The Northern
Review 51 (2021): 3–4 https://doi.org/10.22584/nr51.2021.010
Editorial:
Number 51
In
2021, the world is dominated by two intense discussions: environmental
sustainability and the COVID-19 pandemic. It is fitting, therefore, that this
issue of the Northern
Review provides a series of perspectives on these topics,
ranging from Indigenous engagements with Greenpeace, to the role of the
Canadian Rangers in disaster mitigation, to mining pollution and wastewater
management. While this issue is not exclusively focused on these themes—papers
on affordable northern housing and the Arctic Council continue to broaden the
reach of the journal—questions about how the North can create a profitable and
successful economy while protecting the environment, and how this vast and
thinly populated area can respond to crises, remain front and centre.
For
much of the global pandemic, the North has been one of the leading regions in
battling the spread of COVID-19. Scandinavia has generally done quite well.
Remote communities in Alaska and the Canadian North stopped traffic into their
settlements in a calculated attempt to hold back the latest biological threat
to their viability. And they did so well. In the early summer of 2021, however,
things shifted. The Yukon, with one of the highest vaccination rates in the
world and an enviable track record for protecting its citizens, suddenly was
hit by the highest infection rates in well over a year. Nunavut, which had
locked itself down tightly, with strict quarantine requirements and tight
controls on movements into the territory, faced a distressing series of outbreaks.
The
pandemic experiences speak to a central theme in northern life: vulnerability.
Northerners are always subject to the climatic realities of living in the
Arctic and Subarctic, including extreme cold, blizzards, river flooding, and
the like. They rely on tenuous lifelines to southern suppliers, previously
reliant on seasonal shipping, now supplemented by air travel and, perhaps, with
airships in the future. But the North is vulnerable, too, to mining disasters
or poorly planned mitigation efforts. The reclamation of the mines near Faro,
Yukon, will cost governments a great deal of money, as will the clean-up from
the Yellowknife gold mines. The vulnerability of Indigenous women living with
domestic violence is yet another illustration of the urgent need for fast and
effective responses and an indication of the difficulty of providing such
support in northern communities.
The
papers in this issue of the Northern Review
speak, in a variety of ways, to the North’s need for careful and thoughtful
planning, the availability of disaster relief teams, appropriate environmental
regulations and oversight, and the kind of long-term thinking that is coming
out of the Arctic Council. The role of Greenpeace in upsetting the Arctic
trapping economy reminds us that vulnerabilities emerge, often with
catastrophic consequences, from the activities of outsiders, many of whom
honestly believe they are acting in the North’s best interests.
The
pandemic and climate change are shocking illustrations of the vulnerability of
all of humanity. The Northern Review remains committed
to highlighting the unique challenges of the Circumpolar North, and to
providing practical illustrations of the consequences of inaction or bad policy
as well as ideas on how to better protect the North from the many climatic,
environmental, economic, and policy-induced dangers that face the region.
Ken Coates is professor and
Canada Research Chair in Regional Innovation, Johnson Shoyama
Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Saskatchewan; Fellow, Royal
Society of Canada; and a founding and senior editor of the Northern
Review.