CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES

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1 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES by R.G. Ironside Ironside, R.G., 2000: Canadian northern settlements: top-down and bottom-up influences. Geogr. Ann., 82 B (2): ABSTRACT. The objective of this paper is to examine the evolution of settlement in northern Canada from the viewpoint of the paradigms of bottom-up or top-down development, the former being community driven and the latter government initiated. Following a review of the stages of settlement evolution and the major influences on them including the airplane and the Second World War, the Scone Report s characterization of settlements as developed or underdeveloped is presented. Much of the initial settlement of the North was top-down involving government or private capital from outside the region because it was a frontier devoid of settlement. Subsequently the building blocks of bottomup development emerged. The federal government s devolution of power to the NWT Council in Yellowknife and the decentralization of a civil service from Ottawa was an important prerequisite for local government. This process has been strengthened recently by comprehensive settlements with aboriginal groups providing another building block in the form of land, hunting and mineral rights, and cash compensation for the extinguishment of aboriginal rights. A third building block for bottom-up development lies in the mixed economy which has emerged encompassing employment and business income from, for example, regional development corporations and co-operatives, transfers from Ottawa, country food, and the use of traditional skills of hunting, fishing and trapping. The adaptation of these skills to tourism, prospecting, guiding as well as aboriginal participation in oil and gas development and diamond mining indicate that such community involvement with a modern economy will outlast specific non-renewable resource use. Ambrose Bierce, the humourist, short story writer and journalist, in The Devil s Dictionary published in 1911 by the Neale Publishing Company of New York, defined Man as: An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity, as to infest the whole habitable earth and Canada. Introduction This paper addresses the still relatively new and controversial paradigm of bottom-up development as opposed to top-down development, the former being community based and the latter founded in central government. The origins of this debate in geography lie in the work of Friedmann and Weaver 1 and Stohr and Taylor. 2 It has been influential on government policy resulting in reports by advisory agencies such as the Economic Council of Canada, 3 in the EEC with programmes such as the Local Employment Development Action (LEDA) programme 4 and in Sweden with the revised 1986 Planning Act and its analysis by Erik Bylund and the government. 5 Governments seeking relief from ever more expensive top-down regional development programmes which increasingly were judged to be ineffective by the 1980s in delivering jobs largely through assistance to companies in different industries in disadvantaged regions, were persuaded by the apparent low cost of leaving development to local communities. While the argument that development should be left in the hands of those being developed is strong philosophically, it has various contradictions, and in economic, social and other dimensions is questionably pragmatic. This will be examined in terms of Canadian northern settlement. This paper uses as a general framework regarding settlements the questions of What is Where; When, Why and How settlements developed, and what their prospects are in the context of the massive changes affecting the Canadian North; namely political devolution from Ottawa, aboriginal comprehensive claims and economic development. First, where is the North in Canada? It is not just north of the Arctic Circle, nor just the Northwest Territories (NWT), Yukon and now Nunavut north of 60 latitude. It also includes what Coates and Morrison called the forgotten north. 6 The southern boundary of the North has been defined by Hamelin s 7 Index of Nordicity made more meaningful in social science terms when Bone 8 operationalized it with Census Divisions from the Census of Canada (Fig. 1a). 103

2 R.G. IRONSIDE Fig. 1. Northern Canada: developed and underdeveloped communities. Regretfully, I have only time to address the settlements north of 60 latitude and mainly those in the NWT including what is now Nunavut. Of the total northern population of 1,322,825 in 1996 there were 94,780 or some 7.2% north of latitude 60. Ethnically this is composed in 1996 of 52% nonaboriginal, 26% Inuit, 17% Indian and 5% Métis. A major demographic difference from the rest of Canada is the rate of natural increase among Inuit and Indians which is over three times the Canadian rate. This is reflected in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows that in the eastern and northern administrative regions of the NWT, population increased by more than 50% over a fifteen-year period. For many small settlements and even large ones such as Yellowknife and Inuvik very high rates of increase have been experienced over a longer thirty-five year period from 1961 to 1996 as shown in Table 2. A number of publications (Bone, the Scone Report, Barre, Hamilton, and Ironside) 9 have indicated that this population increase presents a major challenge to governments and communities for future job creation, housing, healthcare, education and other social services. Settlement evolution There are several stages common to the settlement of the North. There were no permanent settlements Table 1. Population change of the Canadian north % Change Yukon 23, , NWT 45,741 64, NWT Baffin Region 8,300 13, Keewatin 4,327 6, Fort Smith 22,344 30, Inuvik 7,485 9, Kitikmeot 3,285 5, Source: Census of Canada 104

