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Inuit

Inuit

Inuit (Inuktitut syllabics: ᐃᓄᐃᑦ, singular Inuk or Inuq / ᐃᓄᒃ) is a general term for a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic coasts of Siberia, Alaska, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Québec, Labrador and Greenland. Until fairly recent times, there has been a remarkable homogeneity in the culture throughout this area, which traditionally relied on fish, sea mammals, and land animals for food, heat, light, clothing, tools, and shelter. Their language is Inuktitut. The Inuit Circumpolar Conference defines its constituency to include Canada's Inuit and Inuvialuit, Greenland's Kalaallit people, Alaska's Inupiaq and Yupik people, and Russia's Yupik. However, the Yupik are not Inuit in the sense of being descended from the Thule and prefer to be called Yupik or Eskimo. Canadian Inuit live primarily in Nunavut (a territory in Canada), Nunavik (the northern part of Quebec) and in Nunatsiavut (the Inuit settlement region in Labrador). The Inuvialuit live primarily in the Mackenzie River delta, on Banks Island and part of Victoria Island in the Northwest Territories. There have been Inuit settlements in Yukon, especially at Herschel Island, but there are none at present. Alaskan Inupiaq live on the North Slope of Alaska, while the Yupik live in western Alaska and a part of Chukotka Autonomous Area in Russia. The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami is a national organization in Canada which represents over 40,000 Canadian Inuit.

Inuit and First Nations

The Inuit living in North America have in the past been grouped together with other Native Americans, but they are now thought to have arrived in the Americas entirely separately from other indigenous Americans, long after the disappearance of the Bering land bridge. Accordingly, in Canada the Inuit do not consider themselves and are not usually considered by others as one of the First Nations. However, they, the Indians, and the Métis are collectively recognized by the Canadian constitution as Aboriginal peoples in Canada. Other synonyms include "First Peoples" and "Native Peoples".

Eskimo

See main article for more information on the term: Eskimo In Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit people, "Inuit" means "the people". The English word "Eskimo" is a Native American word which is widely believed to mean "eater of raw meat" (although this meaning is disputed). Many Inuit consider the word Eskimo offensive, but it is still in general usage to refer to all Eskimo peoples, though it has fallen into disuse throughout Canada, where Canadians use the term Inuit. This is in part a result of the 1977 meeting of Inuit from Greenland, Canada and Alaska representing a circumpolar population of 150,000 who chose to use the name Inuit in forming the Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Life and traditions of the Inuit people

The Inuit were traditionally hunters and fishermen, living off of Arctic animal life. They hunted by preference whales, walruses, caribou and seals, although polar bears, musk oxen, birds and any other edible animal might be turned to during lean years. The Arctic has very little edible vegetation, although Inuit did supplement their diet with seaweed. Sea animals were hunted from single-passenger, covered seal-skin boats called qajait (singular qajaq) which were extraordinarily buoyant, and could easily be righted by a seated person, even if completely overturned. Because of this property, the Inuit design was copied - along with the Inuit word - by Europeans who still make and use them under the name kayak. Inuit also made umiaq - larger, open boats made out of skins and bones for transporting people, goods and dogs. In the winter, Inuit would also hunt sea mammals by making holes in the ice and waiting for the air-breathing seals and walruses to use them when they needed air. According to Inuit tradition, they learned to do this by observing the polar bear, who hunts by seeking out holes in the ice and waiting nearby. On land, the Inuit used dog sleds (in Inuktitut, qamutiit, singular qamutiq) for transportation. The husky dog breed comes from Inuit breeding of dogs for transportation. A team of dogs in a fan formation (and not bound together in a line like horse teams) would pull a sled made of animal bones and skins, and in some southern areas a bit of wood, over the snow and ice. They used landmarks to navigate, and possessed a comprehensive native system of toponymy. Where natural landmarks were insufficient, the Inuit would erect an inukshuk to compensate. Inuit industry relied almost exclusively on animal hides and bones, although some tools were also made out of worked stones, particularly the easily-worked mineral known as soapstone. Walrus ivory was a particularly essential material, used to make knives. Some Inuit who lived near the tree-line also had native woodworking traditions. Inuit made clothes and footwear from animal skins, sewn together using needles made from animal bones and threads made from other animal products. The parka is, in essence, the same garment across the Arctic - made in a similar fashion by Arctic peoples from Europe through Asia and the Americas, including by the Inuit. The hoods of Inuit women's parkas - amautiit (singular amaut or amautik) in Inuktitut - were traditionally made extra large, to protect the baby from the harsh wind when snuggled against the mother's back. Styles vary from region to region, from shape of the hood to length of the tails. Boots (Inuktitut: kamik) could be made of caribou or sealskin, and designs varied for men and women. Inuit also lived in temporary shelters made from snow in winter (the famous igloo), and during the few months of the year when temperatures were above freezing, they lived in tents made of animal skins and bones. The division of labour in traditional society had a strong gender component. The men were traditionally hunters and fishermen. The women took care of the children, cleaned huts, sewed and cooked. However, there are numerous examples of women who learned to hunt out of necessity and more recently as a personal choice. The marital customs among the Inuit were not strictly monogamous, many Inuit relationships were implicitly or explicitly sexually open, and polygamy, divorce and remarriage were fairly common. Formal marriage and divorce required the approval of the community, and particularly the agreement of the elders. Marriages were often arranged, sometimes in infancy, and occasionally forced on the couple by the community. Marriage was expected for a man as soon as he could hunt for himself, and for women at puberty. Family structure was flexible - a household might consist of a man and his wife or wives and children; it might include his parents or his wife's parents as well as adopted children; or it might be a larger formation of several siblings with their parents, wives and children; or even more than one family sharing dwellings and resources. Every household had a head of household - an elder or a particularly respected man. There was also a larger notion of community, generally several families who shared a place where they wintered. Goods were shared within a household, and to a lesser extent within a whole community in winter. As with most nomadic people, there was no real conception of ownership of land - if a spot was unoccupied, all were free to hunt or camp there. Animals belonged first to the hunter or trapper, then to his household. Nearly all Inuit cultures have oral traditions of raids by Indians and fellow Inuit, and of taking vengeance on them in return. Although these tales are generally regarded not as accurate historical accounts but as self-serving myths - violence against outsiders as justified revenge - it does make clear that there was a history of hostile contact between Inuit and other cultures. In Alaska, the Inuit became accomplished raiders through constant feuding. Given the narrow margins of survival, the advantages of supplementing one's hunt by stealing from one's neighbours seem obvious. Even within an Inuit band, breaching traditional justice and wronging another Inuit was routinely punished by murderous vengeance, as the story of Atanarjuat shows. Within a community, punishments were meted out by community decision, or by the elders, and a breach meant that the victim and his or her relatives could seek out restitution or revenge. There is a pervasive belief that the Inuit left their elderly on the ice to die. This is not genuinely true. It is true that sometimes elderly Inuit who could no longer hunt or do other useful work might choose, or be convinced to choose, a form of assisted suicide when food was very scarce. They were not left to die on the ice, but rather were more directly dispatched. This practice was not universal among the Inuit - some bands never had such practices - and was only tolerated under truly desperate conditions. Inuit communities were largely ruled by respected elders, and routine geronticide did not take place. A far more common response to desperate conditions and the threat of starvation was infanticide, which did sometimes entail abandoning an infant in hopes that someone less desperate might find and adopt it before the cold or the wildlife finished it off.

Traditional Inuit beliefs

See also Inuit mythology

Synopsis

Inuit mythology The Eskimo, or Inuit, people inhabit the land stretching from southeast Alaska to Greenland, an environment that heavily influenced a mythology filled with adventure tales of whale and walrus hunts. Long winter months of waiting for caribou herds or sitting near blowholes hunting fish and seals gave birth to stories of mysterious and sudden appearance of ghosts and fantastic creatures. The Inuit looked into the aurora borealis, or northern lights, to find images of their family and friends dancing in the next life, and they relied upon the shaman, while the nearest thing to a central deity was the Old Woman (Sedna), who lived beneath the sea. The waters, a central food source, were believed to contain great spirits.

