constructing an indigenous nordicity: the “new partnership” and canada’s northern agenda

Constructing an Indigenous Nordicity:The ‘‘New Partnership’’ and Canada’s

Northern Agenda

Samantha Arnold

University of Winnipeg

This paper explores Canada’s self-identity as a Nordic nation as articu-lated in and through the recent northern dimension of Canada’s for-eign and security agenda. This image of Canadian nordicity hasbecome aligned with what is sometimes called the ‘‘Inuit vision’’ of thenorth. This deployment of Canadian nordicity has both emerged fromand facilitated a complex and mutually beneficial relationship betweenthe Inuit of Canada and the Canadian government. This relationship isrooted in, and serves, important domestic considerations, but at thesame time, it has important external dimensions that have advancedboth Canadian foreign policy goals and the Inuit internationalistagenda over the past decade. Indeed, marking a rhetorical break withthe colonial and assimilationist record of the past, the relationshipbetween Canada and the Inuit is now represented as embodying a‘‘new spirit of partnership.’’ This image in particular has worked tolend considerable authority to Canada’s voice in the Arctic and hasbeen an important source of credibility and leverage both at home andabroad. It has also served as an important resource in the service ofnational unity to the extent that Canadians have, by and large,embraced the archetypal Inuit as exemplars of quintessentially ‘‘Cana-dian’’ values.

Keywords: Canada, northern agenda, Inuit internationalism,Arctic sovereignty, Canadian identity

The North is a place of great promise.... [T]he Government of Canada andthe territorial governments have agreed to develop in cooperation withAboriginal governments, organizations and Northern residents—the first-evercomprehensive strategy for the North.... The North is a place where strong,responsive governments work together to build a prosperous, vibrant futurefor all. It is a place where Northern traditions of respect for the land andthe environment are cherished, and actions and decision-making areanchored in the principles of responsible, sustainable development. It is aplace where citizens celebrate their diversity. The North is a place where theterritories and their governments are strong contributing partners in adynamic and secure federation. (Canada’s Northern Strategy, cited in Shadian2007:344)

An earlier version of this article appeared as ‘‘Construire la nordicite autochtone: Le ‘nouveau partenariat’ et leproject nordique du Canada,’’ in Frederic Lasserre (ed.) Passages et mers arctiques: Geopolitique d’une region enmutation, Presses de l’Universite du Quebec (2010).

Arnold, Samantha. (2011) Constructing an Indigenous Nordicity: The ‘‘New Partnership’’ and Canada’s Northern Agenda.International Studies Perspectives, doi: 10.1111/j.1528-3585.2011.00455.x� 2011 International Studies Association

International Studies Perspectives (2012) 13, 105–120.

As Northrop Frye (1971) has noted, there has been a strong tendency tounderstand Canadian identity through a narrative of place, highlighting the‘‘where’’ of Canada rather than the ‘‘who.’’ Founded by multiple culturallyand linguistically distinct peoples and later populated by successive waves ofimmigrants from all over the world, there has been little basis for nationalunity in a common language, culture, ethnicity, or historical experience. Thisdiversity is undeniably a source of great pride and political innovation in thepresent day, even while it has been, and remains, a source of deep andenduring anxiety for those concerned about national unity in the face ofdemographic ‘‘balkanization,’’ Quebec nationalism, and the always-presentfear of cultural domination or assimilation by the United States, with whomCanada shares a border, markets, and airwaves. Thus, it is not surprising that‘‘place’’ figures prominently in the discourses of Canadian identity, and inthis context, the idea that the ‘‘place’’ of Canada is ‘‘north,’’ and moreoverthat this northernness somehow contributes to, or defines, who Canadiansare both as individuals and as a nation has been a pervasive and enduringtheme in the Canadian self-narrative, permeating art, literature, popularculture, and politics.

However, it is important to appreciate that most Canadians have an ambiva-lent, ambiguous relationship with the north-as-place. We know very littleabout the north, and very few of us will ever go there. Nor is it even clearwhere ‘‘there’’ is—is it the Canadian Shield? The provincial norths? TheHigh Arctic? Is it north of the 49th parallel? The 60th? And yet, thisambiguity does little to diminish the power that it has over our collectiveimagination for, as Daniel Francis has written, ‘‘[t]o a Canadian, North is anidea, not a location; a myth, a promise, a destiny’’ (1997:153). In animportant way, then, the unifying power of the north lies precisely in its free-floating quality as an empty signifier to which different meanings andagendas can be attached. As Sherrill Grace (2001) has demonstrated in herexploration of the ‘‘idea of the north’’ in the Canadian context, the northhas indeed figured in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways in the Cana-dian narrative of self. The ‘‘cult of the north’’ (Francis 1997:153) is thusneither monolithic nor static, even while certain themes predominate at anygiven time.

As an empty signifier, then, the subjective, flexible quality of Canada’snordicity makes it an important political resource because it can be deployeddifferently in the service of different agendas. This paper explores Canada’sself-identity as a Nordic nation as articulated in and through the recentnorthern dimension of Canada’s foreign and security agenda. If foreign policyis an exercise in the production of national identity at home as much as it isabout cultivating or exporting a national image abroad, then Canada’scircumpolar policies cannot be separated from domestic political concerns oreffects. Given this, this paper examines one of the key ways that the idea ofCanadian nordicity has been invoked and enacted through Canada’s recentnorthern agenda and actions, both in the circumpolar context and at home fordomestic audiences.