3 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES Table 2. Population change: NWT and Yukon communities, 1961 to Developed Undeveloped Population % Change Population % Change / /1996 Yellowknife 17, Aklavik Hay River 3, Arctic Bay 639 1,204.1 Fort Smith 2, Arviat 1, Inuvik 3, Baker Lake 1, Resolute Broughton Island Norman Wells Cambridge Bay 1, Nanisivik Cape Dorset 1, Chesterfield Inlet Iqualuit 4, Clyde River 708 1,670.0 Coral Harbour Other Developed Gjoa Haven Yukon Grise Fiord Whitehorse 19, Holman Island Dawson 1, Igloolik 1, Faro 1,261 n/a Pangnirtung 1, Pelly Bay Other Undeveloped Pond Inlet 1,154 2,077.4 NWT Rankin Inlet 2, Fort Good Hope Repulse Bay Fort Liard Sachs Harbour Fort McPherson Sanikiluaq Fort Simpson 1, Tuktoyaktuk Fort Providence Whale Cove Fort Resolution Sources: Census of Canada and the Scone Report before whalers, sealers, fur traders, missionaries and police came north in the nineteenth century. The Hudson s Bay Company posts and the Anglican and Catholic missions attracted a few Indians and Inuit to live there temporarily between trips to live on the land. Transport by rivers or coastal waters was crucial to this stage of settlement both to ship out furs and ship in trade goods. One such good was the repeater rifle. There were reports as early as of Inuit starving because of reduced herds of migrating caribou. Disease among the animals and Inuit and the rifle were certainly contributory causes. In addition, the fur market collapsed during the Depression. Starvation and disease among the Inuit occurred over the next forty years and stimulated Ottawa into an active northern policy and programmes from the early 1950s, especially for the eastern Arctic. There were two other major early influences on settlement: the aeroplane and the Second World War. From the 1920s aircraft allowed access by mineral prospectors, white trappers, airfield construction, weather stations and police posts. While much of this was government top-down financed, particularly in the western North, what Carrothers called the free whites, 11 for example, the entrepreneurs, merchants and miners, built communities such as the gold town of Yellowknife, the lead zinc mine at Pine Point, the Imperial Oil settlement of Norman Wells, the transport centre of Hay River and Inuvik as a new administrative centre. The tied whites were the missionaries, police, Hudson s Bay Company employees, local administrators and Ottawa s civil servants, including northern service officers. Much of the settlement in the Mackenzie valley and the western Arctic can be attributed, therefore, to private sector businesses beginning with Hudson s Bay Company posts in the 1840s in the Yukon and lower Mackenzie Valley. It was not top-down driven government investment, although it could be argued that starting from a clean frontier slate most of the private capital necessarily was top-down from outside the region. The Second World War contributed to northern settlement through the co-operation of the USA and Canada in developing the CANOL oil pipeline from Norman Wells to Whitehorse in the Yukon, the Alaska Highway and airfields to stage aircraft to Alaska and in the east to Britain and Russia. 12 After the twenty-two DEW line radar stations were built pro- 105

4 R.G. IRONSIDE viding jobs to nearby settlements. However, it was not until the 1950s that Ottawa began to build new schools and then settlements for Inuit and to improve Indian settlements. The catalyst was the former s disease and starvation. It was also the resolution of the debate whether to leave them to a traditional way of life or treat them as Canadians on territory claimed as Canada. The latter argument won, particularly on moral grounds. Apart from a few Christian-run schools, there were none; also no healthcare facilities and no paid employment. A new administrative centre was needed for the western Arctic. This was to become Inuvik. As Hamilton reports, it was built in stages and became the model for over twenty new towns. First came a machine shop, then a school with attached residence, then a nursing station, then a police post, then a power plant. 13 Houses also had to be built for the Inuit and white personnel, the nurses, engineers and construction crews. Gradually, native people were encouraged to move off the land to these permanent settlements, a process largely completed by the mid-1960s. One inducement was that payment of family allowance depended on children being in school. There were also resource reasons for settlement growth not mentioned yet, for example, a nickel mine at Rankin Inlet from 1955 to 1962, a gold mine at Lupin, lead zinc at Nanisivik and in the case of Grise Fiord and Resolute Inuit were moved from elsewhere for purposes of sovereignty defence. In the western North, settlement development occurred because of further transportation improvements. These included the construction of the Northern Alberta Railroad and then the Great Slave Lake Railroad to Pine Point by 1965, the highway to Yellowknife in 1961, the Dempster Highway between Dawson and Inuvik in 1978, and the Liard Highway between Fort Simpson and Fort Nelson, British Columbia, on the Alaska Highway in The Mackenzie Highway now ends at Fort Good Hope well beyond Norman Wells. Provincial and federal monies created this infrastructure which has aided business investment in the Yukon and the NWT immensely. Today, there are two large settlements, Yellowknife (17,275, 1996) in the NWT and Whitehorse (19,157) in the Yukon; also in the NWT are Fort Smith (2,441), Fort Simpson (1,257), Hay River (3,611), Iqaluit (4,220), Inuvik (9,024) and in the Yukon Dawson (1,287) and Faro (1,261). There are also over fifty small communities, the majority with under 1,000 population. The Scone Report study in 1989 divided NWT settlements into developed and underdeveloped communities (Table 2) (Fig. 1). 