Analysis

The Inuit traditionally practiced a form of shamanism based basically on animist principles. They believed that all things had a form of spirit, just like humans, and that to some extent these spirits could be influenced by a pantheon of supernatural entities that could be appeased when one required some animal or inanimate thing to act in a certain way. The shaman (Inuktitut: angakuq, sometimes spelled angakok) of a community of Inuit was not the leader, but rather a sort of healer and psychotherapist, who tended wounds and offered advice, as well as invoking the spirits to assist people in their lives. His or her role was to see, interpret and exhort the subtle and unseen. Shamen were not trained, they were held to be born with the ability. Inuit religion was closely tied to a system of rituals that were integrated into the daily life of the people. These rituals were not terribly complicated, but they were held to be absolutely necessary. According to a customary Inuit saying "The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls." By believing that all things - including animals - have souls like those of humans, any hunt that fails to show appropriate respect and customary supplication would only give the liberated spirits cause to avenge themselves. The harshness and randomness of life in the Arctic ensured that Inuit lived constantly in fear of the uncontrollable, where a streak of bad luck could kill an entire community. To offend a spirit was to run the risk of having them interfere with an already marginal existence. The Inuit plead with supernatural powers to provide them with the necessities of day-to-day survival. As Knud Rasmussen's Inuit guide told him when asked about Inuit religious beliefs "We don't believe. We fear!."

Early history of the Inuit

The Inuit are the descendents of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, a nomadic people who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 AD and spread eastwards across the Arctic, displacing the related Dorset culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as "giants", people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit, but who were easily scared off and retreated from the advancing Inuit. Researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, boats and other technologies that gave the expanding Inuit society a large advantage over them. By 1300, the Inuit had settled west Greenland, and finally moved into east Greenland over the following century. The Tuniit survived in Aivilik - Southampton and Coats Islands - until the beginning of the 20th century. They were known as Sadlermiut (Sallirmiut in the modern spelling). Their population had been decimated by diseases brought by contact with Europeans, and the last of them fell in a flu epidemic caught from a passing whaler in 1902. The area has since been resettled by Inuit. Genetic research suggests that there was little or no intermarriage between the Tuniit and the Inuit over the thousand years of contact in the Canadian Arctic. The Inuit were a nomadic culture that circulated almost exclusively north of the timberline, the de facto southern border of Inuit society. To the south, Native American Indian cultures were well established, and the culture and technology of Inuit society that served them so well in the Arctic was ill-suited to the sub-Arctic, so they did not displace their southern neighbours. Their relations with southerners were generally hostile, but at other times cordial enough to support trade. The first contact with Europeans came from the Vikings, who settled Greenland and explored the eastern Canadian coast. Norse literature speaks of skrælingar, most likely an undifferentiated label for all the native peoples of the Americas the Norse contacted - Tuniit, Inuit and Beothuks alike. Archeological evidence suggests that the Tuniit had abandoned Greenland around 200 AD. They reoccupied areas in the far north of Greenland sometime around 1000 AD, but the Norse settlements were in the south and southwest of the island. It is likely that the area of the Norse settlements was unoccupied at the time they arrived. Sometime in the 13th century, Inuit began arriving from what is now Canada. Norse accounts are scant, and there is no Inuit oral history discussing contact with the Norse. However, Norse-made items have been found at Inuit campsites in Greenland. It is unclear whether they are the result of trade or plunder. One old account speaks of "small people" with whom the Norsemen fought. Ívar Bárðarson's 14th century account mentions that one of the two Norse settlement areas - the western settlement - had been taken over by the skrælings. The reason why the Norse settlements failed is unclear, but the last record of them is from 1408 - roughly the same period as the earliest Inuit settlements in east Greenland. After roughly 1350, the climate grew colder during the Little Ice Age and the Inuit were forced to abandon hunting and whaling sites in the high Arctic. Bowhead whaling disappeared in Canada and Greenland (but continued in Alaska) and the Inuit had to subsist on a much poorer diet. Without whales, they lost access to essential raw materials for tools and architecture that were derived from whaling. Although the Inuit had always been nomadic, they were forced to move more and more often to maximise their return from hunting. Semi-permanent sod and whalebone dwellings were replaced by what has now become the symbol of the Inuit in many minds: temporary snow houses known as igloos. The changing climate forced the Inuit to also look south, pressuring them into the marginal niches along the edges of the tree line that Indians had not occupied, or where they were weak enough to coexist with. It is hard to say with any precision when the Inuit stopped their territorial expansion. There is evidence that they were still moving into new territory in southern Labrador in the 17th century, when they first began to interact with colonial North American civilization.

