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As expansion plans for a massive Baffin Island mine are frozen, communities piece together an economy that aligns survival, culture and ecological health
Two winters ago, a group of Inuit hunters set up an unexpected blockade. Warming themselves with small fires during the region’s coldest month, they set up camp on the air strip of the Mary River Mine near the northern shore of Qikiqtaaluk—known to southerners as Baffin Island—blocking the mine’s activities for a week.
It was an extraordinary protest, in response to a plan to expand the mine, which already ships 3.5 million tonnes of iron ore out on seasonal boats. Even some of the stranded mine workers issued a letter of support. Some communities on Qikiqtaaluk have testified that the existing mine is disrupting local ecosystems and that at an expansion—the mine was originally proposed to be five times its current capacity—would cause additional disruptions to caribou, seal and narwhal populations, among others.
Nunavut communities are suffering from a crisis of housing, food and economic opportunity. Seventy per cent of households are food insecure, with many families skipping meals regularly. With food prices out of reach for most, a majority rely on what is locally called “country food.”
Mining brings in some money, but simultaneously threatens cultural survival. In a surprise decision, the federal government recently decided to uphold a recommendation to halt the expansion of Baffinland’s Mary River Mine.
In response to the ongoing crisis, some Inuit have begun advancing the idea of a “conservation economy”—a way of ensuring the viability of hunting and land-based food gathering, while environmentally protecting an area that makes up over one-fifth of Canada’s land mass.
Kunuk Inutiq is one of those voices. Inutiq has worked as legal counsel for the Government of Nunavut, after becoming the first Inuk woman in Nunavut to pass the bar exam.
She has served as Official Languages Commissioner for Nunavut, and the director of self-government at Nunavut Tunngavik, the organization that represents the Inuit of Nunavut in treaty rights and treaty negotiations. She was also the chief negotiator for an agreement that established a 108,000-square-kilometre marine conservation area.
The Breach’s Dru Oja Jay spoke with Inutiq via video conference from her home in Iqaluit. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Breach: After an extensive consultation process, the Nunavut impact review board recommended not approving the expansion of the Mary River Mine, and the federal government somewhat surprisingly accepted that recommendation. From your perspective in Iqaluit, but also as someone from Clyde River—which is in the mine’s impact zone—what does the current situation look like?
Kunuk Inutiq: Well, I think the whole land claim package needs to be discussed in this context. What was supposed to be in place—under the 1993 Nunavut Agreement—was a land use plan that defines how activities happen and under what conditions. And that land use plan has never been completed.
So we don’t really have a good Nunavut-wide plan of how mining or activities happen on our lands. The land use plan is supposed to be a way for Inuit to determine what happens on our lands, but it hasn’t happened.
That really leads to potential for conflict in terms of how land is used. Mining activities have been a real test of whether the land claim is working or not, and the Mary River project is part of that.
We have very limited opportunities for an economy, for jobs. We basically have government jobs—federal, territorial as well as municipal—and then we have the mining sector. There are few private sector opportunities. We have a Nunavut construction company and various trades.
But in terms of a real economy, mining has been proposed as the only solution, and Nunavut faces an economic depression ever since—basically—settlement living was imposed in the 1950s and 60s. So we’re caught in a conflict.
When we have these mining activities, do we want jobs? Or do we want to protect the ecosystems that provide us our foods through our hunting economy?
So that’s the catch-22 scenario that we face. So when phase two was not approved by the minister, we then fear “Okay, our jobs are going to be lost.” I have family members that work in the mine, and we don’t know if the company is going to play power games—of laying people off to try to apply pressure to get phase two of the mine expansion going.
You talk about the difference between the hunting economy and the mining economy, and clearly those two are in conflict. I think a lot of people in the south wouldn’t necessarily think about hunting as an economic activity. What does that look like?
I think we have to think outside of the capitalist system. Many societies still have economies that are outside mass production systems that the Western world functions in.
Hunting, for us, is part of that picture. So much of our food is caught, and then shared in the community. The hunting economy, especially in the smaller communities, makes a huge difference in terms of whether people eat or not.
You need to buy equipment to go out hunting. But then once the food is caught, there are cultural practices in terms of how it’s distributed—to elders, to extended family members.
Many societies still have economies that are outside mass production systems that the Western world functions in. Kunuk Inutiq
The food sharing is not just about bringing food to somebody’s house, it’s also eating together, celebrating first catches. It’s so integral to who we are as Inuit, and how we are in relationship to our land.
Some academics wrote about how we have basically a dual economy. One is the wage economy, and the other is the hunting economy. And just to acknowledge that huge part of our productivity is around hunting. It’s very much connected to how well we’re doing—not just for food, but spiritually as family units.
