan, has been a traumatic blow to the people of the line. As the Cold War that followed World War II increased demand for uranium, other mines and the dangers they pose followed. As a result, radiation leaking from an abandoned uranium mine in great Slave Lake, continues to harm the people who live there today. In Canada's Arctic today, aboriginal communities generally have economies that mix market based activities. Like extractive industries and government services with subsistence based activities like harvesting food. The chief characteristic of this economy is that the household operates as a micro enterprise. Which means that the household is the basic unit of production, as well as consumption. What this tends to look like is that the family uses subsistence harvesting, which might be hunting, trapping, gathering, or farming, to provide for their needs. This economic model goes back for millennia and persists into the present. Contrary to the predictions of many social scientists and policymakers. Subsistence harvesting and sharing of traditional foods is a cornerstone of Northern indigenous cultures. But it is also an important part of those local economies, and is vital to people's health across the circumpolar north. Particularly where communities face limited access to affordable market foods. These harvests and the way family and community members share them, bring broad health benefits and are critical to food security. When we say subsistence, we simply mean the mode of production that meets basic needs through the flow of valued resources. What makes it different from commercial multi production is that practitioners of subsistent production don't accumulate resources. People have used terms like shadow, non structured, and unorganized to describe subsistence activities. But these definitions do not capture the many complex ways that people organized at the local level to meet their needs. And instead have stigmatized the people who participate in subsistence activities as non-progressive, backward, and resistant to change. Because data on traditional harvesting and subsistence activities are not commonly collected. Less is known about the subsistence economy than other sectors. However, surveys on diet and nutrition along with harvest studies, can give us snapshots of how significant the subsistence harvest is in Arctic communities. For instance, the caribou the communities in the Northwest Territories harvest is worth millions of dollars annually. The average person in Arctic Canada eats over 600 pounds of traditionally harvested food each year. Subsistence provides at least half the meat for more than 40% of anywhere people across the Arctic. Of course, a healthy and affordable diet is not the only benefits subsistence activities provide. Hunting, herding, fishing and gathering all support the material well being, also called the real income of the indigenous population. Not only that, but these activities also underpin that and strengthen social relationships and cultural identity. The extractive industries economy, otherwise known as the primary sector, is the second largest sector of the circumpolar Arctic economy. Based on the exploitation of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources, the primary sector is worth around $70 billion or 31% of the global Arctic GDP. The large scale extraction of non-renewable resources, including petroleum and minerals, contributes significantly to the GDP of most Arctic nations. Hydrocarbon production alone accounts for roughly $53 billion a year, while mining kicks in another 9 billion. Across the Arctic many minerals are mined including nickel, from Norilsk and the Kola Peninsula, diamonds from Canada's Northwest Territories, and gold from Chukotka. Most often, large scale petroleum exploitation is done with capital, equipment, and labor outside the Arctic. This is often a cause of tension because there's a long history of resource development causing significant environmental damage, which tends to impact local and indigenous people the very people who gain little or nothing from resource extraction in the first place. Local and indigenous peoples can also be divided on oil and gas production. Alaskan native corporations depend heavily on oil and gas productions, and Alaska native communities have benefited greatly from oil production on Alaska's North Slope. At the same time, whale hunting Alaskan coastal communities have opposed offshore oil exploration by shell. The government and service sectors, otherwise known as tertiary industry, is also a dominant economic sector in the north. In most regions, the public sector, which includes health care and education, generally accounts for 20 to 30% of all economic activity. However, in some areas, especially where the primary and secondary sectors air, underdeveloped public services may account for more than 30%. For instance, in Nunavut's public services make up 45% of economic activity. The reason for this is that although populations in the Arctic tend to be small, the administration required to govern and manage an extremely large landmass costs more per capita. The larger service sector is also due to the fact that there are fewer private sector wage earning opportunities, which means people depend on government jobs for their livelihoods. In spite of some well established patterns in northern economies, there's some exciting new trends emerging from all across the global Arctic. Small industries, with little connection to the primary resource sector are starting up. The Arctic Snatch RL Beauty has inspired a growing tourism industry. Iceland used its low cost energy to attract international energy intensive industries, primarily aluminum smelting. Alaska has utilized its location and infrastructure to grow its cargo operations in Finland, the electron ICS industry has become an important part of the emerging economy. Long distance commuting, also known as transients, is a key trend in the Circumpolar arctic. Historically, labor for large scale resource development projects was centralized in company towns such as Pine