by Abbie Bakan
The capital of the new territory of Nunavut, in the eastern arctic, is called Iqaluit. It used to be known as Frobisher Bay, named after a British sailor who "discovered" it in 1576 and tried to capture and subordinate the indigenous Inuit people.
The local population fought back, in one skirmish landing an arrow in Martin Frobisher's backside.
That tradition of Inuit resistance to imperialism is the background to the establishment in April of 1999 of the new territory under a self-governing Inuit administration.
The existence of Nunavut is a tribute to the struggle of Canada's aboriginal population for self-determination.
Nunavut is a territory that covers 1.994-million square kilometers of land. After twenty years of persistent demands for land claims settlement, the Inuit won the consent of the government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories to the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) in 1993.
This was the largest aboriginal land agreement in Canadian history and the largest of its type in the world.
This history of militant organization among the Inuit themselves is widely recognized. In the internationally circulated Nunavut Handbook, a travel guide for those looking to enter the Arctic of Canada for the first time it states:
"None of this would have transpired had Inuit not become politically organized. The roots of Inuit political organization go back to the late 1960s and early '70s, and the struggle for control of natural resources. Inuit had experienced the boom and bust of the '60s' High Arctic oil exploration. . . . In Canada, managing oil and gas development north of 60-N latitude is a federal government responsibility. The period of intense exploration in the 1960s made Inuit realize just how little control they had over their national lands. They discovered that governments and big business could do just about whatever they wanted in the homeland of the Inuit. This was like a wake-up call to Inuit leaders."
Resistance from successive Canadian federal governments was massive. The agreement to form Nunavut was a concession from the corporate elite of Canada and the traditional parliamentary leaders.
But success for the Inuit population of the North in achieving a small degree of recognition of their traditional claims to land rights and self-government has not come without a price.
The land claims settlement itself was endorsed by majority vote of 84.7 per cent in a public plebiscite in 1992. But the terms of the agreement exchanged aboriginal rights and title to all land and water in the Nunavut Settlement Area except for 355,842 square kilometers of Inuit owned land.
Funding for Nunavut's operations still depend on the federal government, under a negotiated five year formula that began when the new territory officially joined the federation on April 1, 1999. Federal funds account for 95 percent of the territory's revenue, with the remaining 5 percent from local taxation.
Services are currently provided by the Government of the Northwest Territories, though this is a transitional situation subject to service by service negotiation.
The cost is not only economic. Nunavut has a total population of 24,730. Of these, 20,480, fully 85 percent, are Inuit. It is also a very young population, with 56 percent under the age of 25 years, compared to a national figure of 34 percent.
What prospects are there for these young newly self-governing Inuit?
Unemployment among the Inuit population is estimated to be over 45 percent.
For Inuit males, age 15 to 24, the unemployment rate is almost 52 percent. For Inuit females of the same age, it's about 44 percent. For non-Inuit, for males and females age 15 to 24, unemployment is about 2.3 percent.
In Iqaluit, the capital, a construction boom has brought massive amounts of new investment. But the skilled jobs are contracted out to non-Inuit labourers who work seven days a week, 16-hour days, in a desperate race against the threatening winter months.
Suicide for all ages among the Inuit is the main cause of death, higher than heart disease or cancer. Family violence, often related to addiction to drugs and alcohol, is widespread.
The limited services available barely reach the most needy. The Iqaluit women's shelter continually operates at 120 percent of capacity. And those who fall out of the system, like families who are in debt and lose their claims to aboriginal housing subsidies, live in wooden shacks made of transportation crates along the beach.
The legacy of poverty among the Inuit is the legacy of centuries of bitter oppression. The tradition of imperialism introduced by Frobisher's British army has continued to be invented and re-invented through years of so-called benevolence from the Canadian state.
In 1880, Canada took control over the Arctic Islands from Britain. When the Inuit resisted conquest, they were victimized by the market. The Hudson's Bay Company established its first post on Baffin Island in 1911, then came posts at Cape Dorset in 1913, Pangnirtung and Pond Inlet in 1921, Clyde River in 1923, and Arctic Bay in 1926.
A people that had survived centuries on unforgiving frozen lands, and had developed traditions of communal relations, by the early 1900s faced shortages of wildlife, unregulated prices for their furs, exposure to epidemics, trade in alcohol, and the unspeakable barbarism of the residential schools.
Police, traders and missionaries robbed the men of their ability to hunt and feed their families, and robbed the women of their ability to raise their children.
Then came World War Two.
During the 1940s Canada's arctic region was opened by the willing Canadian government to its ally to the south as a prime US air transport zone. As the planes came in, so did the wage economy. But a system that inspired South Africa's apartheid ensured that Inuit would be treated as strangers in their own land.
And then came the peace.
The Cold War took on new meaning for Canada's north. In 1953, construction for the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, began.
This joint venture between Canada and the US created a radar chain to ensure that "Communist" missiles could be detected before they threatened our democracies in the true North strong and free and the home of the brave.
Meanwhile, whole communities were re-located, and federal schools were established. In the 1960s, oil and gas discoveries in the western region saw the entrance of the largest multinational corporate interests in the world.
And aboriginal peoples in Canada's North, like those all over the world, started to get angry.
The high expectations of self-government in a territory of the Canadian state far outreach what will actually be delivered. The creation of Nunavut is not the end of the struggle for aboriginal rights, but it could be the sign of a beginning of a new era of determination and resistance.
The Canadian state has, in recent years, signed land deals with aboriginal negotiators with one hand, while they hold a gun behind their back with the other.
We should not be lulled into thinking that the creation of Nunavut represents a change of heart on the part of a state founded with bloody hands. Solidarity with aboriginal peoples against this racist, imperialist state, in all its horrific forms, will be needed to unite workers North and South of the 60th parallel.