Urban Development in Northern Canada

About Northern Canada

Northern Canada, colloquially the North, the vast northernmost region of Canada in the Americas, is

2 often referred to the Canadian Arctic (Map 1). It is an area covering nearly 40% (3,921,739 km ) of the total landmass of Canada and comprising a coastline which is twice as long as the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts combined but having less than 1% of population (113, 000 people) of the entire country, addressing the territories of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Aboriginal peoples make up 85% of Nunavut, 50% of the Northwest territories and 25% of Yukon. The majority of the population are Inuit (Eskimo) living predominantly in the Arctic region or members of other native tribes. The First Nations people are living predominantly the Subarctic, many of them in the territorial capitals of Iqaluit, Whitehorse and Yellowknife. Even though, the largest part of the Arctic is covered by permanent ice, it also consists various geological regions: mighty river, forest plains, islands of the arctic coast and the Innuitian Mountain, are geologically different from Arctic regions which are covered largely by lowlands. The ground in the Arctic is permafrost, which makes construction hazardous and nearly impossible and agriculture difficult. For over half of the year, the North is ice and snow-covered. The average monthly temperature is from -51°C to 29°C in the coldest three months. In the summer, much of the region is snow free and the average temperature ranges from 7.2°C to 18.3°C. The wildlife in this region includes caribou, whales, narwhal, seals, walrus, moose and muskoxen and in summer birds often migrate to the Arctic. The northern region is also rich in natural resource including diamonds, gold, silver, tungsten, uranium and rare earth elements and holds potential resource for natural resource exploration and future economic development. One quarter of gas and oil resources are also discovered in this region.

Map 1: The regions of Northern Canada, source: Wiki Voyage

Small in net population, weak in economy, and unbearable in weather, Northern Canada is one of the most isolated and secluded parts of the country and therefore often ignored by all. It is a region few Canadian have ever visited. However, through its nature of igloos, icebergs, Northern Lights, Arctic wildlife of polar bears and seals and the experience of dog sledding adventure, the North has been iconic yet mysterious part of Canada. Conquering the north can be a source of pride-a test of a man’s ability to overcome the nature’s harshest terrain in the pursuit of a traditional pioneer lifestyle and cultural heritage. Northern Canada is a place with world class geology, vibrant culture and tradition, fast growing communities and a young population. Unlike the rest of Canada, the Northern Territories have never been entirely conquered by Europeans since they considered much of the land unpopular and undesirable. The population of three territories are still majority aboriginal, who originally migrated from Asia during the ice age. Many of the local residents kept their traditions and cultures unchanged for centuries and the hunter-gatherer are widely practised. To enable further development, we are going to talk about the present situation, discuss concerns and plans for future opportunities in different aspects. We will help you to discover a unique and beautiful

but harsh region with extraordinary nature and the suitable inhabitants to conquer and cherish this region.

Energy, Transport and Resources

Northern Canada makes use of both renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Among these two energy sources, the northern area heavily depends on fossil fuel i.e. non-renewable energy sources. Fossil fuel makes the life easy by enabling the heating of houses, transportation and lighting facilities in the harsh climatic conditions of the North. Along with fossil fuel, hydropower is also used as a source of energy in Northern Canada but its contribution is negligible. Due to limited electricity distribution, high costs and a sparse distribution of population, spreading of electricity is concentrated to some regions only. For example, among the three territories of Northern Canada, Nunavut has electricity (lighting purpose) that fully depends on diesel power although they have hydropower within that territory. In a similar way, the northern part of Canada looks isolated from rest of the country, as it is not easily accessible during every time of the year. Although, waterways were the first means of transportation in northern Canada, the situation is different today, since almost all means of transportation are present today. However, they are relatively scarce. Mining and the post-cold war period played an important role to develop infrastructure for transportation but its proportion in the North is very low compared to entire Canada.

Table 1: Percentage contribution of Roadway and Railway in Northern Canada.

