Building Energy Sovereignty through Community-Based Projects in Nunavik

Inuit communities in Canada are overwhelmingly dependent on expensive and polluting local diesel-powered generators for electricity production. This article seeks to understand the legal and political obstacles relative to the development of renewable energy in Nunavik, Québec’s Inuit territory. After an analysis of the legal regimes, political configurations, and policies affecting energy production in Nunavik, we present two case studies of renewable energy projects in the communities of Kuujjuaq and Inukjuak. This allows us to demonstrate that the development of alternative energy projects is not only determined by technical and economic issues but is also inseparable from the asymmetrical post-colonial power relations between Quebec institutions and the Inuit people. Our results not only illustrate the value of community ownership and leadership for sustainable northern development but also the ambiguous attitude of public authorities regarding the political and financial support for such projects.

Why Ross Survived When Franklin Died: Arctic Explorers and the Inuit, 1829–1848

The Franklin expedition disappeared in the High Arctic in the 1840s, looking for the North-West Passage. After a long search, contacts with local Inuit revealed they had all perished. Could the Inuit have saved Franklin’s crews? The experience of John and James Ross is instructive. A decade earlier they led a smaller party to an Arctic region near where Franklin’s crews landed. They made friends with an Inuit community and learnt useful skills in clothing, diet, shelter and transport. This enabled them to survive four Arctic winters and come home safely. But the Franklin expedition was poorly placed to benefit from Inuit contact. They were too numerous and had no interpreters. Trapped in the ice, they did not seek out Inuit villages. Leaving the ships, they turned towards a desert region and abandoned useful equipment. The wrecks of Erebus and Terror were only discovered in 2014 and 2016, again thanks to Inuit guidance. Britain has transferred the wrecks and their contents to Canada. They will be jointly held by the government and the Inuit ­people, whose ­contribution to the Franklin story is finally being recognized.

Manitoba Inuit Association’s Rapid Response to Include an Inuit Identifier within Manitoba COVID-19 Diagnostic Tests

To monitor the progress of the COVID-19 outbreak, ensure equitable access to testing and treatment, and provide up-to-date information to Indigenous decision-makers engaged in setting up measures to protect their communities, the Manitoba Inuit Association (MIA) mobilized to work with the First Nation Heath and Social Secretariat of Manitoba, Ongomiizwin Research, and the Manitoba Government to identify Inuit in COVID-19 diagnostic tests, including Inuit who reside in Manitoba or those who come from Nunavut to the province to access health services. Provincial work was already underway to add Indigenous identifiers into provincial clinical health information systems; however, it was apparent early in April 2020 that reporting to Indigenous organizations on identified COVID-19 cases for First Nation, Metis, and Inuit People would be also be required in order for remedial measures to occur. This article describes the governance considerations needed to establish an information-sharing agreement with the Government of Manitoba and the role of the MIA in overseeing this process. Further background information is provided in addition to an extended discussion around the context in which Inuit are identified and receive healthcare services in Manitoba.

Denmark’s Obligations Regarding Mineral Resources in Greenland

Greenland has rich deposits of natural resources. Some of them could have the potential to be commercially developed. The exploitation of these resources could provide enormous opportunities for Greenland’s economic development. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and enjoys far reaching rights of self-government. The population of Greenland is overwhelmingly Inuit, a people elsewhere recognized as an Indigenous people. The question concerning the exploitation of the natural resources is thus a complicated legal issue. International law provides indigenous peoples with special rights concerning the natural resources in their territory as referenced in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention 169. The Kingdom of Denmark thus has international obligations regarding free, prior and informed consent. At the national level, the Self-Government Act includes provisions concerning natural resources, and this area is under the sole competence of the self-government. The Greenlandic Mineral Resources Act includes provisions on participation and consultation processes of local inhabitants. This article discusses whether the Kingdom of Denmark, through the Self-Government Act, lives up to its obligations under international law regarding the rights of the Inuit people in relation to the natural resources in their territory.