This image of Canadian nordicity links northernness to a particular set of val-ues and commitments, borne in part of the common experiences and challengesassociated with being in the north. As Stephane Dion puts it in a speech to theCouncil for Canadian Unity in 1999,

This is perhaps one of the greatest advantages that Canada has as a northerncountry: our geographic reality has helped to shape our Canadian sense of com-munity and mutual responsibility. The geographical fact of our northernness hasmoulded our way of viewing the world.... [Canada’s federal] system is the

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product of the values that Canadians share: solidarity, generosity and openness.You could say that these are the same values fostered by our northernness. (Governmentof Canada Privy Council Office 1999)

More specifically, the circumpolar expression of Canadian nordicity hasbecome aligned with what is sometimes called the ‘‘Inuit vision’’ of the north.1

This vision conceives of the circumpolar world in a particular way and champi-ons a cooperative and collective approach to acting in that world in collabora-tion with northern Indigenous peoples. It reflects what can be characterized asan internationalist agenda; as described by Peter Jull (2001:33; see also thestudies by Young 1992; Abele and Rodon 2007; Wilson 2007), this ‘‘Indigenousinternationalism’’ embodies

the cooperation of indigenous peoples with each other across or beyondnational borders to share ideas, information, and inspiration; to concern moraland political influence on national governments and international bodies; andto establish better international standards for themselves and other indigenouspeoples in matters of shared or universal interest.

Rhetorical and on-the-ground linkages between Canadian expressions ofnordicity and an Inuit internationalist agenda have both emerged from andfacilitated a complex relationship between the Inuit of Canada and the Cana-dian Government. This relationship is rooted in, and serves, important domesticconsiderations, but at the same time, it has important external dimensions thathave advanced both Canadian foreign policy goals and the internationalist Inuitagenda over the past decade. Indeed, marking a rhetorical break with the colo-nial and assimilationist record of the past, the relationship between Canada andthe Inuit is now characterized by the Government of Canada as embodying a‘‘new spirit of partnership.’’ This image—as distinct from important questionsabout the contours of this partnership in reality—has worked to lend consider-able authority to Canada’s voice in the Arctic and has been an important sourceof credibility and leverage both at home and abroad. It has also served as animportant discursive resource in the service of national unity to the extent thatCanadians have, by and large, embraced a reified, ‘‘Nanook’’-like image of thearchetypal Inuit as exemplars of quintessentially ‘‘Canadian’’ values (Arnold2010b).

This narrative of Canada’s ‘‘indigenized nordicity,’’ figures prominently in theHarper government’s formal policy statements, including the recent NorthernStrategy, and the expressed intention to renew Canada’s commitment to the Arc-tic Council. At the same time, recent years have witnessed the deployment ofCanada’s northern identity in quite different terms. Thus, following anexpanded discussion of the image of Canadian northernness-as-indigenous andits expression through Canada’s engagement with the circumpolar world, thispaper will briefly consider a competing discourse of Canadian nordicity thatturns on the idea that ‘‘our’’ north is under siege from our neighbors in a com-petitive circumpolar region in order to highlight the fact that Canada’s northernidentity is simultaneously powerful, variable, and contested.

1While this paper is focused on the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic, it is important to note that there are otherCanadian Northern Indigenous peoples—particularly the Gwich’in and Athabaskan peoples—who are activelyengaged in an internationalist agenda. Both the Gwich’in Council International and the Arctic Athabaskan Councilare Permanent Participants in the Arctic Council. The question of how it is that the image of indigenized nordicitythat plays through Canadian national identity has been linked in popular imagination specifically to the Inuit isimportant, but beyond the scope of this paper.

107Samantha Arnold

Canada from Cold War to Arctic Council

Yes, a new North is being built…This new North will be built by individuals,communities, and governments—working together to achieve common goals.This spirit of cooperation is the Canadian way, the Northern way. You cannotdivide those two—because in so many respects they are one and the same. (Gov-ernment of Canada Privy Council Office 1999)

The end of the Cold War fundamentally altered the geo-strategic realities facingCanada in the Arctic. Located between the United States and the Soviet Union,and thus under some of the world’s most strategically important airspace,Canada had little choice during the Cold War but to view the circumpolarregion through a militarized and defense-oriented lens. Even during the ColdWar, however, there were indications that this logic might be winding down—famously, then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev delivered a speech at Mur-mansk in 1987 in which he called for the demilitarization of the north andoffered proposals for international cooperation around environmental issues,resource development, scientific exchanges, and maritime management thatpromised to change the prevailing strategic calculus in the region (Gorbachev1987). Although Gorbachev’s message was initially received with some skepti-cism, one observer writing in 1991 notes even then that ‘‘[t]he arguments infavour of nuclear submarines, cruise missile testing, and low-level flights havesuddenly lost their fizz, replaced by seemingly boundless enthusiasm for all man-ner of multilateral dealings’’ (Saunders 1991). Canada shared this enthusiasmfor a new vision of the circumpolar region, and in 1989 former Prime MinisterBrian Mulroney planted the seeds for what is today the most prominent multilat-eral Arctic forum—the Arctic Council—with his suggestion during a visit toLeningrad that a council of Arctic countries should be established to coordinateand promote cooperation in the region.

Largely as a result of Canada’s efforts, the Ottawa Declaration marked theestablishment of the Arctic Council in 1996. The signatory states affirmed theircommitment to a cooperative approach to managing common challenges in theregion, paying particular attention to sustainable development and environmen-tal issues, including economic and social development, cultural well-being, andimproved health conditions for Northern peoples. Especially important was theacknowledgment of the contributions that Northern Indigenous peoples andtraditional knowledge could make in this context, institutionalized through theactive participation of Indigenous peoples’ organizations in the Council asPermanent Participants.

