JournalTOCs

Arctic
Number of Followers: 9

This is an Open Access Journal

Open Access journal
ISSN (Print) 0004-0843
Published by U of Calgary

[18 journals]

The Influence of Butterflies and Bees on Old Bering Sea Visual Art
- Authors: Alysha Strongman
  Pages: 112– - 112–
  Abstract: Insects are a common sight across much of the circumpolar region during the summer season and have a multi-faceted cultural significance to Indigenous peoples across North America’s Arctic and the Bering Strait region. Historians and ethnologists in the 19th and 20th centuries documented contemporary Indigenous interactions and beliefs involving insects, notably butterflies, moths, and bees. However, these investigations inferred comparatively little about the understanding among ancient Arctic peoples and the influence of insects in their lives. By examining a select group of Old Bering Sea (OBS) ivory artifacts, I identify insect-related designs on OBS hunting implements and investigate the correlation between these designs and the potential implications of their inclusion on these objects. I attempt to challenge the vertebrate bias present in the study of Arctic prehistory and relational ecology and suggest that insects have a deeper cultural influence than has been previously acknowledged.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77517
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
In Pursuit of “A Good Life”: Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit and Inuit
Women’s Movements in and out of Mining Work
- Authors: Suzanne Mills, Deborah Simmons, Karla Jessen Williamson
  Pages: 126– - 126–
  Abstract: This article adopts a cross-cultural lens to understand why Inuit women enter and leave mining jobs in Inuit Nunangat (Inuit homelands), Canada, using Nunavik as a case study. Previous research has often depicted Indigenous women as either victims of mining or as anti-mining activists. Interviews with ten Nunavimmiut women (Inuit women of Nunavik), who had worked or were currently working at one of two mines in Nunavik, complicate these portrayals. As a team consisting of settler and Inuit scholars, we draw on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles to extend previous understandings of Indigenous women’s pathways through, and out of, mining employment. Women’s descriptions of mining employment were ambivalent. Inuit women applied qanuqtuurunnarniq (resourcefulness) in using mining work to share with others, connect with Inuit culture and community after moving to southern cities, and participate in language and skills training. However, over half of the women interviewed ultimately left mining when it compromised their ability to achieve well-being by restricting their ability to care for their children, to develop their skills through job advancement, or both. Collectively, the narratives demonstrate how women adopted multi-faceted strategies to pursue a good life; they considered mining employment in relation to their ability to care for and share with others, work for a common purpose, acquire skills and training, and maintain connections with land and culture. By centring Inuit values and well-being, Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit principles prompt a reimagining of how mining might be reorganized to support the lives of Inuit women in the context of devastating impacts of colonial trauma and displacement.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77518
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Local Capacity for Energy Transition in Northern and Indigenous
Communities: Analysis of Gwich’in Communities in Northwest Territories,
Canada
- Authors: Rhys McMaster, Bram Noble, Greg Poelzer, Vikas Menghwani
  Pages: 143– - 143–
  Abstract: Introducing local renewable energy solutions into the fossil fuel dominated energy mix of many northern and off-grid Indigenous communities has the potential to create new socio-economic opportunity and address historical energy injustices. However, energy systems are comprised not only of technology and infrastructure but also the communities who generate, use, and benefit from energy. The design of local energy systems that are community appropriate thus requires an understanding of a community’s socio-technical capacity, coupled with an understanding of the social processes that stimulate and sustain transitions and the longer-term, desired outcomes from local energy. This paper explores the socio-technical capacity for renewable energy transitions in northern and Indigenous communities, based on a case study of four Gwich’in communities in the Northwest Territories, Canada. Results show that the foundational attributes of socio-technical capacity for energy transition in northern communities are interconnected, and strengths or challenges in one area often reflect strengths or challenges in another. Several capacity strengths already exist to support energy transition, including community energy values inclusive of community vision and the embedded and transferable skillsets of communities, coupled with next generation leaders. In turn, there are areas where significant capacity building is required, including supports for local energy champion(s) and enabling inter-local energy networks. Results also demonstrate that recent scholarly literature regarding local capacity for community energy does not tightly align with, or reflect the nuances of, energy transition needs in northern and Indigenous communities.
  PubDate: 2023-03-15
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77183
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Ice in Motion: Panoramic Perspectives and Moving Pictures
- Authors: Isabelle Gapp
  Pages: 160– - 160–
  Abstract: The Arctic panorama has often been framed by conversations of the Victorian imperial imaginary and was originally conceived to showcase anglophone exploration, heroism, and scientific discovery. This paper explores the complementary and multifaceted visual representations of Arctic glacial ice, from the Victorian spectacle of the panorama to contemporary virtual reality technology. I look at how glaciers have been depicted, documented, and presented within panoramic media over the past two centuries. I explore how ice moves through both time and space, confronting climate histories within physical and spatiotemporal ideas of movement. Alongside the materiality of ice, I consider the modes of observation involved in creating and viewing these panoramic pictures. In making Arctic exploratory history tangible and visual, I do not seek to simply revive a sublime imaginary and document ice loss but look to the panorama as a method of engaging polar exploration and scientific discovery in the study of visual culture.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77740
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Changes in the Composition of the Harvest in Three Polar Bear
Subpopulations in the Western Canadian Arctic after the US Listing of the
Polar Bear as a Threatened Species
- Authors: Tristan Pearce, David Fawcett, James Ford
