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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]

Throughout his tenure as Prime Minster of Canada (2006-2015), Stephen Harper had a particular fascination with the Canadian North, illustrated in part by his annual tours of the Canadian Arctic and Subarctic region. Using these tours as a case study, this paper argues that state discourses of sovereignty, resource development, and climate change are intertwined with the simultaneous production of a tourist landscape. This tourist landscape is established in part through the circulation of affect within state discourses, like those engaged by Harper on his northern tours. The affective economies of tourism in the Canadian Arctic are heavily intertwined with both market-focused policy objectives and the moral imperative established by climate change. The result is a discourse of northern Canada that puts it within the purview of southern Canada. In particular, the affective, economic, and ecological dynamics in northern Canada produce an image of the North as both a playground for southern desires and a place in danger that is in need of saving. This moral economy in the North proposes market-based solutions and ethics for both economic and environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of forthcoming articles related to the life in arctic region to be published in the journal "Arctic." The article include "A Near-Total Decline in Caribou on Prince of Wales, Somerset and Russell Islands, Canadian Arctic," by A. Gunn, F.L. Miller, S.J. Barry and A. Buchan, "The Nature and Significance of Polar Bear Conservation Hunting in the Canadian Arctic," by M.M.R. Freeman and G.W. Wenzel, "A Review of the Occurrence of Pacific Salmon in the Canadian Western Arctic," S.A. Stephenson, "Regional Assessment of GCM-Simulated Current Climate over Northern Canada," by B.R. Bonsal and T.D. Prowse and "Biogeographical Evidence for the Grass Species of Pleistocene Beringian Lowlands," by D.K. Swanson.

Inuit Elders from the West Coast of Hudson Bay, Canada remember the past to serve the present. This paper describes a mapping and oral history project that is gathering Elders' knowledge of the people, places, sites, and resources that populated their vast traditional territory. We discuss the Elders' conception of this work within the framework of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangiit (Inuit knowledge) and how these understandings are actively contributing to the form and direction of the project. We explore how the Elders' knowledge is used to inform and animate the archaeological findings of the project. These broader discussions are focused around an examination of the tentative links between an historic Inuit trader named Ullebuk (Ouligbuk) and archaeological features uncovered at a site located near Arviat, Nunavut. Finally, we discuss how the Elders' work is trained on the goal of serving their people, particularly the rapidly expanding population of Inuit youth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Blowing snow is a frequent and significant winter weather event, and there is currently a need for more observations and measurements of blowing snow, especially in arctic and subarctic environments. This paper is the second part in a two part series studying blowing snow in Churchill, Manitoba, and Franklin Bay, NWT. In this part, the development and use of a camera system to measure the relative blowing snow density profile near the snow surface is described. This system has been used, along with standard meteorological instruments and optical particle counters, during a field campaign at Franklin Bay, NWT. A best-fit to the mass density profile in the saltation layer is derived, assuming a half-normal distribution of the vertical ejection velocity of saltating particles. Within the saltation layer, the observed vertical profile of mass density is found to be proportional to the function exp(− 0.61z/h̄), where h̄ is the average height of the saltating particles. For the range of conditions studied, h̄ varies from 1.0 to 10.4 mm, while the extent of the saltation layer varies from 17 to over 85 mm. There is a weak correlation between h̄ and the square of friction velocity. There are weak negative correlations between h̄ and temperature and relative humidity. No correlation is seen between h̄ and the snow age. At greater heights, z >0.2 m, the blowing snow density varies according to a power law (ρ s ∝z − γ), with a negative exponent 0.5<γ<3. Between these saltation and suspension regions, results suggest that the blowing snow density decreases following a power law with an exponent possibly as high as γ≈8. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Blowing snow is a frequent and significant winter weather event, and there is currently a need for more observations and measurements of blowing snow, especially in arctic and subarctic environments. This is the first paper in a two part series studying blowing snow in Churchill, Manitoba, and Franklin Bay, NWT. In this part, the development and use of a camera system to measure the shape, size and velocity of blowing snow particles is described. This system was used, along with standard meteorological instruments and optical particle counters, during field campaigns at Churchill, MB, which took place in March, 2005 and December, 2006. Measurements of blowing snow particle shape demonstrate that blowing snow particles are generally non-spherical, with an average ratio of the longest particle profile length to the perpendicular width of 1.41. Measurement of particle velocity with the camera system is shown to be inaccurate. However, measurements of particle number correlate well (r 2 =0.85) with simultaneous measurements made with a particle counter at the same height as the camera. The particle size distributions