Province and territory Means of Transportation (Percentage distribution)

Road Railway

Yukon 0.5 0.0

Northwest Territories 0.4 0.2

Nunavut 0.0 0.0

Source: Statistics Canada, 2015 As population is distributed sparsely in the northern part of the country, it’s not easy to develop means of transportation that has proximity to each individual's house. Consequently,

this is the reason why almost no railway and roadway is development in some of the northern territories (Table 1). Aviation is a major means of transportation in this part of the country, has been developed and upgraded during the cold war and the post-cold war period to support big aircrafts. Notably, air traffic in Northern Canada provides its service to the people during all 12 months of the year and this is a major factor of aviation being dominant over other means of transportation. Waterways in the North are basically used for business purposes since past time. However, waterways are used for fishing and hunting too. Beyond public transport, people use private vehicles, but it is remarkably less compared to other parts of the country. Furthermore, all the development projects and the life of people depend on resources. Whereas Northern Canada is considered to be rich in natural resources they are not evenly distributed and this has an impact on population dynamics i.e. people are living nearby the hotspots of resources. As resources have economic values, the trend of living around it started long ago becoming more intense since the government built new infrastructures and provided good facilities in the region during the cold war. The Government took initiatives to make the northern part of Canada livable, to ensure its jurisdiction and have control over these resources. The major non-living resources in this part of country are metals, minerals and hydrocarbons.

Canada is one of the largest producer of energy and makes substantial use of it. Within, Canada, per capita use of energy in the northern part is almost double than the average per capita of the whole country. Reasons for the high energy consumption are the harsh climatic conditions over there. Northern Canada’s major concern is to find sustainable energy sources, which can be generated and used within the same territories. This situation demands high investment, more studies and innovative ideas. Furthermore, talking about transportation, this can be considered as one of the major constituent that demands huge amounts of energy. At present, aviation plays a crucial role for transportation with high energy consumption. So, it's, time to think and work to find some alternative ways of transportation that can connect communities living in isolated areas. Now, development experts must consider environmental factors along with social and economic condition of the area, as the environment is changing resulting in threats for infrastructures, if not considered. Infrastructure development is directly linked to resources, as we depend on it and we know that Northern Canada is assumed to have enormous resources. The underlying challenge is to extract the resources, as it needs high investment and modern technology. The next obstacle for exploring resources in the North are

the unfavourable climatic conditions, which can lead to devastating environmental consequences. Even though, it is relatively difficult to extract minerals with a high economic value and other important resources, mining, oil and the gas industry has been increasing in the last years and is likely to do so in the future. Hence climate change modifies the conditions in the arctic the possibilities to expand the energy industry will continue to improve in the future. Additionally, new challenges but also new opportunities concerning transportations will open up with a continuous warming of the arctic area.

Irrespective of multiple challenges and hurdles, Northern Canada is a land of opportunities. It is rich in hydrocarbons and the massive exploration of it will change the present situation of energy production. In a similar way, if Canada is able to expand grid lines for energy supply to the North, electricity can also play a significant role and will help Northern Canada to find alternatives for fossil fuel. Moreover, new land routes for transportation can be developed in response to more area being ice free. This can evolve as an alternative for the dominating aviation practice. It's not about land routes only, new routes for waterways can also be developed and can help connecting isolated communities. For all these development work, Northern Canada will depend on resources. Climate change along with advanced knowledge can help to extract more resources from the precious North. Northern Canada is regarded precious because it has diamonds, gold and other important metals in areas of the widely undiscovered land.