14 The map shows clearly the predominance of the smaller settlements in the central and eastern Arctic, whether they have business potential or are underdeveloped. Seven, it claimed, are developed: Yellowknife, Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik, Resolute, Norman Wells and Nanisivik. Iqaluit has to be added now, because it is the chosen capital of Nunavut. These communities are administrative regional centres or resource communities, with larger populations, business sectors, higher incomes, lower unemployment, fewer natives. The underdeveloped communities are the mirror opposites. They are small, more isolated, with fewer business opportunities, lower incomes, higher unemployment and largely native populations. Political devolution This process was a major prerequisite building block for bottom-up development. Following the Second World War, the almost haphazard pre-war administration of the North from Ottawa with appointed civil servants to the NWT Council evolved into a realization by the federal government that there should be more elected members and gradual decentralization of administration. Much of this was accomplished by two exceptional Commissioners of the NWT, Parker and Hodgson. In 1967 Yellowknife became the designated capital of the NWT and much administration was transferred to it. In terms of political devolution, the NWT Act was amended in 1975 to make all members of the Council elected. It became the government and operated like the provincial legislatives. Partially fulfilled, therefore, was a priority of Chretien s statement in 1972 of the federal government s northern development strategy to further the evolution of government in the northern territories. 15 What was even more important in terms of bottom-up development was the recommendation by the Hodgson Report in 1974 that local government be encouraged in northern communities. He linked this objective to another to achieve in keeping with the aspirations of the people, their culture, traditional pursuits, lifestyles, and skills... useful and meaningful employment opportunities at all levels of society. 16 Hamilton states that in 1964 there were only three incorporated communities in the NWT Yellowknife, Hay River and Fort Smith. The fifty-plus other communities had advisory councils or no formal organization. By 1979 there were twenty-five 106

5 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES incorporated municipalities, ranging from hamlets to a single city, Yellowknife, plus twenty-six settlement Councils, band Councils and regional councils. 17 The government of the NWT, with its idea of Prime Public Authority in 1987, which makes the local municipality the key agency for the coordination of services, has helped to further the decentralization of responsibilities for public services to the local level. Without such political devolution and administrative decentralization from Ottawa and also from Yellowknife there would be no sense of local responsibility and control, and thus little potential for any local economic development or regional co-operation. Unlike Sweden, there is no integrated spatial physical planning or broad economic planning from the national to the regional to the local municipal scale in Canada or the North. While the NWT government regionalized specialist services with regional councils (e.g. technical planners, wildlife biologists, nutritionists) so that they could be shared between communities, only two genuine regional organizations exist regional land-use planning and regional tourist organizations. The Scone Report advised that a regional approach built around regional economic development planning has become an absolute necessity. 18 A major reason are the great differences in needs and potentials between, for example, the Indian communities of the boreal forest along the Mackenzie Valley, the Inuit of the delta and the Baffin Island communities. It should be noted that in 1977 the Inuit did create the Baffin Regional Council to deal with their community s problems, and in the following decade other regional (and tribal) councils appeared in the NWT s administrative regions. The NWT governments feared that this might be a prelude to a demand for regional governments. 19 They could certainly be viewed as the political antecedents of the native land claims. A response was made in 1988 with the government of the NWT tabling documents in the legislative to indicate its opposition to further development of regional political structures. 