How to understand Canada’s efforts to establish the Arctic Council? Most obvi-ously, freed from the constraints imposed by the Cold War order, Canada sawthe Council as providing an opportunity to assume a leadership role in a regionwhere it has considerable interests—the Council’s commitment to a cooperativeapproach in the region would have some diluting effect on the ability of theUnited States to dominate the agenda or undertake unilateral action. This wasan old idea, going back at least to Lester B. Pearson’s post-WWII recognitionthat Canada’s interests in the region were best served by a multilateral approach(Pearson 1946), and reanimated by the 1969 voyage of the US icebreaker Man-hattan through the Northwest Passage over which Canada claimed sovereignrights. As Maxwell Cohen asserted at the time, ‘‘the most urgent objective ofCanadian policy…is the development of a body of Arctic basin consensus’’ whichwould provide ‘‘a superb opportunity for Canadian leadership.’’ Cohen furthernoted that Canada should cultivate relations with the Soviet Union in this con-text, noting that ‘‘it will be found that the true interest of Canada is…a broad


basin policy of interest to all basin states and of great concern to the maritimeworld of law and environmental protection as a whole’’ (1970–1971:81). Notably,Canada’s success in cultivating consensus in the circumpolar world has been sig-nificant. The Arctic Council was not simply understood to have been a Canadianinitiative; it, and other multilateral undertakings in the region (such as the 1991Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy), is further characterized by observersas reflecting a particularly Canadian vision of the Arctic (Scrivener 1996; Keskit-alo 2004, 2007).

But if this tells us something about why Canada would have been interested inestablishing a council of Arctic states, it tells us little about why Canada soughtto establish this Council, that is, a body committed not simply to cooperation,but to cooperation animated by the principles of sustainable development, envi-ronmentalism, and Indigenous peoples’ participation. Arguably, Canada canstake no claim to be uniquely committed to the values of environmental protec-tion or sustainable development. That said, the Canadian approach to theseissues is distinct insofar as it came to be expressed through the idea that cooper-ative partnership with Indigenous Northern peoples represented a specifically‘‘Canadian and Northern’’ contribution to circumpolar governance, and thismore than anything else became the basis of Canada’s claims to be well-suited toassume a leadership role in the north.

As Jessica Shadian points out, at the core of Canada’s agenda was the pre-sentation of the Inuit as ‘‘an embodiment of sustainable development policyand governance’’ (2007:324). How did this connection get forged? David Scriv-ener suggests that ‘‘[i]n some ways, the whole Arctic Council idea could beseen as an external projection of the internal political processes related toIndigenous peoples of the Canadian north’’ (1996:21). Central to these ‘‘inter-nal political processes’’ was the cultivation of a ‘‘spirit of partnership’’ with theInuit that worked on important ways not only to assert a particular brand ofCanadian nordicity abroad, but also to construct a new basis for national unityat home.

Toward ‘‘New Partnership’’ at Home

In 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government issued a White Paper onAboriginal Policy that proposed, among other things, to repeal the Indian Actand thereby eliminate the collective rights enjoyed by Indigenous peoples(Indian and Northern Affairs Canada 1969). The move sparked a reaction fromCanadian Indigenous peoples that forced the government to back down from itsproposals, and set the stage for the emergence of an increasingly assertive Indig-enous activist movement. At the same time, Aboriginal peoples were strugglingto gain control over their own economic development, and pressure to resolveoutstanding land claims was growing. In 1973, a suit brought against the BC gov-ernment over land claims by Frank Arthur Calder in 1967 went to the SupremeCourt where Aboriginal rights to land were affirmed. And, from 1974 to 1977,Thomas Berger headed a commission to examine the effects of a proposed pipe-line through the northern Yukon and Mackenzie River Valley in light of seriousconcerns raised by Aboriginal peoples in the region that the pipeline wouldinfringe on their land and resource rights. The Report of the Berger Commis-sion provided credence to, and raised popular awareness of, these concerns, rec-ommending that the project should be put on hold pending the resolution ofoutstanding land claims (Berger 1988)—as Peter Jull suggests, the commissionserved as a national ‘‘teach-in,’’ exposing the Canadian public to the concernsexpressed by Northern Indigenous peoples (Jull 2001:7). In this context, saysShadian, ‘‘[b]etween the parallel failure of the White Paper for the state toresolve Aboriginal issues and heightened Indigenous political mobilization, what

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transpired at the national level was a reinvigorated need for renovating the rela-tionship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples’’ (2007:328).

Although complex and highly contested (see Jull 2001), the process of consti-tutional reform that preoccupied the country for a decade provided the oppor-tunity for Aboriginal peoples to reframe that relationship, and in particular,ultimately established recognition of the inherent right of Aboriginal peoples toself-government. From the perspective of the Inuit, this recognition was realizedin the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement (NLCA) that committed thegovernment to establish a new territory—Nunavut—in the Eastern Arctic. Thiswas achieved in 1999. Although the government of Nunavut was ultimately estab-lished as public rather than Aboriginal, there can be no doubt that Nunavut wasan acknowledgment, however hard-won or incomplete, of the Inuit’s right toself-determination.

With this move, an important domestic prerequisite for Canada’s internation-ally proclaimed ‘‘partnership’’ with Indigenous peoples was consolidated. Thiswas explicitly understood by Canadian officials—as then-Prime Minister JeanChretien noted at the time, ‘‘Canada is showing the world, once again, how weembrace many peoples and cultures. The new government of Nunavut willreflect this diversity, incorporating the best of Inuit traditions…’’ (cited inBerger 2006:i). Nor was the significance of this claim lost on the internationalcommunity; as one Inuit organization, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), hasobserved more recently, ‘‘[s]ome foreign governments characterize Nunavut asthe ‘‘test’’ by which Canada is evaluated in terms of its treatment of Aboriginalpeoples and the key measure of its approach to northern development’’ (citedin Berger 2006:61). Says Peter Jull, Nunavut ‘‘gets major and respectful attentionoverseas. It has been one of two or three bits of Canadian news to leak throughthe fogs of international indifference…Nunavut has been seen as an astonishingpiece of good race relations and social progress’’ (Jull 1993).

