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[Whales and traders]
[The Hudson's Bay Co.] [Government
looks northward] [Prospects]
 he social and economic unit for
pre-contact Inuit was the camp, which usually meant the extended
family. Each camp was held together by a strong-willed individual:
a camp boss. Complex rules determined the sharing of the game,
for sharing was important for survival. Alliances were formed
through hunting partnerships and strategic marriages of children
— the improvident hunter survived, but barely, and often
on the largesse of an extended family.
Wider trade relationships also existed. Meteoric iron was
traded from group to group. Driftwood, and later wood from the
wrecks of exploration and whaling ships, was a valuable commodity
for coastal dwellers trading with Inuit farther inland. In the
southern Keewatin (now Kivalliq), both trade and skirmishes occurred
with Chipewyan and Cree from the subarctic forest, while Inuit
of the western Kitikmeot traded with Dene of the Mackenzie Valley.
 Whalers and traders
The seasonal arrival of whalers from Europe and America, beginning
in the early 1800s, brought with it a different kind of trade,
and radical changes to the lives of many coastal Inuit. The Europeans
brought foreign objects — guns, bullets, tea, cloth —
that made life easier, yet which also brought a dependence on
the white man's return.
Dependence on imports has been a hallmark of northern life
ever since. Dependence increased when whalers established permanent
shore stations in communities such as Pangnirtung. Many Inuit
abandoned traditional camp life and congregated near the shore
stations as paid labor. This was a cashless society, and Inuit
were paid in trade goods. To this day in the Baffin Region (Qikiqtaaluk),
the Inuktitut word for Saturday is sivataaqvik —
the time when you get your biscuits.
It was once again a mixed blessing for the Inuit that independent
traders quickly filled the void when bowhead stocks declined
in the late 1800s. The traders expected the Inuit to hunt, and
to trade the results of that hunt with them, usually for the
same motley assortment of trade goods that the whalers had provided.
The object of the hunt was traditional game — seal for their
skins, walrus for their hides and tusks, narwhal for their tusks
— and the Inuit kept the meat. The traders discouraged Inuit
from living in large communities: effective hunting was best
done over a wide geographic area. Inuit middlemen arose to trade
with those Inuit who were far removed from trading posts. Among
these were Stephen Angulaalik in the Kitikmeot, Kanaaka in southern
Baffin, and Ilatnaaq in the northern Keewatin.
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The Hudson's
Bay Co.
The reign of the independent traders was short. In the early
1900s, the Hudson's Bay Co. (HBC) established its own posts throughout
the Arctic, indenturing men to hunt exclusively for them for
five-year periods. By the 1930s, when fur prices on world markets
were high, the trapping of white foxes brought relative affluence
to many Inuit.
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 The
Iqaluit airport
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During these years, a number of initiatives were introduced,
usually by the HBC, to help some Inuit become more self-sufficient.
There was boat-building in Kimmirut and southern Hudson Bay,
and fox-farming in Pangnirtung. But the Inuit who benefited from
these efforts were few: they were the Kabloonamiut —
the settlement Inuit, as the anthropologist Vallee called them.
Most Inuit still lived in camps, and the Inuit of the camps lived
hard lives indeed.
Government looks
northward
The late 1940s and early 1950s saw the arrival of the Canadian
and U.S. military in Nunavut. The military brought with it wage
labor and increased dependence on southern goods when it created
airbases in communities such as Iqaluit (Frobisher Bay), and
numerous Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line stations across the
North, but by 1950, in the barren lands of the Keewatin, Inuit
were starving. Caribou migration patterns had shifted, moving
Canadian writer Farley Mowat to write on the plight of "the
people of the deer." This situation, coupled with an increasing
interest in non-renewable northern resources, finally turned
the attention of non-military southern officials northward. First
came northern service officers to administer welfare, then school
teachers. In the 1960s, Inuit were urged to abandon their traditional
camps and move into settlements. Dependence on outsiders and
the wage economy became firmly entrenched throughout Nunavut,
though this sometimes brought its own miseries, as when animal-rights
activists destroyed the northern sealskin industry in the early
1970s.
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Nunavut's
Wage vs. Non-Wage Economy |
|
 |
60% |
| 40% |
9%
|
| 91% |
People
who participate in labor force
(wage economy) |
|
People
who do not participate in
labor force (non-wage economy) |
|
Population of Nunavut
Inuit
Non-Inuit |
24,730
20,480
4,250 |
|
Sources: 1996 Census of Canada,
1994 GNWT Labour Force Survey |
In the two generations since Inuit left the land, government
influence has become all-pervasive in the Inuit economy. Some
argue that a general sapping of individual initiative has taken
place, and that only now, with the settlement of land claims
and the establishment of a de facto Inuit territory, are Inuit
in a position to regain their lost independence.
Inuit efforts at taking control of their own economic future
did not begin with the creation of Nunavut. In the 1950s and
1960s, government encouraged the formation of local co-operatives.
Despite — or because of — massive infusions of government
money over the intervening decades, most have been only marginally
successful.
Today almost every community has a Northern store (the modern
take on the HBC trading posts of yesterday), and most have a
co-op and other private enterprises. Both federal and territorial
governments have provided incentives for northern businesses,
and the incentives have been greater for Inuit-owned businesses
or those training and employing Inuit.