  Pages: 179 - 191
  Abstract: The 2008 United States (US) listing of the polar bear as a threatened species prohibits the importation of polar bear trophies into the US, significantly decreasing the number of Americans paying for guided polar bear hunts in Canada. We examined the numbers and composition of the harvest in three polar bear subpopulations—Northern Beaufort Sea, Southern Beaufort Sea, and Viscount Melville Sound—located in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region in the western Canadian Arctic in order to identify what happens when support for guided hunting is withdrawn. We find that there was no significant change in the number of polar bears harvested or in the sex composition of the harvest in the three subpopulations after the US listing. Over the 12-year study period, harvests in each subpopulation were always within the quota. The number of guided hunts decreased after the US listing, and the number of subsistence hunts increased in each subpopulation during this time. The number of bears harvested as a percentage of tags (hunting licenses to harvest one polar bear, the sum of which equals the annual quota) used was significantly higher in the Northern Beaufort Sea after the listing. This is because a tag issued for a guided hunt is considered used even if the hunt is unsuccessful, which is often the case, as hunters seek large male bears, whereas a tag issued for subsistence is re-issued until a successful harvest. We conclude that while the US listing and rapid decline in guided hunts did not affect the number of polar bears harvested, it did disrupt the Inuit cultural economy.
  PubDate: 2023-03-21
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77186
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Participatory Video: One Contemporary Way for Cree and Inuit Adolescents
to Relate to the Land in Nunavik
- Authors: Thora M. Herrmann, Laine Chanteloup, Fabienne Joliet
  Pages: 192 - 207
  Abstract: Indigenous peoples in Canada’s North, especially youth, are increasingly using creative visual arts, such as film, video, and new media technologies to portray their own realities and their personal view of the surrounding environment, thereby contesting colonial, stereotyped media representations of First Peoples. To analyze the youth geography—a sub-discipline of human geography—of nuna (“land” in Inuktitut) and istchee (“land” in Cree) and to understand the distinctive and contemporary meanings that Inuit and Cree young people give to the land, we carried out participatory video (PV) workshops in three Inuit and one Cree communities in Nunavik in 2016, 2017, and 2019. In this paper, we give an account of the nuna/istchee PV project as a method for engaging with young Indigenous people, as a means to develop an Indigenous youth cultural geography in the Arctic. We discuss the effects of PV on the different actors involved in the research process: young Inuit and Cree participants and their communities, the participating schools, and researchers.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77586
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Community Perspectives on Inuit Country Food Insecurity in Gjoa Haven,
Nunavut
- Authors: Jamie Desautels, Jacqueline Chapman, Stephan Schott
  Pages: 208– - 208–
  Abstract: This paper explores how policies and programs can better support country food security and food sovereignty in Gjoa Haven, Nunavut. Through a series of six focus groups with a total of 74 participants, we explore the challenges that Elders, youth, hunters, food preparers, and program providers face in the access, availability, quality, and use of country food. Despite the diverse representation among focus groups, participants revealed similar challenges across demographics and highlighted how tailored policies and programs can provide complementary solutions that serve more than one purpose. We argue that policies and programs targeting financial and economic challenges; resources and infrastructure; and skills and knowledge will improve country food security and will promote food sovereignty. Ultimately, policies and programs must be community informed and tailored to their current context and community dynamics. However, the recommendations we provide could be adapted to other Arctic communities experiencing similar challenges.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77822
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
What Gets Measured Gets Done: Challenges in Monitoring Water, Energy, and
Food Security in Northern Canada
- Authors: Ana-Maria Bogdan, Tayyab Shah, Michaela Sidloski, Xiaojing Lu, Meng Li, Shawn Ingram, David Natcher
  Pages: 225 - 233
  Abstract: This paper describes the challenges that were encountered during the collection of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators for water (SDG 6), energy (SDG 7), and food (SDG 2) security in northern Canada. Our findings indicate only 49% of indicator data were publicly available, while 21% had to be calculated using alternative sources or methods, 18% had to be replaced with proxy indicators for which data were available, and 12% of indicators were deemed unavailable entirely. The most common types of data challenges were associated with completeness, timeliness, and granularity. Given the current challenges faced by residents of northern Canada, with their livelihoods closely intertwined with the accessibility and availability of water, energy and food (WEF) resources, a comprehensive plan for data collection, storage, and management of WEF-related SDGs is required to advance WEF security from an aspirational to a transformative policy agenda.
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77896
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Compass, by Murray Lee
- Authors: Heidi Hansson
  Pages: 234– - 234–
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77919
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
The Security of Iceland and the Arctic 2030: A Recommendation for
Increased Geopolitical Stability, by Robert P. Wheelersburg
- Authors: Heather Exner-Pirot
  Pages: 235– - 235–
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77921
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Antarctic Pioneer: The Trailblazing Life of Jackie Ronne, by Joanna
Kafarowski
- Authors: Daniella McCahey
  Pages: 236– - 236–
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77922
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Books Received
- Authors: Editor
  Pages: 238 - 238
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
Papers to Appear
- Authors: Editor
  Pages: 238 - 238
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
George Noongwook (1949–2023)
- Authors: Henry Huntington, Igor Krupnik, Hiroko Ikuta
  Pages: 239– - 239–
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  DOI: 10.14430/arctic77823
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)
AINA News
- Authors: Editor
  Pages: 243 - 243
  PubDate: 2023-08-12
  Issue No: Vol. 76, No. 2 (2023)