How did this putative ‘‘partnership’’ come to assume significance for Canada’sinternational agenda? And how can this development be linked to the broaderquestion of Canada’s Northern identity? One answer to these questions can befound where the domestic developments described above intersect with arenewed concern for Canadian sovereignty in the north.

The ‘‘New Partnership’’ and Canadian Sovereignty

Canada has long been concerned about its sovereignty in the north, and particu-larly over the Northwest Passage. In 1969, 1970, and again in 1985, Americanvessels sailed through the Passage in seeming defiance of Canada’s claims tohave the sovereign right to control the waters.2 There was considerable publicattention paid to each of these events—as one observer notes, ‘‘elements of theCanadian populace may have appeared to outside observers to becomeunhinged over American threats to Arctic sovereignty’’ (Killaby 2005–2006:35).In response to the 1970 incident, the Arctic Waters Protection Act was brought intoforce, unilaterally extending Canada’s maritime jurisdiction to 100 nautical milesto enforce environmental regulations, while following the 1985 incident, thegovernment announced a series of military plans to increase surveillance andinterdiction capacities in the north, including a new Polar Class 8 icebreaker.

2In fact, the Canadian government had granted permission for the Polar Sea voyage scheduled to take place inAugust, and before the voyage, then-Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark stated to the House of Com-mons that the action ‘‘does not compromise in any way the sovereignty of Canada over our northern waters.’’However, as reported in the press, while the Canadian government had in fact granted the permission, the US hadnot actually asked for it. See: House of Commons (1985:6043); Yaffe (1985:1).


However, as it turned out, it would be the Inuit who would play a significant rolein the government’s overall strategy to enhance Northern sovereignty.

Like other Indigenous peoples in Canada, the Inuit began to mobilize politi-cally in the 1970s. In 1971, the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (ITC; now the InuitTapiriit Kanatami, ITK) was established to represent and promote the domesticinterests of the Inuit in Canada. Inuit activism assumed an explicitly internation-alist character not long after, with the participation of Canadian Inuit in the Arc-tic Peoples Conference in Copenhagen in 1973. It was at this Conference, saysJull (2001:34), that ‘‘a recognition of shared needs and common causes tookplace.’’ In 1977, Canadian Inuit along with Inuit from Alaska, Greenland, andChukotka established the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC; now the InuitCircumpolar Council) with the goal of promoting Inuit circumpolar unity andto promote Inuit rights and interests at the international level (on the interna-tional activities and impact of the ICC, see Abele and Rodon 2007; Wilson2007). The Canadian branch of the ICC worked to coordinate with the ITC toconvey the views of Canadian Inuit to the international community and to sup-port the ability of Inuit to exercise their rights as Indigenous peoples within andbeyond Canada. Through these organizations, Canadian Inuit began to assert anInuit-specific agenda both domestically and internationally as the governmentwas beginning to rethink its relationship with Aboriginal peoples—the ITCplayed an important role representing the Inuit during the constitutionaldebates of the 1980s.

In the context of Inuit land claims, the ITC also played a key role in initiatinga large-scale study undertaken by the Federal government to determine the fullextent of Inuit territory. The study, which produced a three-volume report in1977 entitled the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Project, established the historicalusage by the Inuit of 1.5 million square miles of land and sea in the NorthwestTerritories, comprising significant portions of the Arctic Archipelago—includingthe Northwest Passage. The findings served as the empirical basis for Inuit landclaims negotiations between the Inuit and the Government, undertaken onbehalf of the Inuit by the Tungavik Federation of Nunavut (TFN; after 1993became the Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., NTI), which eventually resulted in theNunavut Land Claims Agreement.

The findings were also significant from the point of view of Canadian sover-eignty and presented an opportunity for the Canadian government to bolster itsclaims in the Northwest Passage. In 1985, while announcing plans to construct anew icebreaker, then-Secretary of State for External Affairs Joe Clark alsoannounced an order in council drawing straight base lines around the ArcticArchipelago. The effect of this move was to fully enclose these waters, andimportantly the Northwest Passage, within Canadian territory contra theAmerican position that the Passage contains an international strait throughwhich vessels enjoy the right of innocent passage. The practice of drawingstraight baselines when coastal territory is fringed by islands, although sanc-tioned by the International Court of Justice and international law, was nonethe-less seen as controversial, and the international community’s acquiescence withCanada’s move was not assured. Here, the findings of the Inuit Land Use andOccupancy Project provided important justification for the move (Kaludjak 2007).Says Terry Fenge, ‘‘[t]he results of the Inuit Land Use and Occupancy Projectprovided support for this legal move by helping Canada to claim historicaltitle to the area. Lawyers from the Department of Justice know all about [it]’’(2007–2008:86).