Inuit since the arrival of Europeans

Canada

The lives of Paleo-Eskimos of the far north were largely unaffected by the arrival of visiting Norsemen except for mutual trade (McGhee 1992:194). In the centuries to follow Inuit contact with explorers varied across the Arctic. Labrador Inuit have had the longest continuous contact with Europeans (Kleivan 1966:9). After the disappearance of the Norse colonies in Greenland, the Inuit had no contact with Europeans for at least a century. By the mid-16th century, Basque fishermen were already working the Labrador coast and had established whaling stations on land. The Inuit appear not to have interfered with their operations, but they raided the stations in winter for tools, and particularly worked iron, which they adapted to native needs. Martin Frobisher's 1576 search for the Northwest Passage was the first well-documented post-Columbian contact between Europeans and Inuit. Frobisher's expedition landed on Baffin Island, not far from the town now called Iqaluit, but long known as Frobisher Bay. This first contact went poorly. Martin Frobisher, attempted to find the Northwest Passage. He encountered Inuit on Resolution Island. Five sailors jumped ship and became part of Inuit mythology. The homesick sailors tired of their adventure attempted to leave in a small vessel and vanished. Frobisher brought an unwilling Inuk to England, doubtless the first Inuk ever to visit Europe. The Inuit oral tradition, in contrast, recounts the natives helping Frobisher's crewmen, who believed they had been abandoned. The semi-nomadic eco-centred Inuit were fishers and hunters harvesting lakes, seas, ice platforms and tundra. While there are some allegations that Inuit were hostile to early French and English explorers, fishers and whalers, more recent research suggests that the early relations whaling stations along the Labrador coast and later James Bay were based on a mutual interest in trade (Mitchell 1996:49-62). In the final years of the 18th century, the Moravian church began missionary activities in Labrador, supported by the British who were tired of the raids on their whaling stations. The Moravian missionaries could easily provide the Inuit with the iron and basic materials they had been stealing from whaling outposts - materials whose real cost to Europeans was almost nothing, but whose value to the Inuit was enormous - and from then on contacts in Labrador were far more peaceful. The European arrival caused a great deal of damage to the Inuit way of life, causing mass death through new diseases introduced by whalers and explorers, and enormous social disruptions caused by the distorting effect of Europeans' material wealth. Nonetheless, Inuit society in the higher latitudes had largely persisted in isolation in the 19th century. Hudson's Bay Company opened trading posts such as Great Whale River (1820), today called Kuujjuarapik, where whale products of the commercial whale hunt were processed and furs traded. The British Naval Expedition (1821-3) led by Admiral Parry, which twice overwintered in Foxe Basin, provided the first informed, sympathetic and well-documented account of the economic, social and religious life of the Inuit. Parry stayed in Igloolik over the second winter. Parry's writings with pen and ink illustrations of Inuit everyday life (1824) and those of Lyon (1824) were widely read (D'Anglure 2002:205). Captain Comer's Inuit wife Shoofly known for her sewing skills and elegant attire (Driscoll 1980:6) was influential in convincing him to acquire more sewing accessories and beads for trade with Inuit. A few traders and missionaries circulated among the more accessible bands, and after 1904 they were accompanied by a handful of policemen. But, unlike most Native Canadians, the lands occupied by the Inuit were of little interest to European settlers. While southerners consider the Arctic as a hostile Hinterland to the Inuit it is their Homeland. While many southerners enjoyed lucrative careers as bureaucrats and service providers in the north, very few southerners chose to retire there. In the early years of the 20th century, Canada, with its more hospitable lands largely settled, began to take a greater interest in its more peripheral territories, especially the fur and mineral rich hinterlands. By the late 1920s, there were no longer any Inuit who had not been contacted by traders, missionaries or government agents. Native customs were worn down by the actions of police - who enforced Canadian criminal law on Inuit who often could not understand what they had done wrong - and by missionaries who preached a moral code very different from the one they were used to. WWII and the Cold War made Arctic Canada strategically important for the first time, and, thanks to the development of modern aircraft, accessible year-round. The construction of airbases and radar stations in the 1940s and 50s brought more intensive contacts with European society, particularly in the form of public education, which instilled and enforced foreign values disdainful of the traditional structure of Inuit society. By 1953 Canada's Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent publicly admitted: "Apparently we have administered the vast territories of the north in an almost continuing absence of mind. (Parker 1996:32)" The government began to establish about forty permanent administrative centres to provide education, health and economic development services for Inuit (Parker 1996:32). Inuit from hundreds of smaller camps scattered across the north, began to congregate in these hamlets (Mitchell 1996:118). Furthermore, regular visits from doctors and access to modern medical care raised the birth rate enormously. Before long, the Inuit population was beyond what traditional hunting and fishing could support. By the mid-1960s, encouraged first by missionaries, then by the prospect of paid jobs and government services, and finally forced by hunger and required by police, all Canadian Inuit lived year-round in permanent settlements. The nomadic migrations that were the central feature of Arctic life had for the most part disappeared. The Inuit, a once self-sufficient people in an extremely harsh environment, were in the span of perhaps two generations transformed into a small, impoverished minority lacking skills or resources to sell to the larger economy, but increasingly dependent on it for day to day survival. Although anthropologists like Diamond Jenness (1964) were quick to predict that Inuit culture was facing extinction, Inuit political activism was already emerging as he wrote those words. In the 1960s, the Canadian government funded the establishment of secular, government-operated high schools in the Northwest Territories and Inuit areas in Quebec and Labrador. The Inuit population was not large enough to support a full high school in every community, so this meant only a few schools were built, and students from across the territories were boarded there. These schools, in Iqaluit, Yellowknife and Kuujjuaq, brought together young Inuit from across the Arctic in one place for the first time, and exposed them to the rhetoric of civil and human rights that prevailed in Canada in the 1960s. This was a real wake-up call for Inuit, and it stimulated the emergence of a new generation of young Inuit activists in the late 1960s who came forward and pushed for respect for the Inuit and their territories. The Inuit began to emerge as a political force in the late 1960s and early 1970s, shortly after the first graduates returned home. They formed new politically active associations in the early 1970s, starting with the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami in 1971, and more region specific organisations shortly afterwards, including the Northern Quebec Inuit Association and the Labrador Inuit Association. These activist movements began to change the direction of Inuit society in 1975 with the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This comprehensive land claims settlement for Quebec Inuit, along with a large cash settlement and substantial administrative autonomy in the new region of Nunavik, set the precedent for the settlements to follow. The Labrador Inuit submitted their land claim in 1977, although they had to wait until 2005 to have a signed land settlement establishing Nunatsiavut. In 1982, the Tunngavik Federation of Nunavut (TFN) was incorporated, in order to take over negotiations for land claims on behalf of the Northwest Territories Inuit from the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, which became a joint association of the Inuit of Quebec, Labrador and the Northwest Territories. The TFN worked for ten years and, in September 1992, came to a final agreement with the government of Canada. This agreement called for the separation of the Northwest Territories into an eastern territory whose only aboriginal population would be Inuit - the future Nunavut - and a rump Northwest Territories in the west. It was the largest land-claims agreement in Canadian history. In November 1992, the Nunavut Final Agreement was approved by nearly 85 percent of the Inuit of what would become Nunavut. As the final step in this long process, the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement was signed on May 25, 1993 in Iqaluit by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and by Paul Quassa, the president of Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, which replaced the TFN with the ratification of the Nunavut Final Agreement. The Canadian Parliament passed the supporting legislation in June of the same year, enabling the 1999 establishment of Nunavut as a territorial entity. The Inuvialuit are western Canadian Inuit who remained in the Northwest Territories when Nunavut split off. They are officially represented by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation and received a comprehensive land claims settlement in 1984, with the signature of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement. With the establishment of Nunatsiavut in 2005, all the traditional Inuit lands in Canada are now covered by some sort of land claims agreement providing for regional autonomy. Inuit communities in Canada continue to suffer under crushing unemployment, substance abuse, crime, violence and suicide. The problems Inuit face in the 21st century should not be underestimated. However, many Inuit are upbeat about the future. Arguably, their situation is better than it has been since the 14th century. Inuit arts - carving, print making, textiles and throat singing - are very popular, not only in Canada but globally, and Inuit artists are widely known. Indeed, Canada has, metaphorically, adopted the Inuit as a sort of national mascot, using Inuit symbols like the inukshuk in unlikely places, such as its use as a symbol of Vancouver's Olympic bid for 2010. The Inuit language - Inuktitut - is secure in Quebec and Nunavut. There are a surprising number of Inuit, even those who now live in urban centres such as Ottawa, Montreal and Winnipeg, who have experienced living on the land in the traditional life style. Sarah Ekoomiak, who was born in the 1930s saw her first building in Kuujuurapik when she was ten years old. Inuit culture is alive and vibrant today in spite of the negative impact of the Arctic exiles, residential schools, the TB epidemic and exiles, the paternalistic meddling in all their affairs including the current serious concerns regarding the removal of Inuit children from their homes by the CAS.

Greenland

See History of Greenland.

Alaska

This section is in progress but see Alaska and List of Native Alaskan Tribal Entities.

Future prospects

In recent years, circumpolar cultural and political groups like the Inuit Circumpolar Conference have come together to promote the Inuit and other northern people and to fight against ecological problems, such as global warming, which disproportionately affects the Inuit population. Global warming will likely also cause Arctic mammal populations to decline.

Modern Inuit culture

An important bi-annual event, the Arctic Winter Games, is held in communities across the northern regions of the world, featuring traditional Inuit and northern sports as part of the events. A cultural event is also held. The games were first held in 1970, and while rotated usually among Alaska, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, they have also been held in Schefferville, Quebec in 1976, in Slave Lake, Alberta, and a joint Iqaluit, Nunavut-Nuuk, Greenland staging in 2002. One of the most famous Inuit artists is Pitseolak Ashoona. Susan Aglukark is a popular Canadian singer. In 2002 the feature film Atanarjuat: the Fast Runner directed by Zacharias Kunuk (with all dialogue in the Inuktitut language and written, filmed, produced, directed, and acted almost entirely by Inuit of Igloolik) was released world wide to great critical and popular acclaim. Jordin Tootoo became the first Inuk to play in the National Hockey League in the 2003-04 season, playing for the Nashville Predators. Well-known Inuit politicians include Premier Paul Okalik of Nunavut and Nancy Karetak-Lindell, MP for the riding of Nunavut. Also, Mitiarjuk Attasie Nappaaluk is helping to preserve the Inuit language, Inuktitut. She wrote the first Inuit novel. (to do list: culture past and present, spirituality, customs, etc)

Further reading


- Jean Briggs. Never in Anger. ISBN 0674608283
- Ernest S. Burch Jr. The Eskimos
- Gontran De Poncins (1941). Kabloona. ISBN 1555972497
- Hans Ruesch. Top Of The World. ISBN 9506371644 ([http://www.geocities.com/proppentrecker/ernenek-00.html Hebrew version])

External links


- [http://www.itk.ca/ Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami], Canada's National Inuit Organization
- [http://yomee.com/Religions/Other/Inuit.htm Religion and demography of the Inuit]
- [http://www.civilization.ca/aborig/inuvial/indexe.html The Inuvialuit]
- [http://www.perey-anthropology.net/Children-Inuit-TRO.htm Aspects of Inuit Culture & Its Relation to People Everywhere] simple:Inuit Category:Inuit Category:Aboriginal peoples in Quebec Category:Aboriginal peoples in Atlantic Canada Category:Aboriginal peoples in Canadian Territories Category:Indigenous peoples of North America ........................................................................