The Arctic Ocean Melt and the Impacts in Traditional Populations: Possibilities for an International Guarantee

The research intends to show how the melting of the Arctic Ocean, caused by the climatic collapse, affects the life of the traditional populations that inhabit the region and its ways of being influenced by the changes of the landscape and of the own structure and environmental availability. In view of this, it aims to present the environmental balance as a Human Right and, in view of this position, demonstrate the need for international mobilization to protect traditional communities that are historically more vulnerable. In order to do so, the study questions the possibility of universal jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, since the litigation previously raised by the Inuit people was frustrated due to the unavailability of the non-jurisdictional countries. In addition, the possibility of litigation is also raised in the International Criminal Court, on the grounds of Ecocide. Thus, through the hypothetical-deductive method and the questions raised by Cloutier SW, et al. [1], the impacts of climate collapse on vulnerable populations will be demonstrated, with a dissertation on the imperative need of effective and sensitive international tutelage - which also justifies the research.

Maternal Indigenous and Artisanal Coastal Nutrition, the SDG Imperative: A Suggested Renaissance of Ethics for Research and Tertiary Education in the Anthropocene Era

Maternal nutrition is at the core of any principle-centered projection of Sustainable Development Goals. Without the developmental health of newborns – there is no quality future. Specifically, there are situations all around the globe where Indigenous and Artisanal coastal people suffer from maternal malnutrition inadvertently limiting future potentials in many locations that will be most challenged by climate change. Results from research with Artisanal Fisherfolk in the Philippines and analysis of harvest by the Canadian Inuit people are discussed in terms of the ethics of setting national as well as global education and research priorities.

Music, Media, and Mediation

This chapter considers ethnomusicology's relationship to media as a fundamental tool for cultural representation. It draws a circuitous line from Robert Flaherty's encounter with the Inuit people through Titon's work on American cultural communities to indigenous media makers' mediated performances, exploring how ethnomusicologists and ethnographic filmmakers embrace media's power to document, analyze, distribute, and sustain musical experience across culture and through time. These mediators work between the worlds of academic scholarship and the public sphere, and navigate the duality of face-to-face experience in real time against the capturing of musical culture in enduring and accessible ethnographic media in an increasingly mediated world.

A COLLABORATIVE SHARING OF STORIES ON A JOURNEY TOWARD RECONCILIATION: “BELONGING TO THIS PLACE AND TIME”

This paper emerges from the particular field experiences of three “settler” colleagues working in a teacher education program, each of whom found that their personal and professional relationships with First Nations, Metís, and Inuit people had a positive and constructive bearing on how they responded to provincial mandates and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.

Una Huna?: What Is This? by S. Aglukark

Aglukark, Susan. Una Huna?: What Is This? Illustrated by Amanda Sandland and Danny Christopher, Inhabit Media, 2018. Juno-award-winning Inuk singer-songwriter Susan Aglukark has had tremendous success blending languages (Inuktitut and English) to tell the stories of her people through popular music. She has now published the first in a planned series of six picture books intended for both Inuit and non-Inuit readers, a series that celebrates the resilience of the Inuit people. The series focuses on a period of tremendous change, beginning late in the nineteenth century, when more and more European traders began to regularly visit Inuit camps. This changing world is seen through the eyes of a young Inuk girl named Ukpik. Ukpik is a happy little girl who is excitedly seeking the perfect name for her new puppy. A precocious child, she is eager to try new things, to ask questions, and to share newfound knowledge with the other children in camp. She is eager to understand and embrace the European tools for which her family trades—in this story, it is cutlery (knives, forks, and spoons)—but she wonders if these objects will forever change their happy way of life. Ukpik’s grandmother offers reassurance and helps the little girl to thoughtfully consider her family’s place in a rapidly changing world. As she has done so successfully with her music, Aglukark has peppered Una Huna? with Inuktitut words that will introduce young readers to Inuit culture without confusing them or significantly slowing the pace of the story. The charming illustrations by Amanda Sandland and Danny Christopher are very suitable for children and lend a fairly realistic sense of place. Appropriately, this book was published by the first independent publishing company in Nunavut; Inuit-owned Inhabit Media seeks to promote and preserve Inuit mythology and traditional knowledge. Una Huna? is highly recommended for readers aged 5 to 7. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Linda Quirk Linda taught courses in Canadian Literature, Women's Writing, and Children's Literature at Queen's University (Kingston) and at Seneca College (Toronto) before moving to Edmonton to become a librarian at University of Alberta’s Bruce Peel Special Collections.