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The article discusses the discovery and identity investigation of a member of the Franklin Expedition, specifically focusing on William Gibson's involvement. It details his early life, naval service aboard the Wanderer, and subsequent role as a steward on HMS Terror during the Franklin Expedition. It sheds light on his personal and naval history in the context of significant historical events like the Opium Wars and anti-slavery efforts.

Parks Canada's commitments to reconciliation marks a significant shift in the governing paradigm of national parks, moving away from a colonial framework towards models that respect and elevate Indigenous forms of governance and knowledge systems. However, the extent to which a land claims-based co-management model, as the dominant mechanism of governance and engagement employed by Parks Canada, can serve as a vehicle for reconciliation is an open question. This paper endeavours to better understand the relational dynamics of co-management for their potential to advance reconciliation in national park settings. Using the lens of ethical space, we identify factors that either facilitate or impede relationship building between Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and Parks Canada in the co-management of Vuntut National Park. Insights from semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021 with 11 community members and park managers indicate that an evolvingmanagement relationship is sustained through extensive community engagement and Parks Canada's support for strengthening community connections to the land. By adopting an ethical space framework for analysis, we were able to highlight different conditions and elements necessary for a protected-area co-management arrangement to serve as a solid foundation for reconciliation. Our analysis also revealed various structural impediments to the establishment of an ethical space conducive to reconciliation, particularly in the context of co-management arrangements based on land-claims agreements. These challenges included: discrepancies in approaches to protected-area management between Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation and Parks Canada, further complicated by the governance system employed by Parks Canada; issues of scale related to Parks Canada's nested management structure, which affected relationship building between co-managers; financial constraints; and capacity constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers, community organizations, and Inuit leaders increasingly question the suitability of methods to assess the prevalence of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat (the Inuit homeland in Canada). Particularly contentious is the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM). The HFSSM is applied in modified form as part of Health Canada's nationwide Canadian Community Health (CCHS) and Aboriginal Peoples Surveys. The 18-question HFSSM is the primary survey tool used by the Government of Canada to assess food security prevalence. Yet the HFSSM asks only about the affordability of store-bought foods (also termed "market foods" elsewhere in the literature) when collecting data to designate food security status. This is despite communities in Inuit Nunangat having complex dual or mixed food systems, that is, they rely on foods harvested from ancestral lands (country foods) in combination with store-bought foods to sustain mixed cash-subsistence economies and diets. Sourcing country foods requires money for the purchase of equipment and machinery. However, country foods also have numerous access and availability criteria dictated by non-financial factors. In this paper, we explore the problem of the monetary bias (the focus on an individual or household's ability to purchase foods) in the HFSSM and discuss the knock-on effects of using monetary metrics as the sole means of measuring and monitoring food security in dual food environments. We contend that relying on monetary access as a measure presents an incomplete picture of the reality of food insecurity in Inuit Nunangat. Presently, there is little consideration of the nuance of social norms and cultural values that govern dual food systems or the importance of less tangible, non-financial factors that might affect food access (e.g., knowledge of where and how to harvest and of machine maintenance, suitable environmental conditions for travel, conducive harvest regulations, social relationships, ecological stability). Ultimately, this contributes to restricted policy-level understandings of what it means to ensure stable, culturally adequate, and just food systems, and limits self-determination in northern food environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attempts to accurately reconstruct events that occurred during the final phases of the 1845 Franklin Northwest Passage expedition face a key challenge: how to address inconsistencies and, in some cases, contradictions between historical descriptions of sites and the archaeological evidence they contain. This paper examines the case of site NcLa-1 at Kungearkbeearu, on the Simpson Strait coast of King William Island, for which the Inuit oral history seems incompatible with archaeological interpretations. New archaeological data from the site provide an enhanced framework within which to evaluate both the oral history and archaeology of NcLa-1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 opportunities 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 community-appropriate local energy systems must thus be based on an understanding of, first, a community’s socio-technical capacity; second, the social processes that stimulate and sustain transition; and third, 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 positive community features, or “capacity strengths,” already exist to support energy transition. These include community energy values, which include a community vision; embedded and transferable community skillsets; and “next generation” leaders. In turn, capacity building is needed to provide supports for local energy champions and 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proposals for infrastructure development in Canada's North are gaining political traction, including a corridor