20 Aboriginal comprehensive settlements These constitute a major building block for bottomup local development. The comprehensive claims policy was initiated by the federal government in It was concerned with grievances from native peoples who had not entered into a treaty relationship with the Crown or had their rights superseded by law. Such existed in British Columbia, northern Quebec, the Yukon and the NWT. 21 One grievance was that the government of the NWT and its civil service did not represent or have credibility with Indians and Inuit. While there were increasingly elected natives, they believed it served white residents interests more and reflected southern development attitudes. As wage employment and nonrenewable resource development occurred, the traditional lifestyle of using the renewable resources of the land, continued to disappear. This was occurring also with language and other cultural elements because of the southern curricula used in the schools. The comprehensive claims procedure was seen as a way to take back control of their lives. As opposed to what the Inuit perceived as the commercial or real estate transactions of the James Bay Cree in Quebec and the Alaska settlements, 22 the Yukon Indians, the Dene and Inuit sought political control, cash compensation as well as land and other resources, not just regional government. It should be noted, however, that the Alaska and James Bay settlements introduced the important vehicle of the regional corporation which is being adopted by native groups in the north. There have been four agreements in the NWT and one for the Yukon to date. Table 3 sets out their broad details. By far the most significant was Nunavut created in 1999, resulting in a division of the NWT (Fig. 2). It will have province-type powers including a legislature. All the agreements to date have accepted the federal government offer of cash compensation and a land claims agreement in return for extinguishment of aboriginal rights. The Deh Cho Dene, however, in the Mackenzie Valley, have refused to do this, citing laws from the Creator. Instead they seek to negotiate an agreement involving Treaty 11. How have these settlements affected bottom-up development? With more responsibilities transferred from the Government of the NWT and from Ottawa for a whole range of social services, wildlife, planning, land and water resources, it is clear that the populations of regional centres will increase. Public employment, already the most important regular income sector, will expand. Onethird of the civil servants in Yellowknife have been transferred to Iqaluit, 23 Nunavut s chosen capital. It has also been announced that 2,600 more are needed. White southerners are being given a crash course in Inuktituk to help fill the positions because educated and trained Inuit are not available. In the private sector, the Inuvialuit Development Corporation in Inuvik was established to own and 107

6 R.G. IRONSIDE Table 3. Comprehensive claims settlements. Compensation Mineral resource right Year Population Land title (km 2 ) ($millions) Hunting rights (Royalties) Inuvialuit Western Arctic NWT ,500 91, ,000 km 2 77,700 km 2 of surface rights: Sand and Gravel 12,950 km 2 of sub-surface mineral rights Indians of Yukon ,500 44, ,745 km 2 Share of Government royalties Gwich in NWT ,000 22, Sub-surface 93 km 2 Share of resource royalties Sahtu Dene and Metis NWT ,000 41, Sub-surface 1,813 km 2 Share of resource royalties Inuit of Nunavut, NWT , , ,842 km 2 surface rights 35,257 km 2 subsurface rights co-owned with Crown Source: Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 4, 1996 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services) operate businesses. They range from real estate, oilfield drilling, marine and river transportation, trucking, grocery sales, catering, mapping and surveying, and environmental protection. Much of the large cash compensation sums has been invested also outside the region in financial or other instruments in the rest of Canada. One major constraint locally is that insufficient investment opportunities exist in all northern communities. 24 However, perhaps the most important affects resulting from comprehensive settlements are the psychic benefits for native people. They are now in control. They have known for years that education and skills training were necessary to participate in the modern economy, but it was the white man s economy. Now it is necessary for them to gain an education to participate in their own government, civil service and businesses. This is now being perceived by young natives. The challenge is immense. In 1991 in the far north, only 9% of aboriginal adults who entered high school graduated with a Grade 12 education (at years old) and under 1% with a university degree. 25 Moreover, the results of an analysis of all government employment training programmes between 1971 and 1983 indicated that there was no sensitivity to aboriginal culture in that they required relocation, use of English only and adherence to fixed time schedules. 26 Economic development A third building block for bottom-up development in northern Canada has been the mixed economy. The local economy from the time of white contact can be described as a reliance on traditional activities, fur sales, country food, trading and, particularly since the 1950s, income transfers from Ottawa and wage employment. What has emerged is a mixed economy. While traditional trapping, hunting and fishing activities are still undertaken it appears that with young natives less interested in them, participation will decrease. Mechanization has made them more expensive and the European boycott of fur and sealskin has reduced prices drastically. What is still very significant, however, is the income equivalent from country food amounting to 40 50% of a family s total income. In addition, the psychic income from being in control while using traditional skills and interacting with nature is undoubtedly a major reason why pursuit of these activities, even on a temporary basis, such as during seasonal hunts, is important to preserve. The sustainable nature of renewable resources is also a powerful argument for their conservation and management. Pretes and Robinson argue that by allocating part of government revenues received from non-renewable resource use, natural resource trust funds could be established to encourage mixed, self-sustaining northern communities. 