Inuit organizations were willing partners in this discursive and legal move; inthe same year, the government established a Special Joint Committee of the Sen-ate and House of Commons on Canada’s International Relations. The ITK, ICC,and other Inuit organizations submitted briefs to the Committee arguing that

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contrary to the prevailing military approach, Canadian sovereignty claims couldbe asserted through the historical use of the land and sea by the Inuit. The Com-mittee found this argument to be compelling, and according to Jeff Richstone,the recommendations in the final report, entitled Independence and International-ism (1986), ‘‘contrast sharply with the military cast of the government’s proposedmeasures.’’ Says Richstone, the report ‘‘declared that the government shouldgive priority to Inuit interests, notably in the conclusion of an acceptable landclaims agreement, the promotion of self-government in the Arctic, and supportto Inuit renewable resource industries.’’ It also called for greater cooperationwithin the circumpolar region and the development of new environmental stan-dards. In the end, the government did not go as far as the Inuit had wanted,although when the government in the same year issued its response to theCommittee’s report, two of the six measures it proposed to assert Canada’sNorthern sovereignty turned on the question of land claims. In this way, the res-olution of Inuit land claims was explicitly linked to the achievement of Canada’sinternational interests. As Shadian suggests, this ‘‘set the foundation for whatwould eventually foster the emergence of a new ‘northern’ Canadian identity’’(2007:334).

The NLCA and the agreement to establish Nunavut need to be understood inthis context, for clearly the government had important incentives to resolve out-standing land claims with the Inuit. As discussed previously, this had much to dowith the domestic process of constitutional reform and the perceived importanceof transforming Aboriginal-state relations into a meaningful partnership. Then-Prime Minister Brian Mulroney made this connection perfectly clear in the com-ments he offered at the NLCA signing ceremony in 1993; he stated,

In the course of this transition, we will redraft the map of Canada…But our col-lective achievement is far more than a simple exercise in cartography. It is, at itscore, an act of nation-building. Step by step, agreement by agreement, we areadvancing towards a set of common goals: strengthening the economic, social,and political foundations of the north, and enriching an ancient and cherishedculture—the Inuit culture. We are forging a new partnership—a real partnership—notonly between the Government of Canada and the future government of Nunavut, butbetween aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians. (1993, my emphasis)

Stated commitments to ‘‘a real partnership’’ notwithstanding, it is clear thatthe government appreciated the foreign policy significance of concluding a landclaims agreement in which the Inuit ceded claims to Aboriginal title over muchof the Canadian Arctic, thereby paving the way for the assertion of Canadiansovereignty. Indeed, the preamble to the agreement explicitly (and within thecontext of a land claims agreement, uniquely) recognizes the contributions ofthe Inuit to Canadian sovereignty. As Thomas Berger notes in his 2006 Concilia-tor’s Final Report on the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement,

‘‘[f]or Canada to assert sovereignty of the Arctic and the Arctic Islands while theAboriginal people who have always inhabited them had not yet freely cededtheir title would have been more than an embarrassment; it would haveimpaired Canada’s claim of sovereignty as against other nations. (2006:65)

Thus, while the reframing of Aboriginal-state relations in Canada was largelydriven by domestic considerations, the Canadian government’s interests herecannot be understood in isolation from important international concerns, andin particular from the appreciation of the legitimacy that a land claims agree-ment with the Inuit would provide to Canada’s sovereignty claims in the north.Leaving aside the question of whether the relationship between the Inuit andthe Canadian government can really be understood as a relationship between


equally empowered partners, it is clear that each of these developments turnedon a powerful discourse of ‘‘partnership’’ with the Inuit that highlighted ques-tions of northern sustainability, community social and economic development,and cultural protection. And, although the Nunavut Land Claims Agreementwould not be concluded until 1993, these ideas were very much in the air by theend of the 1980s, and Canada’s attention was already firmly on the north as asite for nation-building and development by the time Gorbachev delivered hisspeech at Murmansk, and as the Cold War soon after began to wind down. Thiscreated both the opportunity and the incentive for Canada and the Inuit toexport their emerging relationship abroad to mutual benefit.3

Exporting the ‘‘New Partnership,’’ Constructing an Inuit Vision of CanadianNordicity

The partnership between the Canadian Inuit and the Canadian governmentoffered clear benefits to each, and the end of the Cold War provided opportuni-ties to extend their collaboration. At home, the relationship simultaneouslyhelped to advance Inuit self-determination and Canadian sovereignty; it alsounderpinned Canada’s efforts to construct an inclusive society. Internationally,this partnership would also serve two agendas at the same time. For the Inuit,collaboration between the Canadian state and the ICC would provide supportfor the articulation of an Inuit vision of the Arctic centered on sustainable devel-opment, ecological responsibility, and Indigenous participation. In short, thisrelationship would provide a mechanism for the institutionalization of the Inuitinternationalist agenda. For the Canadian state, the end of the Cold War creatednew possibilities for establishing a cooperative space in which Canada would beless constrained by its bilateral relationships with the United States, andthe demonstrated partnership with the Inuit, and advocacy of their vision of thepost-Cold War order in the circumpolar world, provided an important source ofcredibility, legitimacy, and coherence to Canada’s leadership bid in the region.

It is perhaps fair to say that the Inuit through the ICC, and most particularly,ICC-Canada, was the driving force behind this international collaboration in itsearly stages. As Shadian recounts (2007), the skilled leadership of then-ICCPresident Mary Simon did much to advance the Inuit agenda in Canadiangovernment circles. As already noted, the ICC submitted briefs to the SpecialJoint Committee on Canada’s International Relations and thus played a key rolein establishing the connection between Inuit self-determination and Canadiansovereignty as well as highlighting a nonmilitarized and cooperative approach tothe Arctic. In 1990, Simon again brought an Inuit perspective to the Canadiangovernment, speaking before the House of Commons Standing Committee onExternal Affairs and International Trade. There, she urged the Government tocollaborate with Northern peoples in order to develop Canadian securityobjectives in the north animated by a commitment to environmental, social,economic, and cultural responsibility. Simon’s appreciation of the politicalrealities and mutual benefits to be had by both the Inuit and the Canadiangovernment though the development of a collaborative relationship was astutelyconveyed—the new relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the state couldserve as a model for other states, and Canada could legitimately claim a

3The characterization of this relationship as mutually beneficial is not to suggest that it was equally so, nor tosuggest that Inuit concerns and interests have been adequately addressed through this relationship. Rather, it issimply to acknowledge that the intersection of Inuit interests with those of the Canadian government, and the dem-onstrated willingness of the Inuit to contribute the framing of government agendas and programs, has contributedto the ability of Canadian Inuit organizations to advance an internationalist agenda as described above.

