Canada And The Changing Arctic

Global warming has had a dramatic impact on the Arctic environment, including the ice melt that has opened previously ice-covered waterways. State and non-state actors who look to the region and its resources with varied agendas have started to pay attention. Do new geopolitical dynamics point to a competitive and inherently conflictual “race for resources”? Or will the Arctic become a region governed by mutual benefit, international law, and the achievement of a widening array of cooperative arrangements among interested states and Indigenous peoples? As an Arctic nation Canada is not immune to the consequences of these transformations. In Canada and the Changing Arctic: Sovereignty, Security, and Stewardship, the authors, all leading commentators on Arctic affairs, grapple with fundamental questions about how Canada should craft a responsible and effective Northern strategy. They outline diverse paths to achieving sovereignty, security, and stewardship in Canada’s Arctic and in the broader circumpolar world. The changing Arctic region presents Canadians with daunting challenges and tremendous opportunities. This book will inspire continued debate on what Canada must do to protect its interests, project its values, and play a leadership role in the twenty-first-century Arctic. Forewords by Senator Hugh Segal and former Minister of Foreign Affairs and of National Defence Bill Graham.

Rather than a single national perspective, The Fast-Changing Arctic brings together circumpolar viewpoints from North America, Europe and Asia for an integrated discussion of strategic military, diplomatic, and security challenges in the high North. Thoughtful analyses are included of different regions, climate issues, institutions, and foreign and security policies."--Pub. desc.

When Canada's Changing North was first published in 1971, it quickly became a popular and reliable overview of the geography and culture of the Canadian North. In the three decades since it first appeared, great changes have occurred in this huge region that makes up two thirds of Canada's total area. This revised and expanded edition provides a new generation with a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the Canadian North and outlines how this region has become increasingly integrated into both the Canadian national fabric and the world.Among the many recent developments explored in Canada's Changing North is the legal recognition of aboriginal rights by the Canadian state, which has led directly to significant increases in their political and economic power. It also examines how economic development, which has long focused on non-renewable natural resources, particularly minerals, has grown to an enormous scale. Development of arctic oil and gas, which hinges on world supplies and national and international politics, has meant major changes across the North. Some of the new national parks in the Canadian North are already under threat from mineral development. Northern tourism has made it possible for a wide variety of affluent visitors to visit hitherto remote areas, affecting the ecology. The final selection, on northern challenges, discusses critical issues such as the impact of climatic change, the social needs (e.g. housing, education) of a rapidly increasing aboriginal population, environmental protection of unique regions, and defence of Arctic sovereignty. Of the sixty-two readings in this edition, forty-one are new.

This volume describes current understanding of the impacts that climate change and variability will have on all aspects of the Northwest Territories/Nunavut physical & biological environment and its socio-economic activities, and of existing or potential adaptation options. The initial sections review the region's socio-economic context, ecozones, and climate, and describe various scenarios of climate change as determined from global climate change models. Section D assesses impacts of and adaptation to climate change in the physical environment (hydrology, permafrost, sea ice, sea level & coastal processes, freshwater ice), in terrestrial & marine ecosystems, and in such socio-economic sectors as oil & gas, transportation, construction, tourism, forestry, and fisheries. The final section discusses opportunities for further research.

In April 1988, after years of failed negotiations over the status of the Northwest Passage, Brian Mulroney gave Ronald Reagan a globe, pointed to the Arctic, and said “Ron that’s ours. We own it lock, stock, and icebergs.” A simple statement, it summed up Ottawa’s official policy: Canada owns the icy waters that wind their way through the Arctic Archipelago. Behind the scenes, however, successive governments have spent over a century trying to figure out how to enforce this claim. Drawing on recently declassified material, Lajeunesse guides readers through the evolution of Canada’s Arctic sovereignty, showing how the Northwest Passage and the surrounding waters became Canadian.

Climate Change and Writing the Canadian Arctic explores the impact of climate change on Canadian literary culture. Analysis of the changing rhetoric surrounding the discovery of the lost ships of the Franklin expedition serves to highlight the political and economic interests that have historically motivated Canada’s approach to the Arctic and shaped literary representations. A recent shift in Canadian writing away from national sovereignty to circumpolar stewardship is revealed in detailed close readings of Kathleen Winter’s Boundless and Sheila Watt-Cloutier’s The Right to Be Cold.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962) was Canada's greatest modern arctic explorer, theorist, writer, and pioneer ethnologist. For the first quarter of the twentieth century his ideas captured the imagination of Canadians and gave them a sense of Canada's nor

An energetic and engaging collaboration by four of Canada's leading Northern specialists, Arctic Front is a clarion call to all Canadians about our endangered Arctic region.