27 Asch 28 and Usher 29 have made powerful arguments that protection of the land, its resources and the traditional way of life are essential to the protection of native culture. Not surprisingly, these objectives are common to all the comprehensive agreements. Other development strategies have been adopted. They include handicrafts and art, co-operatives and 108

7 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES Fig. 2. Comprehensive agreement areas and other areas. community development. Houston, born in Toronto, created a market for Eskimo carvings in southern Canada. He was hired by the NWT Commissioner and started Inuit co-operatives which from 1959 competed with the Hudson s Bay Company in supplying food and consumer goods. 30 In 1988 the Scone Report states that there were twenty-two cooperatives, with most showing net savings and $40 million in annual sales. 31 The co-operative idea spread rapidly and from initial involvement in fishing, lumbering and soapstone carving it expanded to retail stores, art programmes, craft distribution, community banking, contracts and hotels. 32 This growth is reflected in 1999 total sales income data provided by Arctic Co-operatives Limited of Winnipeg. North of 60º latitude there are now thirty-six co-operatives with total gross sales of nearly $90 million. Figure 3 depicts the wide distribution and relative size of these co-operatives using total sales data. The largest was at Yellowkife with over $15.5 million in sales, the smallest at Bay Chimo, near Cambridge Bay, with nearly $150,000. Five others had sales below $1 million. Sixteen co-operatives had sales of between $1 and $2 million and fourteen were over $2 million. A cautionary note is also made by Stager who reviewed the results of a federal programme introduced in 1977 to make $15 million in grants, loans and bank guarantees available to co-operatives over a five-year period. He found their greatest weakness to lie in the education and business skills of coop managers and their turnover, the business knowledge of directors on the Co-op Boards, and training of employees in business skills. This is understandable given the difficulties of access to education or skills training referred to above. What is important is that co-ops have been the only native controlled businesses helping local development with 80 90% membership by native people. Strong government support, supervision and training has been given by the governments of the NWT and Canada. One can also mention that there have also been projects such as reindeer herding, eiderdown har- 109

8 R.G. IRONSIDE Fig. 3. Co-operatives in northern Canada: total sales income vesting, beadwork, caribou and moose skin jackets, parkas, boat building and, fox farming, which were encouraged by the two levels of government. 33 Ross and Usher s excellent book From the Roots Up addresses the benefits from a community barter economy, exchanges of services such as home repairs, machine maintenance and goods. 34 Community-based economic development has certainly historically included this informal domestic economy as well as the creation of jobs in the formal market economy. While optimistic, if communities carefully invest in the few formal economy opportunities that there are and preserve traditional land activities including those of the informal economy, Pell and Wismer acknowledge the dependent nature of northern communities on industry and governments elsewhere, the isolation, small local populations and thus markets and harsh climate which make development progress very difficult. 35 Over the past forty years however, none of this activity has offset the poverty of northern aboriginal communities. The scale of the problem is staggering, and is revealed by the income accounts of the Government of the NWT. The Scone Report indicated that in 1988 to 1989 it had a $841 million budget. Transfers from the federal government were $641 million or 86% of the budget. The NWT s own source revenues were $126 million, about 15% of its needs. Of this $5 million came from corporate taxes, $40 million from income taxes. The government of the NWT employed 46% of all those in wage employment compared with 21% in the whole of Canada. 36 The transfers rose to nearly $1 billion until 1999 when Nunavut was created. The first budget of Nunavut was $610 million which has necessitated reducing transfers to the government of the NWT. 37 Today the latter s budget is estimated at $700 million with $570 million coming from Ottawa. 38 With such requirements it is unlikely that 110