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demonstrated expertise. Moreover, the ICC supported and encouraged theGovernment’s reliance on the Inuit’s historical occupation of the Archipelago tounderwrite its sovereignty claims. The Inuit agenda would also be served—recognition of Inuit land and off-shore claims would have to include rights forthe Inuit to participate meaningfully in their management. In other words, thequid pro quo would be a mandated seat at the table for the Inuit when domesticor international developments impinged on Inuit territory or waters.

One of the earliest manifestations of this emerging convergence of Inuit andCanadian international agendas was the establishment of the Arctic Environmen-tal Protection Strategy (AEPS) in 1991 as a nonbinding strategy to which theeight Arctic States were committed. The AEPS was an important precursor tothe Arctic Council, and like the Council, it acknowledged the critical role ofIndigenous knowledge in understanding and responding to environmental chal-lenges in the Arctic region and provided formal status to Indigenous peoples.This inclusion was recognized as ‘‘historic’’ by Indigenous peoples (Tennberg1996:21–23). As outlined by Rob Huebert, while the AEPS is often referred to asthe ‘‘Finnish initiative,’’ Canadian officials had a significant role in the develop-ment of the founding documents of the AEPS. In fact, as Huebert notes,‘‘[w]hile Finland is recognized as the state that led the effort to develop AEPS,the actual agreement was based on domestic Canadian policy,’’ and was ‘‘aninternationalized version of a Canadian domestic programme called the ArcticEnvironmental Strategy.’’ This latter strategy was developed with the participa-tion of Northern Indigenous peoples and was authored by the same Canadianofficial who would later contribute to the AEPS. Thus, Huebert suggests in thisconnection that the AEPS’ commitment to Indigenous participation ‘‘can betraced to Canadian initiatives’’ (2006:123–124). Not long after, the AEPS wassubsumed into the Arctic Council that, as discussed, further entrenched thepredominance of the Canadian Indigenous perspective with Arctic governancestructures.

Even the most casual examination of Canada’s northern foreign policy state-ments since then reveals the extent to which this ‘‘Inuit vision’’ has become theanimating principle of Canada’s engagements in the north. The linkage betweennorthern domestic policies and Canada’s broader circumpolar agenda, framed inthe language of ‘‘partnership,’’ is firmly established in key guiding policydocuments including the Northern Dimension policy statement (DFAIT 2001),and more recently the Harper government’s Northern Strategy (Government ofCanada 2009). The ‘‘four pillars’’ upon which Canada’s northern policy isfounded according to the Strategy—sovereignty, sustainable development, envi-ronmental protection, and devolution—very clearly reflect the important domesticdimension of Canada’s northern policies and have a lineage that can be tracedback to the beginnings of the relationship between the government and the Inuit.

Bringing it Home, Again

How, finally, can this be linked back to the broader question of national identityunderstood not in terms of what Canada tells the world about itself, but ratherin terms of what Canadians tell themselves? Is there any connection, or shouldwe instead understand Canada’s international expressions of an Inuit vision inthe circumpolar as nothing more than empty rhetoric designed to serve prag-matic political interests?

Certainly, there are grounds for the latter interpretation stemming fromrecent actions—and failures to act—that seem to contradict the discourse ofindigenized nordicity. One such contradiction can be seen in the growing sal-ience of an alternative image of Canadian nordicity vis-a-vis the circumpolarworld. Contra the image of the region as a cooperative space, this second image


turns on a discourse of fear—the ‘‘north’’ figures here specifically as ‘‘ournorth,’’ and it is under siege. Our northern resources, our northern security,our northern sovereignty; each of these is positioned as being threatened, atworst, or challenged, at best, by our circumpolar neighbors. In this context,Minister Cannon’s recent comments regarding Canada’s intentions to affirm‘‘our leadership, stewardship, and ownership of the region’’ based on our statusas both an Arctic nation and an Arctic power are illustrative (DFAIT 2009).Given the attachment that Canadians have to ‘‘our north’’ precisely because ofits long-standing place in our self-narrative, this ‘‘north under siege’’ discoursehas evoked a strong reaction from Canadians. Not unexpectedly, observers havenoted that promises to assert Canada’s status as an ‘‘Arctic power’’ to defend ournorthern interests have served the Harper government well.

This discourse has certainly informed developments on the domestic front,and is regularly deployed in support of an increasingly militarized and defense-oriented posture in the north. It may be that this notion has also informedrecent Canadian actions in the north that are difficult to reconcile with the Inuitvision described in this paper. Most notably, in May 2008, the Ilulissat Declara-tion was issued by the five coastal Arctic nations—Canada, Denmark, Norway,Russia, and the United States—with respect to the management of the ArcticOcean. The Declaration affirms the framework provided largely by the Law ofthe Sea Convention, according to which coastal states have the primary responsi-bility to manage activities in the Arctic Ocean. International reaction to theDeclaration was not long in coming, and in October 2008 the European Parlia-ment adopted a resolution premised upon the view that existing legal regimesare inadequate as a framework for managing the Arctic region because theimpact of climate change on the accessibility of the region had not previouslybeen anticipated. The resolution therefore urges the European Commission toopen international negotiations ‘‘designed to lead to the adoption of an interna-tional treaty for the protection of the Arctic, having as its inspiration the Antarc-tic Treaty’’ (European Parliament 2008). A key feature of that Treaty is whatamounts to a suspension of sovereign claims in Antarctica for the life of theTreaty in the name of scientific cooperation (Conference on Antarctica 1959).