Inuktitut syllabics

The Inuktitut syllabary (Inuktitut: ᑎᑎᕋᐅᓯᕐᒃ ᓄᑖᕐᒃ titirausiq nutaaq) is a writing system used by Inuit people in Nunavut and in Nunavik, Quebec. It was originally adapted from the Cree syllabary by Edmund Peck, an Anglican missionary, in the 1870s. It is one variation on Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing, and can be digitally encoded using the Unicode standard. The Unicode block for Inuktitut characters is called Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics. Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics The initial sound in the syllable can be g, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, ng, ɫ, or nothing, and the vowel can be a, i, u or absent. The Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami has recently changed the official version of the syllabary to restore the "ai-pai-tai" row. The common diphthong AI has generally been represented by combining the "A" form with a standalone ᐃ character. This fourth vowel variant of the official syllabary was initially removed so that Inuktitut could be typed and printed using IBM Selectric balls in the 1970s. The reinstatement was justified on the grounds that modern printing and typesetting equipment no longer suffers the restrictions of earlier typewriting machinery. The Inuktitut language is written in different ways in different places. In Greenland, Alaska, Labrador, the Mackenzie River delta in the Northwest Territories and in part of Nunavut, it is written with the Latin alphabet (also known as Roman Orthography in some regions). In most of Nunavut and in Nunavik, Quebec, Inuktitut is written using the Inuktitut syllabary. At present, Inuktitut syllabics enjoy official status in Nunavut, alongside the Latin alphabet, and are used by the Kativik Regional Government of Nunavik, Quebec. In Greenland, the traditional Latin script is official and is widely used in public life. Because the Inuktitut language is a continuum of only partially intercomprehensible dialects, the language varies a great deal across the Arctic. Split up into different political divisions and different churches reflecting the arrival of various missionary groups, Inuktitut writing systems can vary a great deal. The first efforts to write Inuktitut came from Moravian missionaries in Greenland and Labrador in the mid-18th century. In the 1870's, Edmund Peck, an Anglican missionary adapted the Cree syllabary to Inuktitut. Other missionaries, and later linguists in the employ of the Canadian and American governments, adapted the Latin alphabet to the dialects of the Mackenzie River delta, the western Arctic islands and Alaska.

See also


- Canadian aboriginal syllabic writing
- Inuktitut

External links


- [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/inuktitut.htm Inuktitut syllabary at Omniglot] Category:Abugida writing systems Category:Inuit language

Arctic

The Arctic is the area around the Earth's North Pole. The Arctic includes parts of Russia, Alaska (United States), Canada, Greenland (a territory of Denmark), Iceland, and Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Finland), as well as the Arctic Ocean. There are numerous definitions for the Arctic region. The boundary is generally considered to be north of the Arctic Circle (66° 33’N), which is the limit of the midnight sun and the polar night. Other definitions are based on climate and ecology, such as the 10°C (50°F) July isotherm, which also roughly corresponds to the tree line in most of the Arctic. Socially and politically, the Arctic region includes the northern territories of the eight Arctic states, including Lapland, although by natural science definitions much of this territory is considered subarctic. The Arctic is mostly a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by tree-less, frozen ground, that teems with life, including organisms living in the ice, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals and human societies. The Arctic region is by its nature a unique area. The cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold and extreme conditions. From the perspective of the physical, chemical and biological balance in the world, the Arctic region is in a key position. It reacts sensitively particularly to changes in the climate, which reflect extensively back on the global state of the environment. From the perspective of research into climatic change, the Arctic region is considered a so-called-early warning system. The Arctic is also known as the Land of the Midnight Sun as it is within the Arctic Circle. The name Arctic comes from the ancient Greek αρκτος, meaning 'bear', and is a reference to the constellations of the Great Bear and Little Bear, which are located near the North Star (which is actually part of the Little Bear).

Nature and natural resources

Nature in the Arctic is comparatively clean although there are certain ecologically difficult localized pollution problems that present a serious threat to people’s health living around these pollution sources. Due to the prevailing worldwide sea and air currents, the Arctic area is the fall out region for long-range transport pollutants and in some places the concentrations exceed the levels of densely populated urban areas. The Arctic region includes sizeable potential natural resources (oil, gas, minerals, forest and fish) to which modern technology and the opening up of Russia have given significant new opportunities. The interest of the tourism industry in the cold and exotic Arctic is also on the increase. This is for example, seen in the rise in international tourism as a significant opportunity but also as a threat. The Arctic region is one of the last and most extensive continuous wilderness areas in the world and its significance in preserving biodiversity and genotypes is considerable. The increasing presence of people fragments vital habitats. The Arctic is particularly susceptible to the abrasion of groundcover and to the disturbance of the rare reproduction places of the animals that are characteristic to the region. External link: [http://amap.no/ AMAP - the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme]

Arctic cultures

Also noteworthy is the fact that a significant proportion of the population in the region are indigenous peoples (e.g. the Nenets, Koms, Khants and Sami) who practice subsistence livelihoods such as reindeer husbandry and fishing and whose rights are many times in jeopardy due to "development".
- Aleut
- Athabaskan
- Chukchi
- Inuit
- Inupiaq
- Nenets
- Pomor
- Saami
- Yup'ik External link: [http://www.allthingsarctic.com/people/index.aspx Native peoples]

The changing Arctic

Along with increasing utilization, it is likely that in the coming decades, new investments, industry and building an infrastructure as well as the increasing mobility of goods, services, people and capital are to be expected. These will all have an effect on the environment of the region and on the local conditions of the population and indigenous peoples. The above-described global change is expected to have the overwhelmingly large impact in the near future on the diversity of nature and cultures in the arctic and northern regions and on the recreational value of the Arctic and its natural resources. The impacts from the changes will reflect in many ways on the ecosystems of the region, its biodiversity, livelihoods, social and legal structures and indirectly on almost all life in the region. The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), released in November 2004, details some of the future scenarios for long-term climate change that are already beginning to be seen in the Arctic region today. NOAA tracks the [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/overview.shtml current state of the Arctic ecosystems and climate] on the near-realtime [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ Arctic Change website]. A narrative style is used to highlight land and marine ecosystems, the cryosphere, Arctic and sub-Arctic human impacts, and an overall [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/indicators.shtml summary] evaluates recent reports against historical information. External links:
- [http://www.acia.uaf.edu/ ACIA Report]
- [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ Arctic Change website] - NOAA website provides up-to-date information on the current state of Arctic ecosystems and climate in historical context.

Environmental impact assessment

From the perspective of positive development in the Arctic region, an environmental impact assessment (EIA) is in a key position. In the Arctic region, it is important that in a process, special attention is given to assessing social impacts. It is generally known that scientific information focused on the Arctic region is insufficient, so the actors conducting an EIA do not get sufficient material in order to compile a precise assessment. Developing a dialogue between new actors in the region, business life and the local population is important so that mutual understanding and often conflicting needs for development can be improved. Improving access to information by local inhabitants, well functioning participatory planning and ensuring the optimum use of its results are part of this activity. The horizontal processing of administration by different sectors in society that is required for an EIA necessitates for its support the production of strong multidisciplinary information. Managing and analyzing the above-mentioned multidimensional and demanding process requires combining many scientific fields and methods and further scientific analysis and development of functional models.