Climate and Environment

Northern Canada is a region known for it’s widely untouched and wild nature. Especially for nature-lovers this area enables people to do a variety of outdoor activities. The unique environment is dominated by dark winters and all the more sun rich summers. As already mentioned, Northern Canada has a noteworthy and quite complex coastline as the outer borders in the North are the Arctic Ocean and the Baffin Bay. The coastline is very rugged, hence include a variety of little islands and river systems. The North of Canada is dominated by two climate region: the arctic and the subarctic. The arctic region can be classified as an arctic desert due to low temperatures and precipitation rates. The average temperatures can be as low as around -30°C in the winter and around 6°C in the summer. The subarctic area is more mild with average temperature of 15°C in the summer and -15°C in the winter. Furthermore, the area of Northern Canada includes a large variety of landscapes like forest, lakes, rivers, a complex coastline, mountains and wetlands. From an ecological perspective on the other hand tundra and boreal forests dominate Northern Canada’s appearance with fascinating large mammals like caribou, muskoxen, moose, grizzly bears,

black bears and wolves. But these are by far not the most important ones, as in mass and energy flow species like snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) in boreal forests and Brown Lemming (Lemmus trimucronatus) in the tundra dominate the system. Northern Canada has, like every ecosystem in the world, a quite complex food web that is hard to understand. Even though, Northern Canada underlies harsh weather conditions, it is home to a surprisingly high variety of species. While insects and plants dominate the range of biodiversity, there are some other species more likely to attract the interest of tourists and scientists. The nature of the North has a remarkable past. The ecosystem is quite young, hence the region is only ice-free since the last ice age. But during the last cold period not every piece of land was fully covered with ice. Some ice - free islands gave refuge to a variety of species still remaining today in small populations in the territory. Among other species, the Peary caribou (Rangifer tanrandus pearyi) and the wood bison (Bison bison athabascae) have 40-60% of their population. Additionally, the wonderful Whooping crane (Grus americana) is nesting in and around the Wood Buffalo National Park. Even though, human influence is very limited the human induced climate change knows no boundaries. For this reason the wild and untouched North has a big threat to conquer.

The arctic region has experienced a temperature rise more intense than in the rest of the world leading to changes in permafrost, sea ice cover, snow cover duration and glacier conditions. The IPCC claims that the Arctic region is warming up twice as much as the rest of the world. With an ongoing melting of ice and declining of snow cover the more absorbing ground will be revealed leading to an intensified warming, whereas this warming can be released in greater portions into the atmosphere, since the cold air contains less water vapour. Additionally, in the future the changes in the global weather patterns will likely transfer more heat to the arctic circle. Just as many regions in the world, Northern Canada will experience more climate extremes making it hard for the environment to adapt. The climatic challenges the environment will experience during the next years should be concerning enough to pursue interdisciplinary research questions. As a consequence, the whole system, including plants, animals and landscapes, has to adjust and the known tundra vegetation in Northern Canada will have to reconfigure itself to adapt to the new conditions. New evidence show that, due to higher average temperature, the vegetation underlies steady changes since the 1980ies. By monitoring the NDVI of the region it comes clear that Northern Canada is experiencing an ongoing greening trend and an increasing occurrence of vascular plants. That is possible due to the elongated growing seasons and higher average temperatures. The changes in the population densities and compositions are primarily observable in the anyways productiv plant communities. The area, up to this point mainly tundra and coniferous forests, hosts more and more graminoids as well as arctic shrubs like willow (Salix spp.) and birch (Betula spp.).

The technologies needed to detect changes in vegetation composition and coverage degree, like among others the Landsat data, are only reliable and usable if applied in regular and frequent intervals. Since the arctic has not been under the main focus of researchers, economists and politicians the area is not as well covered as other areas on the planet. That is a circumstances necessary to change in order to observe trends and answer with long term strategies. Climate as well as the ecosystems are complex matters and we are far from a total understanding of it. Especially since the arctic region haven’t been as attractive to research as other areas in the world. What we do know though is that even minor changes in climate or species composition can cause severe problems and might destabilize the present system. In the end, those changes are likely to affect the livelihood of humans as well making it more important to monitor the ongoing trends in Northern Canada and the rest of the arctic.