generally follow a Gamma distribution, with an average shape parameter of α =1.9. The shape parameter, α, shows no trend with height. The blowing snow particle number density decreases with height as approximately N ∝ z −1.4. The blowing snow particle number densities, interpolated to a height of 0.1 m, are in the range of 1.4×105 < N <4.7×107 m−3. Particle number densities are shown to generally increase over a limited range of wind speeds, corresponding to 10-m wind speeds in the range of 13< U 10 <17 m s−1. Over this range of wind speeds, the average particle size at a given height does not change significantly with wind speed. However, at a lower wind speed of U 10 ≈9 m s−1, the average particle size is generally smaller. Particle sizes generally decrease with height between 0.06 and 1 m. Above 0.2 m, the average particle diameters found in this study (120 µm< d―<154 µm) are similar to or generally larger than the range of sizes found in previous studies. Below 0.15 m, the average particle diameters in this study (103 µm< d―<172 µm) are similar to or generally smaller than the sizes found in previous studies. There is a large variation in the mean particle sizes of this and other studies, suggesting that particle sizes may be dependent on a number of other factors, such as upwind snow conditions and surface characteristics. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Climate change is already occurring in the Arctic and the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment recently concluded that future climate change could be devastating for Inuit. This paper characterises vulnerability to climate change in two Inuit communities in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, focusing on the resource harvesting sector. In both communities, Inuit have demonstrated significant adaptability in the face of current changes in climatic conditions. This adaptability is facilitated by traditional Inuit knowledge, strong social networks, flexibility in resource use, and institutional support. Changing Inuit livelihoods, however, have undermined certain aspects of adaptive capacity and have resulted in emerging vulnerabilities. Global and regional climate projections indicate that climatic conditions which currently pose risks are expected to be negatively affected by future climate change. These projections are not without precedent and analysis of current vulnerability and identification of adaptation constraints by Inuit in the two communities indicate the continued importance of traditional coping mechanisms. The ability to draw on these coping mechanisms in light of future climate change, however, will be unequal and the research indicates that young Inuit and those without access to economic resources, in particular, are vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, First Nation (FN) organizations have entered into agreements with federal and provincial government representatives to remediate radar-line sites in Ontario. These agreements stipulated that FN people would take part in the site delineation and remediation process to gain job experience and economic benefits. One important aspect of the process was protecting FN personnel from contaminant exposure and thus, from potential negative health outcomes associated with the cleanup work itself. In this paper, we describe the safety precautions used by FN workers preparing Mid-Canada Radar Line (MCRL) Site 050 for Phase 2 of the delineation process and the health monitoring protocol that was tested. We measured concentrations of total polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs as Aroclor 1260), 14 individual PCB congeners, p,p'-DDT,p,p'-DDE, nine other organochlorine pesticides, and lead in the blood of Fort Albany FN workers before they started work at Site 050 and approximately a week before they completed their three-month work period in the contaminated zone. No significant differences were found in the paired samples. These results indicate that the safety precautions taken were adequate for the work and the site in question. The monitoring protocol discussed here maybe used as a template and modified to meet the specific needs of other projects. The results of this study are important because other Aboriginal groups have entered or will be entering into agreements with government organizations for the remediation of other MCRL sites in Ontario and across Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous Peoples globally are part of the nutrition transition. They may be among the most extreme for the extent of dietary change experienced in the last few decades. In this paper, we report survey data from 44 representative communities from 3 large cultural areas of the Canadian Arctic: the Yukon First Nations, Dene/Métis, and Inuit communities. Dietary change was represented in 2 ways: 1) considering the current proportion of traditional food (TF) in contrast to the precontact period (100% TF); and 2) the amount of TF consumed by older vs. younger generations. Total diet, TF, and BMI data from adults were investigated. On days when TF was consumed, there was significantly less (P < 0.01) fat, carbohydrate, and sugar in the diet, and more protein, vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, riboflavin, vitamin B-6, iron, zinc, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium. Vitamin C and folate, provided mainly by fortified food, and fiber were higher (P < 0.01) on days without TF for Inuit. Only 10-36% of energy was derived from TF; adults > 40 y old consistently consumed more (P < 0.05) TF than those younger. Overall obesity (BMI > or = 30 kg/m(2)) of Arctic adults exceeded all-Canadian rates. Measures to improve nutrient-dense market food (MF) availability and use are called for, as are ways to maintain or increase TF use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]