9 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES transfers are going to end in the foreseeable future. They may be reduced, however, by the return of royalties on resource developments to aboriginal groups which were involved in the Comprehensive Claims agreements, as well as increased employment. In fact, the federal government forecast long ago that the future of the North beyond 60 latitude lay in mineral development, whether of fossil fuels or hard rock metallic minerals. The foreseeable future lies now in white conventional wisdom, not in leadzinc upon which the growth of Faro, and to some extent Whitehorse, was founded or gold which was the main employer at the two mines in Yellowknife, but in oil and gas and diamonds. During the last thirty years there have been major discoveries of oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea, the Mackenzie delta, the Arctic Islands and the Liard region. The proven reserves were sufficient by 1974 for the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Project and also an Alaska Highway pipeline to be proposed to bring Prudhoe Bay Alaskan gas and Canadian gas to southern Canadian and American markets. The technical problems of construction over permafrost, the threat to the environment including wildlife and the impact on Inuvuliat and Indian culture aroused environmental and native groups. The federal government appointed Mr Justice Berger to hold an inquiry in 1975 and he reported in His main advice was that any such pipeline be delayed for ten years. This turned out to be fortuitous because the market price for gas fell subsequently. It also allowed more research to be conducted. It is only now because the price of natural gas has risen by 63% in the past year due to growing demand that interest has been renewed in such a pipeline project. Four major companies have launched pipeline feasibility studies and the Alberta Energy Company, Canada s largest seller of natural gas, has bought exploration and development land rights. Attitudes of northerners have now changed. The Government of the NWT has voted unanimously to allow a Mackenzie pipeline. 39 The Premier, Stephen Kakfwi, was a former young Dene anti-development activist! The settlement of three land claims in the western North has given greater legal control over land resources to northern aboriginals. Environmental impacts can be scrutinized by a series of Boards which license activities and on which aboriginals sit. Those areas without comprehensive arguments with the federal government fall under the new Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board which also includes aboriginals. Thus the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has announced recently that it will accept bids on 480,730 hectares for oil and gas exploration and development. The Alberta Energy Company, Imperial Oil, Petro Canada, Gulf Canada, Shell Canada, Mobil Canada and many smaller, particularly Albertan companies already hold claims, and may acquire further land rights in the Mackenzie delta and valley and the Beaufort Sea. One early estimate of the cost of a 2,200 km gas pipeline from Alaska down the Mackenzie is $4.7 billion. Native groups not only want to benefit from mineral rights sales, but also from royalties, joint venture and wholly owned service businesses from catering to trucking, from direct employment on oil and gas rigs using their training from programmes already underway in the Edmonton area, and from equity positions in a pipeline. 40 They are seeking long-term benefits. Native leaders also believe such involvement would help settle the last remaining claims by the Deh Cho Nation on the pipeline route. One interesting revived proposal supported by natives is a transportation corridor down the Mackenzie to include a Highway which had been previously started from Yellowknife, but was stopped due to technical difficulties and potential impacts on native communities. The same issues have arisen surrounding the development of diamond mines 250 km north-east of Yellowknife in the Lac de Gras area. At present the Ekati mine is operating, the Diavik mine has been approved to fully proceed and the Winspear mine is being prepared to pass all the environment and other requirements. Again, licensing boards have to approve. In the case of the Diavik mine, five native groups had to grant approval. It also had to undergo the federal Environmental Impact Assessment and gain ministerial approval. There have been 500 days of regulatory hearings in its case because of the need to build a coffer dam in a lake to access the kimberlite pipes. While the mines are joint ventures with Canadian companies, much of the capital invested is from outside the North and Canada. Broken Hills Proprietary of Australia and Rio Tinto of the UK are the main shareholders in the Ekati and Diavik mines respectively. Large returns are expected, however. In the case of the Ekati mine, $500 million a year gross revenues, at present with 650 people employed, indicates that the recent loss of 230 jobs at Giant s goldmine at Yellowknife is compensated for, although it is not known how much of this will benefit Yellowknife. 41 It is the major regional supplier of materials and services but many miners are flown in from 111