The modern Nunavut community provides jobs: in government,
municipal services, teaching and nursing, clerking, transportation,
maintenance, and in entrepreneurial pursuits. It provides a subsistence
living in hunting and trapping. For some it provides a good living
as artists, or as wage laborers in seasonal construction. And
in each community, professional-level jobs are increasingly held
by Inuit. But for most Inuit, life has become a tenuous mix of
wage labor and hunting. Family and extended family partnerships
— often invisible to the outsider — ensure that the
hunter has access to cash for machinery and gas, and the wage
laborer has access to country food and skins for clothing. But
with few exceptions, the small communities remain heavily dependent
on government dollars.
Prospects
Nearly half of Nunavut residents are under the age of 20,
whereas this group represents just 27 per cent of Canadians as
a whole, meaning that job creation cannot hope to keep up. Unemployment
is high. So is disillusionment, as evidenced by high rates of
suicide and substance abuse. The education system has not succeeded
in graduating Inuit professionals — doctors, nurses, lawyers,
accountants — and so non-Inuit, some of whom become committed
to making Nunavut their long-term home, hold almost all of these
jobs.
The myth that all Inuit are natural artists has also been
dispelled, to the dismay of many who relied on the selling of
soapstone carvings for their livelihood. Many warehouses are
today filled with unsalable Inuit art and craft items. Governments
and Inuit organizations are addressing this dilemma, and a strategy
is being developed to support a true art market.
Mining has always been important in Nunavut. From the fool's
gold that tricked English explorer Martin Frobisher in the 16th
century, to the Kitikmeot copper that supplied Inuit with weapons
and tools, to the mica mines of Kimmirut at the turn of the present
century, minerals have been sporadically exploited by both Inuit
and non-Inuit. Modern mining in Nunavut began in Rankin Inlet
in the 1950s with a nickel mine. Many believe that Inuit in the
Keewatin acquired their well-known entrepreneurial streak from
their experience working at the mine. Nanisivik, a lead and zinc
mine in operation since 1974, is the longest-running mine in
Nunavut. Nanisivik has often been called a failure because it
never achieved the goal of 60 per cent Inuit employment. Yet
it is a major success story because of its consistent achievement
of 20 to 25 per cent Inuit employment at a time when no other
employers, including the federal and territorial governments,
could claim statistics anywhere close. Mining today holds great
promise for Nunavut.
Tourism, often cited as a panacea for Nunavut's economic woes,
is not. Despite unparalleled physical beauty and exotic wildlife,
high airfares and poorly developed infrastructure conspire to
slow growth. Tourism today remains only a small piece in the
puzzle of northern economic development.
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A major part of putting the puzzle together will be the Nunavut
Land Claims Agreement (NLCA). When Inuit set out to settle their
land claims with the federal government, it was not enough for
them to have some Inuit land, and to trade ownership of the rest
of the land for cash compensation. There had to be incentives
for Inuit ownership of businesses, and Inuit employment.
 With
only 21 kilometres of inter-community roadway, Nunavut towns
and hamlets rely heavily on an annual "sealift"
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Article 24 of the Nunavut final agreement compels the federal
and territorial governments to adopt policies that maximize the
involvement of Inuit in Nunavut business, through outright Inuit
ownership, Inuit majority ownership, joint ventures with non-Inuit
firms, and employment. Questions remain about how Article 24
should be applied, but its very existence has led to a radical
change in the way business operates in Nunavut, and a very obvious
increase in Inuit involvement in business at all levels. Meanwhile,
Article 23 of the settlement calls for training to work toward
the goal of a representative public service in which 85 per cent
of civil servants will be Inuit.
A unique phenomenon in the evolution of northern business
is the rise of the "birthright corporation." Nunasi
Corporation, headquartered — one hopes temporarily —
in Yellowknife, is owned by all the Inuit of Nunavut. Each of
Nunavut's three regions has its own economic development corporation,
owned beneficially for all the Inuit of that region by the regional
Inuit political organization as its economic-development arm.
These birthright corporations are more than just powerful and
diversified businesses: they generally contain a component of
social-development agency as well, though many private businesses,
both Inuit and non-Inuit owned, complain of the dominance of
the birthright corporations in the competition for northern business.
While the capital and the regional centres in Nunavut are
thriving, life remains tough in most Nunavut communities. For
this reason, the Nunavut Implementation Commission (NIC) recommended
a decentralized model for Nunavut's government, allowing the
economic boost of the creation of the government to be shared
with the maximum number of citizens. It was a noble recommendation,
and it was endorsed by the federal and territorial governments,
and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated (NTI), which administers the
implementation of the NLCA for Inuit. It will take determination
and political will to ensure its success, but the people of Nunavut
deserve no less.
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|
| |
Toronto |
Iqaluit |
| 2
litres of 2% milk |
$ 2.79 |
$ 5.71 |
| 1
dozen large eggs |
$ 1.65 |
$ 2.95 |
| 1
loaf white bread |
$ 0.89 |
$ 2.59 |
| Bucket
of KFC chicken |
$21.99 |
$43.99 |
|
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With the dawn of Nunavut, most of its citizens remain oblivious
to the extent of their dependence on the continued largesse of
the federal taxpayer. But the situation is improving. With the
leadership of the Inuit political organizations and governments,
and the partnerships being fostered between Inuit and non-Inuit
business, growth is being encouraged in every sector of the northern
economy, be it mining, transportation, renewable resource development,
or tourism. Determined Nunavut leaders will have to be, like
camp "bosses" of centuries past, strong-willed individuals,
willing to draw on traditional Inuit values and skills, as well
as the talents and energies of relative newcomers, to create
a thriving Nunavut.
Businessman Kenn Harper of Iqaluit
is also a historian, linguist and author who has lived 30 years
in the Arctic.
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