connecting the northern regions of each of the country's provinces. Quebec is Canada's largest, northernmost province and would be pivotal in the construction of the corridor. Examining the historical phases of Quebec's northern development is crucial in assessing the challenges ahead. This paper groups Quebec's infrastructure developments into three main phases, synthesizes each phase, and critically compares them to the proposed Northern Corridor concept (NCC). No research has yet examined the NCC's complementarity with Quebec's history of northern infrastructure development. While previous phases could be categorized as intraprovincial penetration corridors linking northern to southern Quebec, the NCC aims to develop an interprovincial economic corridor for landlocked provinces to be able to gain better sea access. Obstacles arising from the conciliation of past developments with the NCC include the unfitness of using existing infrastructures in Quebec for a Pan-Canadian corridor and differing development trajectories at the provincial and federal levels. Three route options for the NCC in Quebec are presented in this study. More generally, this paper outlines difficulties specific to subarctic remote corridor development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of ringed seals in the regional economy of the Chukotka Autonomous District, with the end of the commercial fishery, research on the ringed seal in Russia has almost completely ceased. The coastal zone of the Chukotka Peninsula, where the Native people hunt for seals, has seen very little research. This paper is devoted to the study of the modern distribution and habitat of the ringed seal (Phoca hispida) in the coastal waters of Chukotka. Observations of ringed seals were carried out simultaneously with observations of other species of marine mammals from posts located on the coast of the Chukotka Peninsula in 1993 -- 96, 1998 -- 2000, 2002 -- 05, and 2010 -- 11. Field studies provided information on the spatial and seasonal distribution, movements, and relative abundance of the ringed seal in the coastal zone. In winter, seals were found on the drifting ice in the southern coastal area of the northern part of the Gulf of Anadyr, and on fast ice and its edge in the bays of the eastern part of the Chukotka Peninsula. In spring, the main aggregations of ringed seals were observed on fast ice in Senyavin Strait, Lavrentiya Bay, and Tkachen Bay. The migration of immature seals to the Chukchi Sea was noted. In summer, animals were distributed in the coastal zone of the entire Chukotka Peninsula, but their relative number decreased by 85%. In late autumn, the main aggregations of seals were observed on the young ice of Lavrentiya Bay, in Senyavin Strait, and in Tkachen Bay. The landfast ice of the eastern coastal zone of Chukotka Peninsula is one of the main areas for the reproduction of ringed seals in the Bering Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For thousands of years Ɂedacho Kué (Artillery Lake, Northwest Territories) has been a key water crossing site for barren-ground caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus). Human disturbance of barren-ground caribou habitat in northern Canada has emerged as an important focus of study in the last decade; particularly in the Bathurst range of the Northwest Territories where caribou populations have declined by more than 95% since the 1980s. Guided by local Indigenous leaders and Elders, a collaborative research project was developed with the Dëneso'łıné people of Łutsël K'e Dëne First Nation (2012 - 14). This paper describes linkages between knowledge derived from Dëneso'łıné oral history and quantitative dendroecological analysis of trample scars on black spruce (Picea mariana) root samples collected at Ɂedacho Kué to provide a better understanding of caribou use at this location. Findings from oral histories and dendroecology analysis were consistent with one another and with previous dendroecology study in the region, although some discrepancies were detected in data from 1995 - 2006 that require further study to elucidate. Key findings include relatively low caribou use at Ɂedacho Kué during the 1930s and late 1960s, with use increasing into the 1970s and peaking in the late 1980s, as well as Elder and hunter reports of no caribou in some years between 2005 and 2012. This work addresses a gap in scientific data about barren-ground caribou movements at Ɂedacho Kué prior to satellite collar use in 1996 and corroborates previously documented oral histories about the enduring value of Ɂedacho Kué as critical habitat to barren-ground caribou. Given the drastic decline of the Bathurst caribou over the last two decades, more research is needed to understand movements and their relationship to population dynamics. In this context, the research approach described in this paper could be used as an example of how to meaningfully bring together place-based Indigenous knowledge and science in addressing an urgent issue of Arctic sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present the results from a systematic literature review of subsistence research that was conducted in northern Canada between 1950 and 2019. Our analysis identified trends in subsistence research, including the breadth of research topics, influential scholars and scholarship, and the emergence of research networks. Our results identified 245 publications authored by a multidisciplinary network of 365 scholars. Research conducted through ArcticNet and the International Polar Year is responsible for 75% (n = 183 of 245) of all subsistence-related publications during this period. Subsistence publications cover a wide range of topics, including climate change, nutrition, and wildlife management, but Indigenous food culture and the roles of women in subsistence have received comparatively less scholarly attention. Given the profound changes occurring in northern Canada, whether a result of anthropogenic or non-anthropogenic disturbances, greater attention to the cultural and gendered dimensions of subsistence will be particularly valuable to northern scholarship and the public policies it can inform. This attention will be increasingly necessary in a time when critical thinking about the future of subsistence in northern Canada is of critical need. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports results of the first range-wide study of the behaviors of free-living wolves in the High Arctic in response to human presence and discusses these behaviors from a conservation perspective. The study focused on wolves believed to have had little, if any, contact with humans and excluded data from areas where wolves have become habituated to people. Data consisted of incidental sightings of wolves on the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and in Greenland from 1819 to 2019. A total of 325 behavioral observations were identified: 163 from Greenland and 162 from Canada. The most commonly reported behaviors (71.4%) involved wolves seeking out humans: coming to campsites, following traveling dog teams, closely approaching a person, and following people. These behaviors are not typical of canids in lower latitudes and have the potential to create conflicts with people who might feel threatened owing to the centuries-old belief that wolves are dangerous. Some Arctic wolves have been shot in perceived self-defense, when in all likelihood the animals were only curious. In addition, aggression directed towards domestic dogs was the most common form of wolf-dog interaction and produced another source of conflict. The findings are important from a conservation perspective because of the small wolf population and the fact that vanishing sea ice is increasing human access to the Arctic wolf range. Appropriate and humanely used hazing techniques and outreach to stakeholders on what constitutes normal Arctic wolf behavior can mitigate the risk of conflict and contribute to the conservation of Arctic wolves on the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and in Greenland, while minimizing the risk that the natural behavior of this subspecies is altered by increased human activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food cellars, otherwise referred to as ice or meat cellars, (lednik in Russian, k'aetyran in Chukchi, sigluaq in Iñupiaq, and siqlugaq in Yupik) are a natural form of refrigeration in permafrost or seasonally frozen ground used to preserve, age, and ferment foods harvested for subsistence, including marine mammals, birds, fish, and plants. Indigenous peoples throughout the Arctic have constructed cellars in frozen ground for millennia. This paper focuses on cellars in Russian and American coastal and island communities of the Bering Strait, the region otherwise known as Beringia. This area has a unique, culturally rich, and politically dynamic history. Many traditions associated with cellars are threatened in Chukchi communities in Russia because of the impacts of climate change, relocation, dietary changes, and industrial development. However, even with warmer temperatures, cellars still provide a means to age and ferment food stuffs following traditional methods. In cooperation with local stakeholders, we measured internal temperatures of 18 cellars in 13 communities throughout the Bering Strait region and northern Alaska. Though cellars are widely used in permafrost regions, their structure, usage, and maintenance methods differ and exhibit influences of local climates, traditions, and economic activities. Monitoring internal temperatures and recording structural descriptions of cellars is important in the face of climate change to better understand the variety and resilience of living adaptations in different cold regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social licence to operate is a concept that has been applied to the mining sector internationally for the past two decades. In 2017, it was raised by a number of actors as a way to reduce controversy over mining projects in Greenland. In this paper, we analyse why the concept of social licence appeared, and the legitimacy problems that it was intended to resolve despite numerous changes to Greenland's mining approval processes. We argue that the concept was introduced primarily as a way of seeking to enhance the voices and agency of local communities in resource governance. We further ask whether, on the basis of Canadian experience where social licence has been used for much longer in natural resource governance discourse, introducing the concept into Greenland will likely lead to an empowerment of communities. We argue that the Canadian experience in this regard shows that the outcome is complex, that community empowerment can take different forms or may not occur at all. Such complexity is also likely in Greenland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased variability in weather and sea ice conditions due to climate change has led to high rates of injury, trauma, and death for Inuit travelling on the sea ice. Contributing to these high rates are the ongoing effects of colonial policies that diminish and disrupt the intergenerational transfer of sea ice Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit (IQ). Despite these challenges, place-based experiential IQ continues to be the most important information source for safe travel on the sea ice. This paper presents an Inuit-led, coproduced, cross-cultural research project in which Inuit youth documented and mobilized sea ice IQ in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), Nunavut for safe community sea ice travel. We outline the Inuit youth training to facilitate the terminology and participatory mapping workshops and to document this IQ. We also discuss the IQ that was most important to share, and the mapping and artistic methods used to mobilize this IQ into a booklet, maps, and posters. Inuktitut sea ice terms are the foundation to enable youth with the skills to learn about sea ice IQ with experienced hunters. IQ enables Inuit to interpret and synthesize information from weather forecasts, earth observations, and community-based monitoring to apply to local conditions. Seasonal IQ maps of safe and hazardous sea ice conditions provide travel planning information at spatial and temporal scales that supplemental information sources cannot address. The IQ products mobilize preparedness, situational awareness, navigation, and interpretation skills so Inuit youth can become more self-reliant, as access to technology is not always possible once out on the sea ice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]