Friendly Arctic The Story Of 5

This book offers a portrait of early ethnographic work in the American Arctic, with a focus on understanding the mutual constitution of the Inuit and their early ethnographers. It draws mainly on a rich repository of written testimonies from the early twentieth century, the ‘great ethnographic period’ when new scholarly interest in the region took off. Supplementing the movements and observations of whalers, traders, and missionaries, the early chroniclers offered new knowledge of Inuit life. Although their descriptions of the Inuit bear the marks of their time, the texts have left a deep mark on later developments and contributed to a long-lasting view of human life in the Arctic. The chapters show the infiltration of lives and landscapes, of thoughts and materials, of Inuit and ethnographers. The book will be relevant to anthropologists as well as historians, geographers, and others with an interest the Arctic region and Indigenous studies.

2020 Arthur Ellis Award, Best Nonfiction Crime Book — Shortlisted In its rush to establish dominion over the North, Canada executed two innocent Inuit. In 1921, the RCMP arrested two Inuit males suspected of killing their uncle. While in custody, one of the accused allegedly killed a police officer and a Hudson's Bay Company trader. The Canadian government hastily established an unprecedented court in the Arctic, but the trial quickly became a master class in judicial error. The verdicts were decided in Ottawa weeks before the court convened. Authorities were so certain of convictions, the executioner and gallows were sent north before the trial began. In order to win, the Crown broke many of its own laws. The precedent established Canada’s legal relationship with the Inuit, who would spend the next seventy-seven years fighting to regain their autonomy and Indigenous rule of law.

As the Far North assumes an increasingly important role in international politics, so too does Canada’s role in its governance. In 1991, eight countries signed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy: Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland. This was the first step in the formation of the Arctic Council, which was formally established in 1996 to act as a high-level intergovernmental body to address social, political, and environmental issues in the Arctic. Indigenous peoples, who form a significant population in seven of the eight countries’ Arctic regions, are involved in the council as permanent participants if they represent a single indigenous people across borders. Acclaimed biographer John English explores the history and growing relevancy of the council as Canada becomes the chair of that body in 2013. English chronicles a remarkable shift in Canada’s stance. The Canadian embrace of co-operative multilateralism in the nineties and the jealous protection of sovereignty in 2010 reveal a difference in approach, interest, and values. Both approaches had antecedents in Canada’s past—there has been Liberal unilateralism and nationalist rhetoric too—but there are fundamental differences between Canadian policies in the 1990s and those adopted in the following decade. Ice and Water explores the origins, creation, and development of the Arctic Council as a means of understanding those differences.

In 1969, an icebreaking tanker, the SS Manhattan, was commissioned by Humble Oil to transit the Northwest Passage in order to test the logistical and economic feasibility of an all-marine transportation system for Alaska North Slope crude oil. Proposed as an alternative to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the Manhattan made two voyages to the North American Arctic and collected volumes of scientific data on ice conditions and the behavior of ships in ice. Although the Manhattan successfully navigated the Northwest Passage—closing a five-hundred-year chapter of Arctic exploration by becoming the first commercial vessel to do so—the expedition ultimately demonstrated the impracticality of moving crude oil using icebreaking ships. Breaking Ice for Arctic Oil details this historic voyage, establishing its significant impact on the future of marine traffic and resource development in the Arctic and setting the stage for the current oil crisis.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY JOHN R. BOCKSTOCE -- CONTENTS -- Foreword by William Barr -- Preface -- Part 1 INTRODUCTION -- 1. Fort Ross: Founding and Abandonment, 1937 to 1948 -- 2. White Fox: From the Trapper to the Retail Customer -- Part 2 DEVELOPMENT OF THE WESTERN ARCTIC FUR TRADE TO 1914 -- 3. The Advance of the Maritime Trade in the Bering Strait Region -- 4. Expansion of the Trade in Northern Alaska and Western Arctic Canada -- Part 3 HEYDAY OF THE WESTERN ARCTIC FUR TRADE, 1914 TO 1929 -- 5. Revolution and Civil War on the Chukchi Peninsula -- 6. Growth of the Trade in Northern Alaska -- 7. Competition among Traders in Western Arctic Canada -- Part 4 DECLINE OF THE WESTERN ARCTIC FUR TRADE, 1929 TO CA. 1950 -- 8. State Ownership of the Trade on the Chukchi Peninsula -- 9. Contraction of Trade in Northern Alaska -- 10. Toward Monopoly Control in Western Arctic Canada -- Chronology -- Glossary -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y

More than an account of the human delusion and fortitude in penetrating one of the most inhospitable areas of the world, Arctic Obsession goes beyond the gripping history of northern exploration, of the searches for the Northwest and Northeast Passages. From early medieval times to the twenty-first century, what has been the beguiling attraction of the North? What manner of men were they who boldly ventured into those hostile and unpredictable regions, scores never to return home, swallowed up by the merciless north. Today’s Arctic is developing into tomorrows hot spot. Arctic Obsession dwells on contemporary issues besetting the most fragile part of our globe global warming and environmental, ecological and geo-political concerns. The book also provides an overview of the entire Arctic region, from Canada, Russia, and Alaska to Greenland, Iceland, and the North Sea.

This is the biography of an exceptional Canadian who as a member of the RCMP, played a crucial role in asserting Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic. Having emigrated to Canada from England in 1913 Harry Stallworthy joined the Force in 1914 and until 1921 served at various detachments in the Yukon, except for the period 1918-19 when he participated in the RNWMP’s Cavalry Detachment as part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the final bloody months of World War I in Flanders. After serving for two years at Chesterfield Inlet (west shore of Hudson Bay) he was posted to Edmonton, and while there contracted influenza which developed into pneumonia and very nearly killed him. After two years in Jasper (where he met his future wife, Hilda Austin, the school principal), for two years he served at the new RCMP post at Stony Rapids in Northern Saskatchewan. In 1930 he went north for a two-year posting at Bache Peninsula, Ellesmere Island, one of the three posts established to assert Canadian sovereignty in the uninhabited High Arctic. While there, in 1932 he mounted one of the longest and most dangerous sledge patrols in the history of the Force, in search of the missing German geologist, Hans Krueger. In 1933 the resupply ship was unable to reach Bache Peninsula due to ice conditions, and hence the two-year posting stretched to three years. On Stallworthy’s return south in the fall of 1933, he and Hilda got married – after an almost complete separation of five years! In the light of his experience on Ellesmere Island Harry was next seconded to the Oxford University Ellesmere Land Expedition, organized by Eddie Shackleton, son of Sir Ernest Shackleton, for 1934-35. During this operation Harry sledged to Lake Hazen, Ellesmere Island, the farthest north point ever reached by an RCMP officer on sledge patrol. Thereafter Harry served at various posts in southern Canada, with the exception of a few years at Fort Smith during World War II. He retired in 1946, after which he and Hilda built and ran a small tourist resort, Timberlane, near Campbell River on Vancouver Island. In 1954 Harry came out of retirement briefly, to assume the position of head of security on the eastern half of the DEW Line. He was presented with the Order of Canada by Queen Elizabeth in 1973 and died at his home in Comox, B.C. on Christmas Day, 1976.