Cultivating Arctic Landscapes

In the last two decades, there has been an increased awareness of the traditions and issues that link aboriginal people across the circumpolar North. One of the key aspects of the lives of circumpolar peoples, be they in Scandinavia, Alaska, Russia, or Canada, is their relationship to the wild animals that support them. Although divided for most of the 20th Century by various national trading blocks, and the Cold War, aboriginal people in each region share common stories about the various capitalist and socialist states that claimed control over their lands and animals. Now, aboriginal peoples throughout the region are reclaiming their rights.

This volume is the first to give a well-rounded portrait of wildlife management, aboriginal rights, and politics in the circumpolar north. The book reveals unexpected continuities between socialist and capitalist ecological styles, as well as addressing the problems facing a new era of cultural exchanges between aboriginal peoples in each region.

In the last two decades, there has been an increased awareness of the traditions and issues that link aboriginal people across the circumpolar North. One of the key aspects of the lives of circumpolar peoples, be they in Scandinavia, Alaska, Russia, or Canada, is their relationship to the wild animals that support them. Although divided for most of the 20th Century by various national trading blocks, and the Cold War, aboriginal people in each region share common stories about the various capitalist and socialist states that claimed control over their lands and animals. Now, aboriginal peoples throughout the region are reclaiming their rights.

This volume is the first to give a well-rounded portrait of wildlife management, aboriginal rights, and politics in the circumpolar north. The book reveals unexpected continuities between socialist and capitalist ecological styles, as well as addressing the problems facing a new era of cultural exchanges between aboriginal peoples in each region.

List of Figures

Foreword
by Tim Ingold

Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations

Chapter 1. Reindeer, Caribou and ‘Fairy Stories’ of State Power
David G. Anderson

Chapter 2. Uses and Abuses of ‘Traditional Knowledge’: Perspectives from the Yukon Territory
Julie Cruikshank

Chapter 3. Local Knowledge in Greenland: Arctic Perspectives and Contextual Differences
Frank Sejersen

Chapter 4. Codifying Knowledge about Caribou: The History of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut, Canada
Natasha Thorpe

Chapter 5. A Story about a Muskox: Some Implications of Tetlit Gwich’in Human–Animal Relationships
Robert P.Wishart

Chapter 6. ‘We did not want the muskox to increase’: Inuvialuit Knowledge about Muskox and Caribou Populations on Banks Island, Canada
Murielle Nagy

Chapter 7. Political Ecology in Swedish Saamiland
Hugh Beach

Chapter 8. Saami Pastoral Society in Northern Norway: The National Integration of an Indigenous Management System
Ivar Bjørklund

Chapter 9. Chukotkan Reindeer Husbandry in the Twentieth Century: In the Image of the Soviet Economy
Patty A. Gray

Chapter 10. A Genealogy of the Concept of ‘Wanton Slaughter’ in Canadian Wildlife Biology
Craig Campbell

Chapter 11. Caribou Crisis or Administrative Crisis? Wildlife and Aboriginal Policies on the Barren Grounds of Canada, 1947–60
Peter J. Usher

Chapter 12. Epilogue: Cultivating Arctic Landscapes
Mark Nuttall

Notes on Contributors
Bibliography
Index