It seems like there are some really sophisticated sort of structures of food distribution based on community needs. Could you just describe a little bit more about sort of what that looks like? How does it interact with the wage economy?
That’s an interesting question, because we have a totally different relationship with store bought food than hunted food. Like if I buy meat from our store, I don’t feel responsibility to share it.
Whereas there are teachings around when you have access to country food, it’s meant to be shared. And the more you share, the more abundance it’s believed you’ll have in the future. So our relationship with our food is completely different when it’s store bought food.
The responsibilities attached to country food are associated with our kin, with our community members. What I would catch is fish or clams. So who I would share with is family members, friends, who I have that relationship of reciprocity with, who share with me and elders. But somebody who’s more of a full-time hunter, their teachings about food sharing would be a lot stricter in terms of how they distribute their catch.
It’s all related to the community and who needs the food. Like elders who might not necessarily have the means to go out anymore. I think what complicates food sharing is how colonialism has impacted our family units or relationships. And so you have family members that aren’t as close as they could be. You have a lot of single mothers, for example.
And so even though we have teachings, there are still people that are marginalized and we need to rethink how food distribution is done. But those practices are still very much entrenched and still done today.
Can you talk a bit about the idea of a conservation economy in Nunavut, which you have done some work on—and how that might sort of create a different kind of economic base?
But one of the discussions when we were negotiating the Tallurutiup Imanga Marine Conservation Area was, “What do we call it?” We’re negotiating with the government of Canada. We know we want to protect and enhance the hunting way of life. So when we’re talking about it in relation to the Canadian context, we call it a conservation economy.
Throughout the world, the habitats or ecosystems that are the most intact and protected are on Indigenous lands. When you give control over lands to Indigenous people, the protection happens. And so it’s basically the same idea of having Indigenous people control the area, practicing their laws and their systems.
It just so happens that it coincides with the hunting economy. So that’s how we started using the term conservation economy.
There’s the hunting economy, which clearly provides—in some places—the majority of the food that people eat. But is there a money economy sort of component to that as well?
In Canada, there was a movement towards creating guardians for parks and conservation areas. So we wanted to use the same model, but not just to monitor activities.
We created the Nauttiqsuqtiit program. In the five communities where Tallurutiup Imanga is, Nauttiqsuqtiit are the equivalent to guardians, except that they can go hunting. And while they’re out hunting, they’re observing the land, the seasonal changes, documenting wildlife and observing climate change.
Another part of that package was buildings for food processing units and small craft harbours. To date, there’s only one community in Nunavut with a small craft harbour—which is crazy, because we’re a marine people. Most of the year, our sea is frozen, but in the summer, people are out all the time, weather permitting.
So there’s an infrastructure deficit in Nunavut when it comes to supporting our hunting way of life.
We took that model from the full-time hunting program that was created in my hometown of Clyde River, through Ittaq Heritage and Research Center. In 2017, they created a full-time hunting program, just to see how it would work. So they hired somebody—who happens to be someone that I’m really close to—and just documented what equipment he needed, what kinds of hours and what works best. For a year, they just documented the pilot project.
There’s a bit of tension in terms of paying hunters, and how much of the hunting practices we commodify. There’s caution about getting caught up in consumerism and capitalism around hunting. It’s good that we have these questions when we think about applying new concepts like a salaried hunter.
There were also questions like, “How do you even pay a full-time hunter? What kind of salary?” Another question is insurance companies are very hesitant to pay insurance for any kind of land activity—that’s been the biggest barrier to creating these kind of jobs. But we took that model and multiplied it to the five communities with the understanding that it’s going to take a while to really work out the kinks.
And so that’s, that’s how it was developed. The Nauttiqsuqtiit program was from the full-time hunter program, and the original one has now expanded to having four full-time hunters. So it’s growing—the concept is growing in Nunavut.
And so these full-time hunters, do they distribute basically as they would in the traditional system? Does it change once it’s for a salary?
There are different ways food distribution has happened. One of the food distribution practices is for people to just pick up food. With whale hunting, for example, they’ll radio to say they’re coming in, and then people will wait at the beach. When there’s fish, they might deliver to some elders’ homes, and then open it up to the community to pick up.
There’s also mentoring involved—in my home town, with full-time hunters, a huge part of their program is teaching youth how to hunt. So when youth catch seals or caribou or whatever, they leave it to them to distribute their catch. Part of the teaching is to advise them how distribution happens, but the decision is up to them.
So there’s a conservation component, and then there’s sort of public service component in terms of monitoring and protecting lands. Is there a sense of how an economy that’s not based on mining and other extraction could sustain itself?
I think that’s part of the conversation that has to happen. One area that is developing is the fisheries economy, right? In terms of mass fisheries, the boats are not that big compared to the massive ones that might exist in other places, but we’re talking about a territory with severe food security issues.