International cooperation and politics

The Arctic region is one of the important focuses of international political interest. International Arctic cooperation got underway on a broad scale well over ten years ago. The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), hundreds of scientists and specialists of the Arctic Council, the Barents Council and its regional cooperation have compiled high quality information

A strategic military region

The Arctic has never been under the political control of any nation although some nations' militaries have attached a strategic importance to the region. In the 1950s and 1960s, the arctic was often used by submarines to test new weapons, sonar equipment, and depth testing. During the Cold War, the Arctic region was extensively monitored by the United States military, since it was the opinion of the said military that the first warnings of a Soviet Union nuclear strike would have been indicated by ICBMs launched over the North Pole towards the United States. The United States placed such importance on the region that two military decorations, the Arctic Service Ribbon and Coast Guard Arctic Service Medal, were established for military duty performed within the arctic circle.

References


- [http://www.arcticcentre.org Arctic Centre, Rovaniemi] Arctic research
- [http://www.wordreference.com/english/definition.asp?en=arctic WordReference.com Dictionary] Etymology
- [http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference_maps/pdf/arctic.pdf CIA World Factbook 2002 - Arctic Region] Large version of the arctic region map
- [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov Arctic Theme Page] Comprehensive Arctic Resource from NOAA.
- [http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov Bering Sea Climate and Ecosystem] Current state of the Bering Sea Climate and Ecosystem. Comprehensive resource on the Bering Sea with viewable oceanographic, atmospheric, climatic, biological and fisheries data with ecosystem relevance, recent trends, essays on key Bering Sea issues, maps, photos, animals and more. From NOAA.
- [http://www.unaami.noaa.gov Arctic time series: The Unaami Data collection] Viewable interdisciplinary, diverse collection of Arctic variables from different geographic regions and data types.
- [http://www.allthingsarctic.com/exploration/index.aspx Arctic exploration and history]
- [http://www.allthingsarctic.com/science/index.aspx Arctic research]

External links


- [http://www.arctic-council.org Arctic Council]
- [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov Arctic]
- [http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/detect/ Near-Realtime Arctic Change Indictors]
- [http://maps.grida.no/arctic Arctic Environmental Atlas] Circum-Arctic interactive map, with multiple layers of information
- [http://www.globio.info/region/polar/#arctic GLOBIO Human Impact maps] How does humans influence one of the last remaining wild places on the globe
- [http://www.vitalgraphics.net/arctic.cfm Vital Arctic Graphics] Overview and case studies of the Arctic environment and the Arctic Indigenous Peoples.
- [http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/atlas/themes.aspx?id=artic&lang=En Arctic and Taiga Canadian Atlas]

See also


- Arctic Ocean
- North Pole
- Antarctica
- Polar climate
- Canadian Arctic
- Canadian arctic islands
- Svalbard
- Jan Mayen
- Finnmark Category:Arctic ko:북극 ja:北極 simple:Arctic

Siberia

:Siberia is also an album by Echo & The Bunnymen. Echo & The Bunnymen Siberia (, common English transliterations: Sibir’, Sibir; from the Tatar for “sleeping land”) is a vast region of Russia and northern Kazakhstan constituting almost all of northern Asia. It extends eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the borders of both Mongolia and China. All but the extreme south-western area of Siberia lies in Russia, and it makes up about 56% of that country's territory.

Administrative subdivisions

China Geographically, Siberia includes the federal subjects of the Urals Federal District, Siberian Federal District and Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, which is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District (see a list of subjects below). From the historical point of view, the whole Russian Far East is considered a segment of Siberia.
- Altai Krai, administrative center — Barnaul
- Altai Republic, capital — Gorno-Altaisk
- Buryat Republic, capital — Ulan Ude
- Chita Oblast, administrative center — Chita
- Irkutsk Oblast, administrative center — Irkutsk
- Republic of Khakassia, capital — Abakan
- Kemerovo Oblast, administrative center — Kemerovo
- Koryakia Autonomous District, administrative center — Palana
- Krasnoyarsk Krai, administrative center — Krasnoyarsk
- Novosibirsk Oblast, administrative center — Novosibirsk
- Omsk Oblast, administrative center — Omsk
- Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, capital — Yakutsk
- Tomsk Oblast, administrative center — Tomsk
- Tuva Republic, capital — Kyzyl Major cities include:
- Irkutsk
- Krasnoyarsk
- Novosibirsk
- Omsk
- Tomsk

History

Main article: History of Siberia Siberia was occupied by differing groups of nomads such as the Yenets, the Nenets, the Huns, and the Uyghurs. The Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan in Avaria in 630. The area was conquered by the Mongols in the 13th century and eventually became the autonomous Siberian Khanate. The growing power of Russia to the east began to undermine the Khanate in the 16th century. First groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area, and then the imperial army began to set up forts further and further east. The towns like Mangazeya, Tara, Yeniseysk, and Tobolsk sprang up, the latter being declared the capital of Siberia. By the mid-17th century, the Russian-controlled areas had been extended to the Pacific. Siberia remained a mostly unexplored and uninhabited area. During the following few centuries, only a few exploratory missions and traders inhabited Siberia. The other group that was sent to Siberia consisted of prisoners exiled from western Russia. The first great change to Siberia was the Trans-Siberian railway, constructed in 1891 - 1905. It linked Siberia more closely to the rapidly-industrializing Russia of Nicholas II. Siberia is filled with natural resources and during the 20th century these were developed, and industrial towns cropped up throughout the region.

Geography and geology

With an area of over 9,653,000 km2, Siberia makes up roughly two thirds of the total area of Russia. If Siberia were to secede from Russia, it would be the world's second-largest country, with only Canada being larger. Major geographical zones include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau. The West Siberian Plain consists mostly of Cenozoic alluvial deposits and is extraordinarily flat, so much so that a rise of fifty metres in sea level would cause all land between the Arctic Ocean and Novosibirsk to be inundated. Many of the deposits on this plain result from ice dams; having reversed the flow of the Ob and Yenisei Rivers, so redirecting them into the Caspian Sea (perhaps the Aral as well). It is very swampy and soils are mostly peaty Histosols and, in the treeless northern part, Histels. In the south of the plain, where permafrost is largely absent, rich grasslands that are an extension of the Kazakh Steppe formed the original vegetation (almost all cleared now). The Central Siberian Plateau is an extremely ancient craton (sometimes called Angaraland) that formed an independent continent before the Permian (see Siberia (continent)). It is exceptionally rich in minerals, containing large deposits of gold, diamonds, and ores of manganese, lead, zinc, nickel, cobalt and molybdenum. Only the extreme northwest was glaciated during the Quaternary, but almost all is under exceptionally deep permafrost and the only tree that can thrive, despite the warm summers, is the deciduous Siberian Larch (Larix sibirica) with its very shallow roots. Soils here are mainly Turbels, giving way to Spodosols where the active layer becomes thicker and the ice content lower. Eastern and central Sakha comprise numerous north-south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost three thousand metres in elevation, but above a few hundred metres they are devoid of vegetation to an extraordinary degree. The Verkhoyansk Range was extensively glaciated in the Pleistocene, but the climate was too dry for glaciation to extend to low elevations. At these low elevations are numerous valleys, many of them deep, and covered with larch forest except in the extreme north, where tundra dominates. Soils are mainly Turbels and the active layer tends to be less than a metre deep except near rivers.

Lakes and rivers


- Anabar River
- Angara River
- Indigirka River
- Irtysh River
- Kolyma River
- Lake Baikal
- Lena River
- Ob River
- Tunguska River
- Uvs Nuur Lake
- Yana River
- Yenisei River

Mountain ranges


- Anadyr Range
- Chersky Range
- Dzhugdzhur Mountains
- Gydan Mountains
- Koryak Mountains
- Sayan Mountains
- Ural Mountains
- Verkhoyansk Mountains
- Yablonoi Mountains A harsh climate has limited Siberia's development and population growth. The region has an abundance of natural resources, including many minerals, vast oil fields, rich forests, and grasslands in the extreme southwest that are good for farming. However, the winters are long and bitter. Ice and snow cover most of the region for about six months of the year. The temperature can drop below -68°C (-90°F). Most of the coastal waters, lakes, and rivers freeze for much of the year.

