CULTURAL CONFLICT IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

• Published in: The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe canadien
• Main Authors: Michie, George H., Neil, Eric M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1955
• Subjects: Arctic; Workman; eskimo*; Keewatin; Tundra
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1955.tb01749.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1541-0064.1955.tb01749.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-0064.1955.tb01749.x

SUMMARY The exploitation of the Canadian Arctic by people of European extraction has meant profound disruption to the culture of the indigenous Eskimo people. Through the fur‐trade they were provided with efficient weapons with which they have rapidly depleted their resource base. From the white man, also, have come many diseases which have ravaged and reduced the natives themselves. A new era of northern development is now beginning in which the mineral resources are about to be exploited. In it the Eskimo cultures of Ungava and Keewatin face their most severe testing time. The Eskimo can be a useful workman. If the whole population migrates to the new settlements, the younger generation will not learn the old ways so that the culture, and probably the race ag well, will disappear. On the other hand, through proper attention to health, housing, education, conditioes of employment and improvement of the resource base, it should be possible to integrate the Eskimo into the new order. Some of them may be educated to fill very useful places in north‐ ern industries while, at the same time, the old culture may be continued and improved by others who develop a new herding industry on the tundra from which the caribou have vanished. In the present global situation, there is some worry about the lack of population in the immense northland. For economic and political, as well a8 humanitarian reasons, Canadais compelled to face the problem of Eskimo survival and to attempt to provide a solution. In any event, the human geography of the Canadian Arctic is being rapidly recast.