Construction is wrapping up on the Illusuak Cultural Centre, a striking wooden structure being built on the shores of the North Atlantic in Nain, Canada, to celebrate the region’s Inuit heritage.
Douglas Clark Associate Professor, University of Saskatchewan’s School of Environment & Sustainability
The northern Canadian town of Churchill, Manitoba, may be an early casualty of climate change, but it could become an Arctic sustainability pioneer, says Douglas Clark, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
In Norway, on the final stop of her literary tour of the Arctic, the World Wildlife Fund’s Margaret Williams finds an amalgam of writers providing a unique sense of place and home.
A playful experiment performed at Norway’s Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum earlier this year saw the entire premises temporarily transformed into a museum dedicated to Saami art. Now there’s a push underway to create something longer lasting.
Canadians’ perceptions of the Arctic are sometimes out of sync with the political and legal realities of the governance of the region, says Danita Catherine Burke, a postdoc at the University of Southern Denmark.
The Saami singer Sofia Jannok from Sweden combines traditional joiking with modern electronic music. Her lyrics, sung in three languages, aim to overturn colonial attitudes and express Indigenous views.
Meet Billy Gauthier, an acclaimed artist from northern Canada who participated in a hunger strike last summer to to protest the environmental impacts of a new hydroelectric dam in Labrador.
Opening a beer and wine store isn’t an obvious approach to addressing a community’s devastating relationship with drinking. But Iqaluit is taking that step in the hope of reducing consumption of bootlegged hard liquor.
A health survey of Inuit communities in northern Quebec found widespread food insecurity and other problems 13 years ago. A follow-up now underway will see how much things have changed.
The Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment working group gives Indigenous voices a meaningful say over sustainable solutions, making it a model worth emulating, says Steven Fry, a master’s student in international studies from the University of Washington.
Nenets reindeer herders have some counterintuitive strategies to lessen the harm of heavy drinking, but these approaches are creating problems as nomads settle into villages.
The Saami Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Mental Health and Substance Use has found success in a strategy that leans heavily on exposing its clients to the outdoors.
Malina Dumas
The Arctic Council may be helping advance the idea of allowing Indigenous groups to play a more central role on the world stage, writes Malina Dumas, a J.D. candidate at the University of Washington School of Law.
McGill University’s Climate Change Adaptation Research Group is looking at the potential for using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assist with search-and-rescue operations in Canada’s eastern Arctic.
NUNATSIAQ NEWS: Circumpolar food culture could be key to ensuring Indigenous northern peoples’ survival, so the Arctic Council has prepared a compendium to help capture this traditional knowledge.
A new railway project would help Finland and Norway take advantage of melting sea ice to ship products from the Arctic coast. But Indigenous communities fear the rail line would disrupt their reindeer herding traditions.
The former mayor of Clyde River reflects on lessons learned from his community’s legal battle to stop seismic tests they feared would harm marine life and jeopardize ancient hunting traditions.
When Robert Peary set out to reach the North Pole, he took along entire Indigenous families. New research looks at the experiences of the women who came along, whose stories have until recently gone largely untold.
Raw meat is a delicacy in many northern communities, but warming temperatures may be contributing to deadly outbreaks of botulism. Residents are learning to adapt while keeping ancient traditions alive.
Melaina Sheldon will soon lead the Jane Glassco Northern Fellowship, which teaches young northern Canadians about public policy. The idea, she says, is to help empower the next generation to tackle issues that affect their communities.
Representatives from all eight Arctic countries recently gathered in Harstad, Norway, to reflect on the varying definitions and aims of Indigenous art in the North.
It’s hard to think of a better way to experience Canada Day than to drive along a highway that permanently etched the Canadian state into the northern wilderness, writes Mia Bennett at Cryopolitics.
The Canadian Museum of Nature’s new Arctic gallery features a space dedicated to showcasing Indigenous culture. Its kick-off exhibit offers insights into Inuit communities from the Kitikmeot region of Nunavut.
WORLD POLICY: Pavel Sulyandziga, an Indigenous rights activist who hails from Russia’s Far East, speaks about the cultural and conservation challenges faced by the Udege people.
With “Kiviuq Returns,” Nunavut’s Qaggiavuut Society brings to the stage an ancient story of a wandering hero in an effort to preserve a part of their culture that was nearly lost.
Revived plans to drill for oil at the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd are prompting outcries from Indigenous people with ancient ties to the herd.
As the U.S. resumes its debate over whether to drill for oil at the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd on Alaska’s north coast, photographer Peter Mather shares some shots and personal experiences with the herd and the Gwich’in, whose culture is tied to it.
The arrival of Chinese workers at a factory in Maniitsoq goes to show how balancing wage work with subsistence practices is a challenge across the Arctic, writes Mia Bennett at Cryopolitics.
Russia’s Arkhangelsk region hopes for an economic turnaround spurred by China’s investment in a new railway and deepwater port. But such plans have existed for decades in northern Russia and often fail to materialize, says Paul Josephson, a professor of Soviet history.
More than one-third of households in Canada’s eastern Arctic don’t have access to enough nutritious food. Social media campaigns against the territory’s sky-high food prices have prompted a variety of responses to help.
Without a high-speed fiber-optic link, Nunavut remains dependent on a sluggish, satellite-based internet service. That’s increasingly a problem for the territory’s economy and government, says Madeleine Redfern, the mayor of Nunavut’s capital, Iqaluit.
The Algu Fund aims to raise $30 million to help ensure that northern Indigenous groups are better able to participate in the Arctic Council’s workings, says Jim Gamble, the fund’s acting chair.
From internet speeds to graduation rates, Canada’s northern regions lag behind the rest of the country. In her new report, Mary Simon, the Canadian government’s special adviser on Arctic issues, presents some ideas about how to close those gaps.
Some residents along Alaska’s coast say it’s becoming tougher to obtain seal oil – not for lack of seals, but due to changing ice conditions and the fact that fewer young people are going hunting.
Russia’s northern Indigenous people have reason to view their national parks system with suspicion. Park boundaries are sometimes rolled back to make way for resource development, while protected areas often pose an impediment to traditional hunting and fishing activities.
Siku, an online tool that recently won a $750,000 grant from Google, aims to pull together native knowledge about dangerously thin sea ice and other conditions in the Arctic’s fast-changing landscape.
The unexpected appearance of sinkholes or groundwater flooding is something to which residents of this Alaskan city have grown accustomed as they face up to the melting of the discontinuous permafrost on which their buildings stand.
HAKAI MAGAZINE: Polar bear viewing is fast becoming a cottage industry as tourists flock to the northern Alaskan city of Kaktovik. But at what cost – for the bears and the community?
A severe housing shortage in Canada’s Inuit communities underpins many complicated social problems, as a new Senate report testifies. The problem is so costly that policymakers are tempted to ignore the seemingly intractable issue.
Arctic nations should do more to ensure their northern communities are ready and able to respond to emergencies at sea, writes Andreas Osthagen for the High North News.
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