Demographics

Siberia has a population density of only 3 persons per square kilometer. Most Siberians are Russians and Russified Ukrainians. Ethnic Russians are descended from Slavs who lived in Eastern Europe several hundred years ago. Such Mongol and Turkic groups as Buryats, Tuvinians, and Yakuts lived in Siberia originally, and descendants of these peoples still live there. Other ethnic groups include: Evenks, Chukchis, Koryaks, Yukaghirs. See the Northern indigenous peoples of Russia article for more. About 70% of Siberia's people live in cities. Most city people are crowded into small apartments. Many people in rural areas live in simple, but more spacious, log houses. Novosibirsk is the largest city in Siberia, with a population of about 1.5 million. Tobolsk, Tomsk, Irkutsk and Omsk are the older, historical centers. With a lowest record temperature of -71.2 Celsius, Oymyakon has the distinction of being the coldest town on Earth.

On Film


- "Dersu Uzala" (1974). Survival in Siberia in the year 1900. Directed by Akira Kurosawa.

See also


- Tunguska event
- Afanasy Shchapov
- West Siberian Plain
- Gulag

External links


-
- [http://www.altaionline.com Tourism in Siberia]
- [http://www.baikalinfo.com Tourism around Lake Baikal and the Sayan Mountains]
- [http://frontiers.loc.gov/ Meeting of Frontiers: Siberia, Alaska, and the American West] Category:Geography of Russia Category:Asia
- ko:시베리아 ja:シベリア

Northwest Territories

:For other geographical names that use the term "Northwest," see Northwest. One of the territories of Arctic Canada, the Northwest Territories (NWT; French, les Territoires du Nord-Ouest) has a landmass of 1,171,918 square kilometres and a population of 42,944 as of January 1, 2005. Its capital has been Yellowknife since 1967; see also List of Northwest Territories capitals and List of communities in the Northwest Territories. The Northwest Territories are located east of Yukon, west of Nunavut, and north of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Geographical features include the vast Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, as well as the immense Mackenzie River and the canyons of the Nahanni River, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the Arctic Archipelago, the Northwest Territories includes Banks Island, Parry Peninsula, Prince Patrick Island, and parts of Victoria Island and Melville Island. The highest point is Mount Nirvana near the border with Yukon at elevation 2773 m (9098 ft).

Official languages

The territory's [http://www.canlii.org/nt/sta/pdf/type66.pdf Official Languages Act] recognizes eight official languages, more than any other political division in Canada:
- Chipewyan;
- Cree;
- Dogrib or Tlicho;
- English;
- French;
- Gwich'in;
- Inuktitut, including
  - Inuktitut proper,
  - Inuvialuktun
  - Inuinnaqtun;
- Slavey, including
  - Bearlake
  - Hare
  - Mountain, and
  - Slavey (proper) Citizens of the NWT have a right to use any of the above languages:
- when receiving services from the government;
- in court;
- in debates and proceedings of the legislature.

History of Northwest Territories official languages

French was made an official language in 1877 by the appointed government, after lengthy and bitter debate resulting from a speech from the throne in 1888 by Lt. Governor Joseph Royal. The members voted on more than one occasion to nullify and make English the only language used in the assembly. After some conflict with Ottawa and a decisive vote on January 19, 1892, the issue was put to rest as an English-only territory. In the early 1980s, the government of the Northwest Territories was again under pressure by the federal government to reintroduce French as an official language. Some native members walked out of the assembly, protesting that they would not be permitted to speak their own language. The executive council appointed a special committee of MLAs to study the matter. They decided that if French was to be an official language, then so must the other languages in the Territories.

External links


- [http://www.ualberta.ca/~eaunger/pubs/Justifying2001.htm Justifying the end of Official Billingualism in the Northwest Territories]
- [http://www.gov.nt.ca/langcom/home.htm Language Commissioner of the Northwest Territories]
- [http://www.nwt.literacy.ca/aborig/land/contents.htm NWT Literacy Council: Languages of the Land]

History

The Northwest Territories were created in 1870, when the Hudson's Bay Company transferred Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the government of Canada. These formed the Northwest Territories. This immense region comprised all of modern Canada except British Columbia, the coast of the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence River valley and the southern third of Quebec, the Maritimes, Newfoundland, and the Labrador coast. It also excluded the Arctic Islands except the southern half of Baffin Island; these remained under direct British rule until 1880. After the transfer, the Territories were gradually whittled away. The province of Manitoba was created in 1870, a tiny square around Winnipeg, and then enlarged in 1881 to a square region composing the modern province's south. 1881 In 1876, the District of Keewatin, at the centre of the territory, was separated from it. In 1882 and again in 1896, the remaining portion was divided into the following districts (corresponding to the following modern-day areas):
- Alberta (southern Alberta);
- Assiniboia (southern Saskatchewan);
- Athabaska (northern Alberta and Saskatchewan);
- Franklin (the Arctic islands and Boothia and Melville Peninsulas);
- Mackenzie (mainland NWT and western Nunavut);
- Saskatchewan (central Saskatchewan);
- Ungava (modern-day northern Quebec and inland Labrador, as well as an offshore area in Hudson Bay);
- Yukon (modern Yukon Territory). Keewatin would be returned to the NWT in 1905. See also: Districts of the Northwest Territories In the meantime, Ontario was enlarged northwestward in 1882. Quebec was also extended, in 1898, and Yukon was made a separate territory in the same year to deal with the Klondike Gold Rush, and remove the NWT government from administering the sudden boom of population, economic activity and influx of non-Canadians. Alberta and Saskatchewan were created in 1905, and Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec acquired the last of their modern territories from the NWT in 1912. This left only the districts of Mackenzie, Franklin (which absorbed the remnants of Ungava in 1920), and Keewatin. However, in 1925 the boundaries of the NWT were extended all the way to the North Pole on the sector principle, vastly expanding its territory onto the northern ice cap. In 1912 the Government of Canada dropped the hyphen in the North-West Territories name to Northwest Territories. Between 1925 and 1999, the Northwest Territories measured 3 439 296 km² – larger than India. India.]] Finally, on April 1, 1999, the eastern three-fifths of the Northwest Territories (including all of Keewatin district and much of Mackenzie and Franklin) became a separate territory called Nunavut. There was some discussion of changing the name of the Northwest Territories after the separation of Nunavut, possibly to a term from an Aboriginal language. One proposal is "Denendeh" ("our land" in Dene). The idea is favoured by former premier Stephen Kakfwi among others, but a poll conducted prior to division showed strong support for retaining the name "Northwest Territories". This name arguably became more appropriate following division, than it was when the territory extended far into Canada's northeast. [http://www.caldercup.com/CNEWSNunavut/feature11.html] [http://imprint.uwaterloo.ca/issues/112699/4Features/Features2.shtml] In Inuktitut, the Northwest Territories are referred to as ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᖅ (Nunatsiaq), "beautiful land."