At one point, three-quarters of children were found to be missing meals every day, and over 60 per cent of households were food insecure. We have a mass portion of the population on social assistance.
So, one of the conversations is how we treat the whole fisheries—do we focus on exporting the fish? Or do we make sure that we feed ourselves first? Or can we do both?
Right now, seal hunting is more of an internal economy and so is caribou. But with the fisheries, I think we need to figure out our needs when we’re dealing with severe food insecurity.
One thing you have highlighted is how profits flow south and how profit is extracted via key distribution points. It’s well known that you have $100 meats and $50 fruits at the northern store, and those profits are flowing to a company that’s based in Winnipeg. You have also written about the public sector, because there’s a significant budget but so many of the staff are actually people who are based in the south, even if they’re living in Nunavut temporarily. And they’re spending those profits and they’re spending their salaries in the south. Can you talk a little bit about the challenges that people in Nunavut are facing in terms of keeping some of that wealth in Nunavut?
As you know, in the land claim agreement, there’s an article that obliges governments to reach population representation [of Inuit] in all levels of employment. But that has never happened. It’s basically stayed around 50 per cent.
Ever since Nunavut was created, there’s never been real change in terms of those employment levels. For example, I was part of a program to create a group of lawyers. A lot of us graduated. And there have been teacher education programs, there have been nursing programs that ran for years.
But there’s a disconnect—once you enter the system there are serious barriers to employment entering the system, but also to stay. And so the statistics stay stagnant. In critical areas like senior management and policy development, Inuit are at about 15 per cent of the staff.
So you have a transient population providing policy options and making policy decisions. People who have very little stake in Nunavut, or the future of Nunavut. So that’s a major issue—not just in terms of dealing with our issues, but also the lack of people that invest in Nunavut, whether it’s intellectually or economically. So that’s what we’re left with.
When you’re fighting a system full of people that have absolutely no stake in Nunavut, it burns people out. There is now a drive by the Inuit organizations to obtain self government, because the quality of life for Inuit has not improved. And the territorial government in particular seems to be serving the interest of the transient population.
So Inuit self governance happens through our Inuit organizations, but also at the community level, you have really neat things going on, where communities have decided they’re just going to do their own thing—like the full-time hunter program that I just described. And in Iqaluit, the Pirurvik Centre and the cultural reclamation work that they’re doing—including language. So you see pockets of those things happening throughout Nunavut now.
You were the Language Commissioner for Nunavut at a certain point. What do you see as the relationship between preserving and using the language and the economy?
I think the whole colonial process is about depriving. Indigenous people have their laws and systems, including their culture and identity. So, deprivation and poverty and the need for cultural reclamation are the same thing.
Language is what gives us a sense of being whole and well, to be productive parts of society. It’s how we define how we belong, and how we’re productive.
If colonialism basically disconnected us from our kinship, then reconnecting to our community, to our family, to our land, to our hunting way of life— it’s all one and the same thing. Kunuk Inutiq
Cultural reclamation is such an important piece in terms of how we reclaim our economy, our sense of well being. If colonialism basically disconnected us from our kinship, then reconnecting to our community, to our family, to our land, to our hunting way of life—it’s all one and the same thing.
What do you see as the next steps for building the conservation economy?
It’s not enough just to focus on the conservation economy. There’s huge pieces that need to align with reclaiming our economic systems. And that piece is healing and wellness. In our communities, there’s a lot of trauma and social issues related to our historical and current experiences.
So we need to be dealing with that as part of our reclamation. There are some things happening—communities have created healing programs. In my hometown, Ilisaqsivik has an Inuit counseling and healing program where they train other Inuit as well. Other communities like Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay are doing that work.
It’s so important that those programs have a way of functioning—funding, for example, they all struggle with fundraising to keep their programs going. They’re nonprofit entities and sometimes the government programs that fund are not there year to year and come with heavy reporting requirements.
So there’s a larger picture of wellness associated with growing our economy. We really need to avoid just looking at the conservation economy or the hunting economy in a silo. Rebuilding our wellness is part of that larger picture.
What do you think people in the south can do, or how can they act in alignment with these ambitions?
A really important thing when you support Indigenous people is making space for them to determine their own lives. We have a history of people coming here thinking they have answers for us. And not just coming here but in a national, and international context of people having the answers for us.
There’s also the legacy of the anti-fur movement. And this pops up in the whole vegan culture as well, where the anti-meat sentiment and just very imperialistic view of food systems and people shouldn’t eat meat and that view.
In her film Ever Deadly, Tanya Tagaq jokes that we could just plant them out here—it’s minus 40-something right now—and see how they survive. But joking aside, just avoiding that whole know-er than thou kind of approach. Leave us to have our own answers.