Contrary to the suspension or limitation of sovereign claims in the ArcticOcean, the Ilulissat Declaration justifies the ‘‘unique position’’ of the signatorystates precisely ‘‘by virtue of their sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction inlarge areas of the Arctic Ocean’’ (Arctic Ocean Conference 2008). Thus, whilethe Declaration is on one level a collective affirmation of existing legal regimesgoverning the Arctic Ocean, it is most fundamentally an assertion of the sovereignrights and claims of these five Arctic states, including the right to manage theregion on their own. Certainly, the Declaration commits the five coastal states tothe ‘‘orderly settlement’’ of competing sovereignty claims. Importantly, althoughthe Declaration further commits the coastal states in the Arctic to cooperationwith ‘‘interested parties’’ and ‘‘relevant states’’ in order to protect the ArcticOcean’s ecosystem, the message to the rest of the world, and even to the othernon-coastal Arctic nations, is clear—management of Arctic Ocean issues will be anin-house affair conducted by those with sovereign rights and claims in the region.

In this context, however, the game is a complicated affair involving playersasserting their right to a place at the table at the same time as international lawhas not yet evolved to be able to take account of nonstate actors in such circum-stances. The Canadian Inuit are a case in point, and as such they have turnedinstead to Canadian domestic law to support their claim to a rightful—andlegal—place at the table. The Inuit were quick to react to the Ilulissat Declara-tion, insisting in a statement issued in June 2008 by ICC Canada that the Inuitmust be active participants in international discussions about sovereignty in theArctic. Indeed, Canadian Inuit issued a particularly powerful challenge to the

115Samantha Arnold

Ilulissat process, asserting that ‘‘[o]ur Canadian land-claims and self-governmentprocesses makes it mandatory for the Federal Government to include us (InuitCircumpolar Council 2008, my emphasis). This claim was formalized less than ayear later in the Circumpolar Inuit Declaration on Sovereignty, adopted by theICC in April 2009. In addition to claiming rights as an Indigenous Arctic peopleand as citizens of Arctic states, the Declaration on Sovereignty specifically refer-ences the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement as providing a basis for CanadianInuit involvement in external relations (Inuit Circumpolar Council 2009).

This development points to another underlying tension between Canada’sstated agenda in the north and its actions—this time, at home. A significantpoint of contention is the fact that the government has not yet fully imple-mented the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement, according to which Nunavutwould gain, among other things, control over the resources in and under itsinternal waters. As outlined in this paper, a key argument informing Canada’sassertion of sovereign rights in these waters is that they are internal to Canada(rather than constituting an international strait) precisely because they havebeen historically occupied and used by the Inuit. The contradiction in Canada’sposition is put simply by Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik: ‘‘how can Canada makeits legal case for sovereignty on Inuit use and occupancy, and then refuse toacknowledge that these same waters fall within the territory created for Inuit?’’(Griffiths, Okalik, Lalonde, Huebert, and Lauckenbauer 2008:6).

At the same time as these contradictions point to an appropriation of the‘‘Inuit vision’’ to construct an indigenized nordicity for pragmatic reasons, it isalso possible to suggest that the deployment of this particular image of Canada’snorthern identity through Canada’s foreign policy has nevertheless worked toconsolidate a sense among Canadians that the Inuit vision of the north is theessence of a specifically Canadian nordicity. Put differently, it is possible to sug-gest that Canadians may have internalized their own press. As argued elsewhere(Arnold 2010a), foreign policy can be understood as the international projectionof national identity but also as something that works to actually construct thatidentity at home. To be seen as legitimate, foreign policy needs to be recognizedby Canadians as ‘‘making sense’’ and as being consistent with the image of howCanadians understand their role in the world. In order to be so recognized, pol-icy statements need to be sensible within the broader system of meanings thatoperate within society—they need to resonate with the traditions, values, cultures,and self-narratives that Canadians maintain. But at the same time as foreign policystatements need to ‘‘fit’’ the prevailing meanings within society, they also work toreproduce the prevailing meanings, and then derive authority from them (seeAshley 1987; Doty 1993; Hansen 2006). Put differently, foreign policy makes senseif it conforms to the established view of who we are as Canadians and what we‘‘stand for,’’ and at the same time, foreign policy reaffirms the correctness of thatself-image to the extent that it seems to make sense. Taken together, this suggeststhat the articulation and projection of Canada’s indigenized nordicity could notsimply appear out of nowhere—it needed to ‘‘make sense’’ to Canadians in orderfor Canadians to see the foreign policies of their state as legitimate and authorita-tive. As the same time, this image was reflected back to Canadians preciselythrough these authoritative statements, internalized exactly because they ‘‘makesense.’’

A full consideration of this possibility is beyond the scope of this paper. Thatsaid, there are important recent indications that Canada’s international articula-tion of an indigenized nordicity does ‘‘make sense’’ to Canadians in that itworks to affirm an identity that resonates with the broader self-image thatCanadians have of their country as advancing a liberal internationalist agendacommitted to human rights, multilateralism, and good global citizenship (onthe salience of this tradition in the Canadian context see especially Nossal 1999;


Chapnick 2000; Munton and Keating 2001; Munton 2003). The choice of‘‘Illanaaq’’—a stylized inuksuk—as the symbol of Vancouver’s 2010 OlympicGames, is suggestive on this point.4

That an Aboriginal symbol should be deployed in this way is not surprising.Eva Mackey has argued that the official assimilation of Aboriginal culture andtraditions has long performed an important function in the construction ofan idealized Canadian narrative by highlighting and supporting a Canadianclaim to be diverse and tolerant (2002:77–78). Like Mackey, Leanne Pupchek(2001) also points to the Canadian tradition of appropriating Indigenousculture in order to cultivate a Canadian national identity through the articula-tion of difference from Europe (and the US, in Mackey’s argument). In thiscontext, she traces the way in which Indigenous art, described as early as1927 as having the ‘‘unique quality of being entirely national in its originand character’’ (Pupchek 2001:195), was appropriated by the Canadiannationalist project.