Economy

The territory enjoys vast geological resources including diamonds, gold, and natural gas. In particular, NWT diamonds are touted as an ethical alternative that allays risks of supporting conflicts by purchasing blood diamonds. However, their exploitation has raised environmental concerns, not least the potential havoc that a spill from tailings ponds would cause to unspoiled wilderness areas such as the Nahanni National Park Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Major Territorial Mines
- Con Mine - 1938-2003 (gold)
- Giant Mine - 1948-2004 (gold)
- Ptarmigan and Tom Mine - 1941-1942, 1986-1997 (gold)
- Negus Mine - 1939-1952 (gold)
- Thompson-Lundmark Mine - 1941-1943, 1947-1949 (gold)
- Discovery Mine - 1950-1969 (gold)
- Camlaren Mine - 1962-1963, 1980-1981 (gold)
- Eldorado Mine - 1933-1940, 1942-1960, 1976-1982 (radium, uranium, silver, copper)
- Echo Bay Mine - 1964-1975 (silver and copper)
- Ekati Diamond Mine - 1998-current (diamonds)
- Diavik Diamond Mine - 2003-current (diamonds)
- Pine Point Mine - 1964-1988 (lead and zinc)
- Cantung Mine - 1962-1986, 2002-2003, 2005-current (tungsten)
- Rayrock Mine - 1957-1959 (uranium)
- Terra Mine - 1969-1985 (silver and copper)
- Tundra Mine - 1964-1968 (gold)
- Salmita Mine - 1983-1987 (gold)
- Colomac Mine - 1990-1992, 1994-1997 (gold)

Politics

As a territory, the Northwest Territories has fewer rights than the provinces do. During his term, Premier Kakfwi pushed to have the federal government accord more rights to the territory, including having a greater share of the returns from the territory's natural resources go to the territory. [http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030703.wnwt0703/BNStory/National/] Devolution of powers to the territory was an issue in the Northwest Territories general election, 2003, and has been ever since the territory began electing members in 1881. The Commissioner of the NWT is the chief executive and is appointed by the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The position used to be more administrative and governmental but with the devolution of more and more powers to the elected assembly since 1967 the position has become symbolic. Since 1985 the Commissioner no longer chairs meetings of the Executive Council (or cabinet) and the federal government has instructed commissioners to behave like a provincial lieutenant-governor. Unlike lieutenant-governors, the commissioner is not a formal representative of the Queen of Canada. Unlike provincial governments, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not have political parties, except for the period between 1898 and 1905. It is a consensus government called the Legislative Assembly. This group is composed of one democratically elected member from each of the nineteen constituencies. After each general election, the new parliament elects a premier and speaker by secret ballot. Seven MLAs are also chosen as cabinet ministers, with the remainder forming the opposition. The territory's most recent general election was on November 24, 2003. The head of state for the territories is a Commissioner appointed by the federal government. The Commissioner had full governmental powers until 1980 when the territories were given greater self government. The legislature then began electing a cabinet and Head of Government later known as the Premier. The Premier of the Northwest Territories is Joe Handley. The member of Parliament for the Western Arctic, the riding that comprises the Northwest Territories, is Ethel Blondin-Andrew.

Aboriginal issues

Aboriginal issues in the NWT include the fate of the Dene who, in the 1940s, were employed to carry radioactive uranium ore from the mines on Great Bear Lake. Their cancer rates skyrocketed due to lack of safety procedures that were available to their white colleagues. Another issue is historic racial tension based on the bloody history between the Dene and the Inuit, who nevertheless have taken recent steps towards reconciliation. Land claims in the NWT culminated with the creation of the Inuit homeland of Nunavut, the result of the largest land claim in Canadian history. Another land claims agreement with the Dogrib nation created a region within the NWT called Tli Cho, between Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, which will give the Dogrib their own legislative bodies, taxes, resource royalties, and other affairs, though the NWT will still maintain control over such areas as health and education. This area includes the only diamond mines in Canada.

See also


- Aurora College
- Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories
- Provinces and territories of Canada
- List of cities in Canada
- List of Northwest Territories lieutenant-governors
- List of Northwest Territories commissioners
- List of Northwest Territories general elections
- List of Northwest Territories premiers
- List of Northwest Territories Plebiscites
- List of Northwest Territories highways
- List of Northwest Territories capitals
- List of Northwest Territories Legislative Assemblies
- List of communities in the Northwest Territories
- List of abandoned communities in the Northwest Territories
- List of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols
- List of Canadian national parks
- Nunavut zh-min-nan:Sai-pak Léng-thó· ko:노스웨스트 준주 ja:ノースウェスト準州

Québec

:This article describes the Canadian province. For other usages, see Quebec (disambiguation). Quebec (pronounced or ) (French: Québec, pronounced ) is the largest province in Canada and the second most populous, after Ontario, with a population of 7,598,100 (Statistics Canada, July 2005). This represents about 24% of the Canadian population. Quebec's official language is French. Quebec is the only Canadian province where English is a minority language (at the provincial level), and it is one of only two provinces – in addition to the federal government – where French is an official language (the other, per the Constitution Act, 1982, is New Brunswick; Manitoba enjoys limited official bilingualism). The capital is Quebec City (simply referred to as "Québec" in French) and the largest city is Montréal. A resident of Quebec is called a Quebecer (also spelled "Quebecker"), and in French, un(e) Québécois(e), the latter being used in English as well sometimes.

Geography

The most populated region is the St. Lawrence River Valley in the south, where the capital, Quebec City, and the largest city, Montreal, are situated. North of Montréal are the Laurentians, a range of ancient mountains, and to the east are the Appalachian Mountains which extends into the Eastern Townships and Gaspésie regions. The Gaspé Peninsula juts into the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the east. The extreme north of the province, now called Nunavik, is subarctic or arctic and is home to part of the Inuit nation. The main hydro-electric projects are found on the La Grande Rivière, in the James Bay region. 10 Largest Municipalities by population

History

Discovery and exploration

The name Quebec, which comes from an Algonquin word meaning "strait" or "narrowing", originally meant the narrowing of the St. Lawrence River off what is currently Quebec City. hydro-electric The first European explorer of what is now Quebec was Jacques Cartier, who planted a cross either in the Gaspé in 1534 or at Old Fort Bay on the Lower North Shore and sailed into the St. Lawrence River in 1535.

New France

Quebec City was founded near the site of Stadacona, a village populated by Iroquoians when Jacques Cartier explored Canada. However, the village had disappeared by the time Samuel de Champlain established the Habitation de Quebec in 1608. After 1627, King Louis XIII of France introduced the seigneurial system and forbade settlement in New France by anyone other than Roman Catholics. New France became a royal province in 1663 under King Louis XIV of France and the intendant Jean Talon. The fur trade lasted about 200 years before other trades took over. The Natives traded their furs for many French goods such as metal objects, guns, alcohol, and clothing.

Change of colonial powers

Great Britain acquired Canada by the Treaty of Paris (1763) when King Louis XV of France and his advisers chose to keep the territory of Guadeloupe for its valuable sugar crops instead of New France, which was viewed as a vast, frozen wasteland of little importance to the French colonial empire. By the British Royal Proclamation of 1763, Canada (part of New France) was renamed the Province of Quebec. Fearful that the French-speaking population of Quebec would side with the rebels of the 13 other colonies to the south, in 1774, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act that paved the way to official recognition of the French language and French culture. The Act allowed Quebecers, or Canadiens as they were then known, to maintain the French civil law and sanctioned the freedom of religious choice, allowing the Roman Catholic Church to remain. Quebec retained its seigneurial system and civil law code after France's giving of the territory to England. Owing to an influx of Loyalist refugees from the Amercian Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Act of 1791 saw the colony divided in two at the Ottawa River; the western part became Upper Canada and changed to the British legal system. The eastern part became Lower Canada.

The Patriotes Rebellion in Lower Canada

Like their counterparts in Upper Canada, in 1837, English and French speaking residents of Lower Canada, led by Louis-Joseph Papineau and Robert Nelson, formed an armed resistance group to seek an end to British colonial rule. Their actions resulted in the Lower Canada Rebellion. An unprepared British Army had to raise a local militia force and the rebel forces were soon defeated after having scored a victory in Saint-Denis, Quebec, south of Montreal.

Act of Union

After the rebellions, Lord Durham was asked to undertake a study and prepare a report on the matter and to offer a solution for the British Parliament to assess. Following Durham's Report, the British government merged the two colonial provinces into one Province of Canada in 1841. However, the union proved contentious.

Canadian Confederation

In the 1860s, the delegates from the colonies of British North America (Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland) met in a series of conferences in Charlottetown, Quebec City and London to discuss a broader union. As a result of those deliberations, in 1867 the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the British North America Act, providing for the Confederation of most of these provinces. The former Province of Canada was again divided into its two previous parts as the provinces of Ontario (Upper Canada) and Quebec (Lower Canada). New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined Ontario and Quebec in the new Dominion of Canada (Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland entered Confederation later, in 1873 and 1949, respectively).