10 R.G. IRONSIDE further afield. Reserves at the mines are generally estimated at twenty to twenty-five years. It appears, therefore, that this top-down private capital will encourage new business at Yellowknife and other northern communities. One diamond cutting business out of three planned has already opened in Yellowknife. As with oil and gas companies, close consultation from the beginning has been made with native groups with regard to training and employment as well as environmental impacts. Again, aboriginals are interested in equity positions in diamond mines. 42 Stephen Kakfwi, Premier of the NWT, in a recent address to the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce, indicated that taking an equity position in the diamond mine of Winspear Resources would ensure long-term return to aboriginal groups. Discussion and conclusions The first conclusion is that historically most settlement has been top-down in initiation and development at least until co-operatives appeared in Second, it is clear that the local economy of undeveloped aboriginal communities and even the larger developed communities will remain mixed. Where the major ongoing debate lies is in the balance of the contributing sources of income. On the one hand is the Scone Report which concluded that personal development through education and training, community and regional development through reorganization and power sharing and cultural development through support for the domestic economy 43 must be the strategy of government for the underdeveloped communities of the NWT. Community-based development, sustainable development, regional development, import substitution, business opportunities, were all recommended strategies. 44 Results would be to reduce dependence upon government, create new markets, provide more trained people for the workforce and help develop a broader tax base throughout the NWT. 45 But will this provide jobs for the future? The Scone Committee received a forecast scenario from the GNWT Bureau of Statistics based on the 1989 NWT Labour Force Survey, that if there is to be the same level of employment in underdeveloped communities, assuming zero net migration, as in developed communities with 7% unemployment and with the participation rate raised to the same level (84%), then by 2001, 11,396 jobs would be needed. 46 On the other hand, an opposing view is exemplified by the economist Stabler s research, which foresees that the only appropriate strategy is to rely on the basic exporting industries such as mining and oil and gas including first stage processing. 47 Stabler also, in other research using a 1984 NWT Labour Force Study, shows that out of 11,164 workers, only 1,200 native males were engaged in traditional pursuits year round but there were 5,300 participating seasonally. Of these, 36% held jobs in the modern formal sector. More tellingly he found that of those in the traditional sector without jobs, those wanting them outnumbered those who did not by nearly eight to one. 48 On balance, my conclusion regarding the appropriateness of bottom-up or top-down development falls on the side of the Legislative Assembly of the GNWT Scone Report. The more diversified community economy will survive in the long term. Devolution of political power and the comprehensive agreements transfer control to the people of the North. They will and already are making steps to ensure that the cash transfers will be invested to increase income and capital, and also to secure a share of the petroleum and diamond earnings of the future. The time horizon for these non-renewable resources is probably between twenty-five and thirty-five years. The experience of resource communities particularly in mining, and of native people, is of a boom and bust cycle, little native employment created and benefits flowing to southern investors. The last point is of course understandable, because they had the risk capital to invest. If northern communities can secure more capital from the income stream via royalties, equity participation and, taxes, their capital base could be built up by the different native groups and the GNWT. There will be other new mineral discoveries to come. Platinum and palladium exploration is being undertaken, for example, and Voisey Bay nickel has yet to be developed. Such a scenario, coupled with gradual improvements in education and training, and a declining fertility rate as more females participate in the labour force, 49 should strengthen support of the community-based mixed economy for well beyond thirty-five years. In particular the use of traditional land skills in tourism and mineral prospecting is already occurring. The premier Paul Okalik of Nunavut spoke recently at the 2000 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities Conference at the University of Alberta: Our best hunters... are our best outfitters and guides. They are the leaders in a growing tourism industry. The Nunavut Prospectors Program attracts many hunt- 112

11 CANADIAN NORTHERN SETTLEMENTS: TOP-DOWN AND BOTTOM-UP INFLUENCES ers who are in constant contact with the resources of the land. 50 This answers the pragmatic question posed in the introduction to this paper. New applications of traditional skills inherent to aboriginal cultures are being developed in adapting to new economic opportunities. Undoubtedly major revenue transfers from the federal government will continue, probably for ever, but is that not an acceptable cost of a civilized democracy to bear in the support of its citizens in a disadvantaged region? Acknowledgements I thank Ted Pitcher, Professor Emeritus, Department of English, University of Alberta, for drawing my attention to the works of Ambrose Bierce. I am indebted to the insightful work of Bone and Hamilton as well as the Special Committee on the Northern Economy of the NWT Legislative Assembly. R.G. Ironside, Professor Emeritus, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, T6G 2E3, Canada. Notes 1 Friedmann, J. and Weaver, C. (1979): Territory and Function: The Evolution of Regional Planning. Edward Arnold, London, p Stöhr, W.B. and Taylor, D.R.F. (eds.) (1981): Development from Above or Below: The Dialectics of Regional Planning in Developing Countries. Wiley, London, p Economic Council of Canada (1990): From the Bottom Up: The Community Economic Development Approach. Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Ottawa, p Cinnéide, M. (1994): Stimulating local development in marginal areas: the experience of the European community s LEDA programme 1974, in Wiberg, U. (ed.): Marginal Areas in Developed Countries. CERUM (Centre for Regional Sciences), Umeå University, Sweden, pp Bylund, E. (1994): Physical planning according to the planning and building law at municipality level in Sweden: an attempt to turn from top-down to bottom-up planning?, in Wiberg, U. (ed.): Marginal Areas in Developed Countries, CERUM, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden, pp Coates, K. and Morrison, W. (1992): The Forgotten North: A History of Canada s Provincial Norths. James Lorimer and Company, Toronto. 7 Hamelin, L-E. (1979): Canadian Nordicity: Its Your North Too, trans. William Barr. Harvest House Ltd, Montreal, p Bone, R.M. (1992): The Geography of the Canadian North. Oxford University Press, Toronto, p Special Committee on the Northern Economy (SCONE) (1989): The Scone Report: Building our Economic Future. Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, Yellowknife, p. 76. La Barre, K. de (1987): Strategies in Northern Development in Canada since the late 1960s, Acta Borealia 1/2, University of Tromso Tromso, Norway; Hamilton, J.D. (1994): Arctic Revolution: Social Change in the NWT Dundurn Press, Toronto, p. 298; Ironside, R.G. (1993): The impasse between population change and livelihood in northern Canada in conditions for development in marginal regions, in Proceedings of the XI International Seminar on Marginal Regions August 1991, Oppland College, Lillehammer, Norway, pp Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, p Ibid., p. 83 and Carrothers, A.W.R. (1966): NWT Government Development Report Queen s Printer, Ottawa. 12 Wonders, W.C. (1981): Northern resources development, in Mitchell, B. and Sewell, W.R.D. (eds.): Canadian Resource Policies: Problems and Prospects. Methuen, Ontario, 294 p. 13 Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, p Scone Report, pp La Barre, Strategies, p. 95; Chretien, J. (1972): Report to the Standing Committee on Indian Affairs and Northern Development on the Government s Northern Objectives, Priorities and Strategies for the 70 s. Ottawa. 16 Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, p. 216; Hodgson, S.M. (1974): Goals of the Government of the NWT. Yellowknife. 17 Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, p. 32; Drury, C.M. (1979): Working Paper: Report of the Honourable C.M. Drury, Special Representation to the Prime Minister for Constitutional Development in the Northwest Territories: Northwest Territories Comprehensive Claims. Number 2 of eight working papers, Government of the NWT, Yellowknife. 18 Scone Report, p Ibid., p Ibid., p Drury, Working Paper, p Ibid., p Dolphin, R. (1999): Waiting for the giant to fall, The National Post, 2 October, p. B Scone Report, p Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996): Minister of Supply and Services, Ottawa, Vol. 4, p Young, R.A. and McDermott, P. (1988): Employment in training programs and acculturation of native peoples in Canada s Northwest Territories, Arctic 41 (3): Pretes, M. and Robinson, M. (1989): Beyond boom and bust: a strategy for sustainable development in the North, Polar Record 25 (153): See also Coates, K. (1988): On the outside in their homeland: native people and the evolution of the Yukon economy, The Northern Review 1, Yukon College, Whitehorse. 28 Asch, M. (1984): Home and Native Land: Aboriginal Rights and the Canadian Constitution. Methuen, Toronto, p Usher, P.J. (1982): The North: metropolitan frontier, native homeland, in McCann, L.D. (ed.): Heartland and Hinterland: A Geography of Canada. Prentice Hall, Ottawa, pp Hamilton, Arctic Revolution, pp Scone Report, p Stager, J.K. (1982): An Evaluation Study of the Federated 113

12 R.G. IRONSIDE Co-operatives in Nouveau Quebec and the Northwest Territories after the Cooperative Development Program. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Ottawa, p Scone Report, p Ross, D.P. and Usher, P.J. (1986): From the Roots Up: Economic Development as if Community Mattered. Croton-on- Hudson. The Bootstrap Press, New York, pp Pell, D. and Wismer, S. (1987): The role and limitations of community-based economic development in Canada s North, Alternatives 14 (1): Scone Report, pp The National Post, 7 March 2000, p. A4. 38 Dolphin, R., Waiting for the giant to fall. 39 Avery, B. (2000): High hopes soar again for the High North, The Edmonton Journal, 4 March, Business Section, pp. 91, Howes, C. (2000): Aboriginal groups stake out key role in Mackenzie Valley, Financial Post, 6 March 6, p. C3. 41 Dolphin, R., Waiting for the giant to fall. 42 Avery, B. (2000): Land of diamonds and jobs, The Edmonton Journal, 27May. 43 Scone Report, p Ibid., p Ibid., p Ibid., p Stabler, J.C. (1985): Development planning North of 60: requirements and prospects, in Whittington, M.S. (co-ordinator), The North. University of Toronto Press in cooperation with the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada and the Canadian Government Publishing Centre, Supply and Services Canada, Ottawa, pp Stabler, J.C. (1988): The role of the traditional sector in the economy of the Northwest Territories: preferred location or employer of last resort. Paper presented to the Western Regional Sciences Association meeting, Napa, California. See also Ironside, Impasse, p Ironside, Impasse, p Cooper, D. (ed.) (2000): Insight, The Edmonton Journal, 31 May. 114