Pupchek points to the emergence by the twentieth century of the idea that‘‘nation’’ could be expressed through art and traces the establishment of equiva-lence between specifically Inuit art and the Canadian nation in the context ofwhat Pupchek describes as the ‘‘quest for the Folk.’’ This ‘‘quest’’ had its originsin nineteenth-century German nationalist discourse and reflected the desire toreclaim a simpler, more traditional way of life. This entailed a ‘‘search for a linkwith a living idealized past, a search for the authenticity that Europeans believedthey had lost in the perceived dislocation, alienation, and artificiality of theireveryday life’’ (2001:197). This ‘living past’ is manifested in ‘the Folk,’ communi-ties that are, according to Ian McKay, ‘‘purer, more isolated, and consequently,more essential’’ (cited in Pupchek 2001:197). As Benjamin Woo notes, modernsociety is able to see itself as connected to the Folk by positioning itself as the‘‘heir’’ to their traditions and values (2006:80).

According to Pupchek, this search for authenticity unfolded in English Can-ada in the 1950s. The bar was quite high in terms of the criteria an (English)Canadian Folk would have to meet in the face of Canadian diversity: mostparticularly ‘‘[i]t had to celebrate place rather than a common uninterruptedgenetic line of descent.’’ The Inuit, she says, fit the bill perfectly in terms oftheir ‘‘perceived purity, isolation, essentialness (in terms of human-ness aswell as Northern-ness), and innocence that Folk-seekers sought’’ (2001:198).5

The small market that had emerged in Inuit art after 1948 was given a signifi-cant boost when the federal government began to provide support to itsdevelopment, and by Expo 67, with the habit of gifting foreign dignitarieswith Inuit art well established, the cultural appropriation of Inuit art asrepresenting the pure essence of the northern Canadian nation was firmlyunderway. Thus, the choice of the inuksuk as a symbol of the 2010 OlympicGames can be understood as the culmination of a long-standing practice ofappropriating an ahistorical and imaginary image of ‘‘the Inuit’’ as exemplarsof the purest form of Canada’s northern identity in the narrative of self-representation in Canada.

This logo was well received by many, including the ITK, although concernswere raised about the choice; among those were B.C. native leaders disappointedby a symbol they said does not represent the First Nations and the Pacific region(CBC News 2005). Responding to this charge, John Furlong, the chief executive

4The discussion that follows appears in expanded form in the study by Arnold (2010b).5Of course it must be stressed that this image of the Inuit bears little connection to real people or lifeways, and

owes much to the idealized and largely fictional image of ‘Nanook’ as a ‘representative’ Inuit. For an expanded dis-cussion of this point, see the study by Arnold (2010b).

117Samantha Arnold

officer of the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said that the games are Can-ada’s as much as they are B.C.’s, and that the logo is ‘‘something that we feel isconnected to every Canadian, wherever they live in the country’’ (Armstrong2005).

There is no doubt that those involved in choosing the logo understand theinuksuk to be broadly representative of Canada. According to Rivera MacGregor,one of the logo’s designers, the inuksuk is in fact is one of the few things that‘‘could represent the entire country’’ (CBC Sports 2005). IOC Chairperson ReneFasel says that the symbol ‘‘reflects the spirit, diversity, and values of Canada,’’and it is praised in the Committee’s media release as a ‘‘uniquely Canadian sym-bol of friendship, hospitality, strength, teamwork, and the vast Canadian land-scape’’ (Vancouver Olympics Organizing Committee 2005). In the same vein,reflecting on this and other evidence of the ‘‘rise of the inuksuk,’’ Jeffrey Ruhlargues that it has become ‘‘iconified,’’ a ‘‘beacon of identity’’ (2008:26; see alsothe studies by Heyes 2002; Graburn 2004).

Undeniably, Canada’s indigenized nordicity has been constructed in termsthat gloss over the very real and enduring struggles of the Inuit to securerecognition of their rights as sovereign peoples within Canada. And there is noquestion that the idealized image of ‘‘the Inuit’’ that informs this discoursestands as a homogenizing move, and one that removes the Inuit from the historyof the present. In this sense, this element of the Canadian self-narrative is nomore ‘‘real’’ than the idea that Canada’s history is characterized by peacefulinteractions between ‘‘Mounties’’ and ‘‘Indians,’’ that Canada is an unproblem-atically ‘‘open’’ and ‘‘tolerant’’ society, or that Canada has been and remains thepre-eminent international peacekeeper and honest broker. Like these ideas, thelinkage of Canadian nordicity with indigeneity is not a truth-claim but a powerfuldiscourse that makes sense to Canadians because it seems to fit with the imagethat Canadians already have of themselves. And, at the same time, this image isreaffirmed to the extent that indigenized nordicity makes sense within thatimage. Fueled, no doubt, by the heightened awareness of the struggles foraboriginal self-determination within a broader context of a self-narrative ofCanada as a uniquely diverse and tolerant society, the intersection of indigeneityand nordicity has contributed to a sense of self that has without question hada significant impact on Canada and on the post-Cold War contours of thecircumpolar world.

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constructing an indigenous nordicity: the “new partnership” and canada’s northern agenda

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