Extracting northern knowledge: Tracing the history of post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut

• Main Author: Black, Kelly
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Yukon College 2015
• Subjects: Canada; Northern; Universities and colleges > Canada; Northern > History; Education; Higher > Canada; Indigenous peoples > Canada; Indigenous peoples > Education (Higher) > Canada; Arctic regions > Research > Canada; Arctic; Nunavut; Northwest Territories; Inuvik; ArcticNet
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10613/4877

This article traces the historical development of post-secondary education in the Western and Eastern Arctic from the end of the Second World War to the late 1980s and explores the role that southern Canadian universities have played in carrying out the socio-economic goals of nation building in the North. Writing from an interdisciplinary perspective, I argue that the history of higher education in the North should be situated within the context of settler colonialism, Canadian nationalism, resource extraction, and the struggle for Indigenous self-determination. The debate around a "bricks and mortar" northern university is ongoing, and this article brings attention to the questions and concerns of the past in order to inform present and future dialogue around post-secondary education in the North. ArcticNet funded the research presented in this article. This is an electronic version of an article originally published as: Black, K. (2015). Extracting northern knowledge: Tracing the history of post-secondary education in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. The Northern Review, 40, 35-61. More information about The Northern Review can be found at: http://journals.sfu.ca/nr/index.php/nr/index and this article can be found at: http://journals.sfu.ca/nr/index.php/nr/article/view/462/512. Journal cover image art: detail from "Whitehorse to Inuvik, #17" from the series Get There from Here, by Nicole Bauberger.