The "Quiet Revolution"

Main article: Quiet Revolution The conservative government of Maurice Duplessis and his Union Nationale dominated Quebec politics from 1944 to 1960 with the support of the Catholic church. Pierre Trudeau and other intellectuals and liberals formed an intellectual opposition to Duplessis' repressive regime setting the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution under Jean Lesage's Liberals. The Quiet Revolution was a period of dramatic social and political change that saw the decline of the Roman Catholic Church's influence, the nationalization of Hydro-Québec and the emergence of a separatist movement under former Liberal minister René Lévesque. René Lévesque, is "Je me souviens", French for "I remember".]] Beginning in 1963, a terrorist group that became known as the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) launched a decade of bombings, robberies and attacks on government offices and at least two murders by FLQ gunfire and three violent deaths by bombings. Their activities culminated in events referred to as the October Crisis [http://www.mcgill.ca/maritimelaw/history/crisis/] when James Cross, the British trade commissioner to Canada, was kidnapped along with Pierre Laporte, a provincial minister and Vice-Premier, who was murdered a few days later. In their published Manifesto, the terrorists stated: "In the coming year Bourassa (Quebec Premier) will have to face reality; 100,000 revolutionary workers, armed and organized." At the request of premier Robert Bourassa, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act. Once the War Measures Act was in place, arrangements were made for all detainees to see legal counsel. In addition, the Quebec Ombudsman [http://www.protecteurducitoyen.qc.ca/en/index.asp], Louis Marceau, was instructed to hear complaints of detainees and the Quebec government agreed to pay damages to any person unjustly arrested. On February 3, 1971, John Turner, the Minister of Justice of Canada, reported that 497 persons had been arrested under the War Measures Act, of whom 435 had been released. The other 62 were charged, of which 32 were crimes of such seriousness that a Quebec Superior Court judge refused them bail. A federal government inquiry later revealed that some Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) agents infiltrated the group to gain evidence of the group's willingness to commit terrorist acts. In 1977, the newly elected Parti Québécois government of René Lévesque introduced the Charter of the French Language. Often known as Bill 101, it defined French as the only official language of Quebec.

Quebec and the Canadian Constitution

Lévesque and his party had run in the 1970 and 1973 Quebec elections under a platform of separating Quebec from the rest of Canada. His party was defeated both times, with 23% and 30% of the vote respectively, and Lévesque himself was defeated in his own riding (electoral district). In the 1976 election, he softened his message by promising a referendum (plebiscite) on sovereignty-association rather than outright separation, by which Quebec would have independence in most government functions but share some other ones, such as a common currency, with Canada. Though many Quebecers, especially English-speaking Quebecers, viewed sovereignty-association as thinly-veiled separation, Lévesque and the Parti Québécois were swept into power with 41% of the popular vote on November 15, 1976. The question of sovereignty-association was placed before the voters in the 1980 Quebec referendum. During the campaign, Pierre Trudeau promised that a vote for the NO side was a vote for reforming Canada. Trudeau advocated the patriation of Canada's Constitution from the United Kingdom, as the existing constitutional document, the British North America Act, could only be amended by the United Kingdom Parliament. Sixty percent of the Quebec electorate voted against the proposition. Polls showed that the ovewhelming majority of English Quebecers voted against, and that French Quebecers were almost equally divided, with older voters less in favor, and younger voters more in favor. After his loss in the referendum, Lévesque went back to Ottawa to start negotiating a new constitution with Trudeau, his minister of Justice Jean Chrétien and the nine other provincial premiers. The negotiations quickly reached a stand-still. Then on the night on November 4 to November 5 1981, called in Quebec the 'Night of the Long Knives' (La Nuit des Longs Couteaux'), Jean Chrétien met all the provincial premiers except René Lévesque to sign the document that would eventually become the new Canadian constitution. The next morning, they put Lévesque in front of the "fait accompli." Lévesque refused to sign the document, and returned to Quebec. In 1982, Trudeau had the new constitution approved by the British Parliament, with Quebec's signature still missing (a situation that persists to this day). In subsequent years, two attempts were made to gain Quebec's approval of the constitution. The first was the Meech Lake Accord of 1987, which was finally abandoned in 1990 when the provinces of Manitoba and Newfoundland refused to support it. This led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois party in Ottawa under the leadership of Lucien Bouchard, who had resigned from the federal cabinet. The second attempt, the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, was rejected by 56.7% of all Canadians and 57% of Quebecers. This result caused a split in the Quebec Liberal Party that led to the formation of the new Action Démocratique (Democratic Action) party led by Mario Dumont and Jean Allaire. On October 30, 1995, with the Parti Québécois back in power since 1994, a second referendum on sovereignty took place. This time, it was rejected by a slim majority (50.6% NO to 49.4% YES); a clear majority of French-speaking Quebecers voted in favour of sovereignty. The referendum was tainted by several controversies. Federalists complained that an unusually high number of ballots had been rejected in pro-federalist ridings, notably in the riding of Chomedey, although Quebec's chief electoral officer found no evidence of fraud. The pro-federalist side was accused of not respecting the Quebec laws with regards to spending limits during referendums (spending three times as much as the separtist side), and to have accelerated the naturalization of immigrant people living in the province of Québec (43,850 immigrants were naturalized during 1995, whereas the average number between 1988 and 1998 was 21,733). The same night of the referendum, Jacques Parizeau, then premier, declared that the loss was due to money and the ethnic vote. A media frenzy around these comments forced Parizeau to resign. Lucien Bouchard became Quebec's new premier in 1996. After winning the next election, Bouchard retired from politics in 2001. Bernard Landry was then appointed leader of the Parti Québécois and premier of Quebec. In 2003, Landry lost the election to the Quebec Liberal Party and Jean Charest. Jean Charest

Politics

The Lieutenant Governor represents Queen Elizabeth II as head of state. The head of government is the Premier (called premier ministre in French) who leads the largest party in the unicameral National Assembly or Assemblée Nationale, from which the Council of Ministers is appointed. Until 1968, the Quebec legislature was bicameral, consisting of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly. In that year the Legislative Council was abolished, and the Legislative Assembly was renamed the National Assembly. Quebec was the last province to abolish its legislative council. The government of Quebec awards an order of merit called the National Order of Quebec. It is inspired in part by the French Legion of Honour. It is conferred upon men and women born or living in Quebec (but non-Quebecers can be inducted as well) for outstanding achievements.

Economy

The St. Lawrence River Valley is a fertile agricultural region, producing dairy products, fruit, vegetables, maple syrup (Quebec is the world's largest producer), and livestock. North of the St. Lawrence River Valley, the territory of Quebec is extremely rich in resources in its coniferous forests, lakes, and rivers—pulp and paper, lumber, and hydroelectricity are still some of the province's most important industries. High-tech industries are very important around Montreal. It includes the aerospace companies like jet manufacturer Bombardier, the jet engine company Pratt & Whitney, the flight simulator builder CAE and defense contractor Lockheed Martin, Canada. Those companies and other major subcontractors make Quebec the fourth biggest player worldwide in the aviation industry. Lockheed Martin, Canada

Culture

The Québécois people, a people also found in small minorities of Canada and of the United States, consider Quebec their homeland. The Québécois are the largest population of French speakers in the Americas. Most French Canadians live in Quebec, though there are other concentrations of francophones throughout Canada with varying degrees of ties to Quebec. Montreal is the vibrant cosmopolitan metropolis of Quebec. History made Quebec a place where cultures meet, where people from all over the world experience America, but from a little distance and through a different eye. Often described as a crossroads between Europe and America, Quebec is home to a people that has the privilege of being connected to the strong cultural currents of the United States, France, and the British Isles all at the same time. Quebec is also home to 11 aboriginal nations and to a large Anglo-Quebecer minority of approximately 600,000 people.

Demographics

Quebec's