Point, Northwest Territories. These towns often created problems, and once the minds or projects were shut down, they left unsustainable legacies. Behind. One such company, Town is Cool sat in Greenland, which was closed in 1972 after 48 years of operation. It had become a thriving community and was the birthplace of the Greenlandic labor movement. The closure of the town and relocation of the community caused trauma that's still influences Greenlandic politics. Today. Long distance commuting began to change. His transportation technology improved, making it possible to fly workers and equipment in and out of industrial sites, which led to the creation of work camps. This occurred in Canada, Alaska and Russia, where the concept was called the HVAC Toby Method State policy intended to encourage workers to commute to work camps. The arrangement is efficient, but it also has its problems. Commuters are away from home for long periods of time, depending on the workers profession, travel time and the requirements of the job shifts can last from several days to several months at a time. Work camps are cheaper to build than company towns, increasing profits for developers. But commuter labor forces face many social and health challenges, and then, when the workers return home, they're comparatively high. Wages can can have unintended effects on the economies of their local regions, fly in fly out working schemes where workers, usually men, leave home toe work at remote oil, gas or mining sites for extended periods of time, followed by longer stretches at home with their families can be disruptive to families and detrimental to the individual family members. Emotional and mental health. Even though economic development in the north often means that profits are drained out of the Arctic and into companies based in the south, it's not always this way. A major dimension of the economy of northern Canada is the social economy by social economy. We mean the organizations that contribute to health, housing, education, culture, manufacturing, food security and environmental sustainability. Worldwide. This sector creates 48.4 million full time jobs. Many of these organizations have complex structures, financial requirements and governance agreements. However, the effectiveness of these social organizations hinges on the relationships between individuals who work together within and between the various organizations. A good example of an organization that operates within the social economy is Arctic Co Operatives LTD. Which is owned and managed by 32 northern communities. Arctic co operatives has businesses located in none of it the Northwest Territories and UConn that include retail stores, hotels, cable operations, construction, outfitting, arts and crafts production and property rentals. The last emerging trend in article Con is the way that in many northern regions, including Arctic Canada, indigenous groups are creating legal mechanisms that will allow them to benefit from large scale resource development. Impact and benefit agreements, also called IBAs, are often negotiated between indigenous communities and industrial developers. The oldest example of an IBA signed in 1995 is the regular agreement. It was signed between the Inuit of in northern Quebec and a mining company seeking to invest in the development of nickel and copper resources at the Redland site. The agreement was required as a result of the James Bay Agreement, which is one of the six major land claim agreements in Canada that detailed the processes for managing local natural resources. The regular agreement has a variety of terms and conditions that mine owners must meet, including Inuit training and employment targets, as well of processes for monitoring environmental impacts. >> When it comes to understanding the political economies of Alaska and northern Canada, it's essential to examine them separately. Different development histories, systems of indigenous rights and economic development policy have put these two regions on different paths. The indigenous peoples of Alaska are generally divided into six major groups. The Aleut, Aluitiq, Yupik, Inupiaq, Athabaskan and Tingit and Haida. The Russian exploration of Alaska during the 18th century made it an important part of the Russian for trade, which had lasting impacts on indigenous cultures, economies and local ecosystems. In 1799 the establishment of the Russian America Company, which held a monopoly on the Alaskan food trade much like the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada and the Royal Greenland Company created by Denmark, ushered in a new colonial period in Alaska. Intense competition between traders ensued, leading to the violent enslavement of the Aleut people's. Then, as resources decline due to over trapping conflicts and violence increased. As horrifying as this was the most devastating effect of the Russian colonial period was disease. During the first two generations of Russian contact, 80% of the Aleut people died from Eurasian infectious diseases. These diseases were endemic among Europeans, but the Aleut who had never encountered them before had no immunity. Then, in 1867 the United States purchased Alaska from Russia, which led to a new era of colonization that had major impacts on indigenous communities. Europeans and Americans flocked to Alaska during the gold rush is of the early 20th century. The Alaskan natives who had few rights, lost access to valued land and resources. For non indigenous people Alaskan statehood, granted in 1959 was a major achievement. For the indigenous peoples the main event was the passage of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971. The discovery of oil on Alaska's North Slope triggered the agreement, which addressed indigenous land rights in an unusual way. The agreement gave cash and land titles to newly formed native corporations on the regional and local levels. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act has been controversial since it passed, but it has been the foundation of the Alaska indigenous peoples land rights for more than 40 years.