Fortunately, changing conditions will also ease the way for positive development in other areas. Eco and adventure tourism gets more and more fans. People are looking for these last remaining untouched safe havens we have left on this planet. Regarding a green future, Northern Canada offers a high potential for nature oriented tourism. A journey to the harsh tip of Canada is not for everyone, but includes a lot to wonder about. But over all the area will be easier to explore and develop opening therefore new opportunities to expand the tourism sector. In the Northwest Territories one can find the Nahanni National Park Reserve with a total area of 28,000 km². A park that has been declared a World Heritage Site in 1978. As of a latitude of 60° North (the arctic circle starts at 66° North) the famous

Northern Lights, so many people have on their bucket lists, are observable.

Picture 1 : Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis, in Yellowknife (Northern Territories), source: Johnston D (n.d.)

The forests, the tundra, the magnificent wildlife and the Northern Lights make the Cold North determined to be a magical, unforgettable place. Also one should mention that the ecological responses might will likely have a negative response for many arctic species but will have positive effects for species of southern territories. As already mentioned, Northern Canada is a special place since human alterations are kept to a minimum, thereby making it possible to investigate the effects of climate change on the environment without the disturbances by other activities. A potential today’s research should thrive on. New technologies, especially enhanced Remote Sensing will be necessary tools to investigate as well as monitor the current state and will enable the knowledge gain about the hardly accessible North. Urbanization in Northern Canada can only be proceeded if the uniqueness and wild nature of the region is respected.

Society and Culture

The Northwest Territories, the Nunavut and the Yukon are the three main regions of Canada that represent North.

The Northwest Territories has a land area of 1,144,000 km2 and a population of 41, 462. 36.8% of the entire population is First Nations, 18.6% Canadian, 15.9% of English and 14.8% Scottish, etc. The largest religious denominations are Roman Catholic and rest of them believe in Anglican Church of Canada (14.9%), United Church of Canada (6.0%) or atheism (17.4%). In addition to French and English, the Northwest Territories’ Official Languages Act also recognizes the following Chipewyan/Dene, Cree, Gwich’in, North Slavey, South Slavey, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut and Dogrib. Nunavut is the northernmost, largest and newest territory with a continuous indigenous population of 33,000 residents for almost 4,000 years in 25 remote communities. Most of population are Inuits (83.6% of the total population), 0.3% First Nations, 0.4% Metis and 15% non-aboriginal. Along with the official language English, French and Inuktut are widely used. Iunits arrived about 4,000 years ago and started to spread throughout the entire Arctic. The indigenous music forms comprise Inuit throat singing, drum-led dancing, country music, square dancing, bluegrass, the button accordion and the fiddle. Even though, English is the main language, the government also recognizes distinct aboriginal languages as their important cultural heritage: the Tahltan, the Tlingit, Upper Tanana, Han, Northern Tutchone, Gwitchin, Kasha and Tagish. The first people crossed a land bridge from Asia to Canada during Ice Age at around 25,000 years ago. Part of the land became ice-free and hunting and herding activities began during the last ice age. In March 1867, Alaska was sold by Russia to the United States and Yukon was considered to be in American territory. The construction of trading companies were forced to build within Yulon. In the year of 1870, gold rush thrived and hundreds of hopeful goldseekers arrived the land. The gold rush has a dramatically negative influence on First Nations people. Their habitat was destroyed by forest fires and families had to be forced to move further north to obtain food.

Because the geographical realities prevent the isolated northern territories from true development, the north is not generally a happy part of Canada. Almost all negative statistics about crime, drug, per-capita prison population, domestic violence and suicide are extremely high in the North than rest of Canada. The numbers are normally excluded from the national statistics in order not to warp the average. The economic hopelessness and the overbearing dullness of the region, coupled with inhospitable weather and a generally hostile worldview trigger chronic anxiety and even depression in the residents. The problem of young Inuit struggling with their culture and identity even complicates the issue further. The communities who heavily rely on their traditional culture now face an obstacle to continue their lifestyles, such as land regulation, hunting restrictions and the cost of exploration. In addition, their

traditions of hunting, trapping, fishing and crop production face challenges of being lost and failed to pass down to the next generation.

On the bright side, the North has a high potential to become an engine for economic development for the entire nation and a world class destination for investment. Recent discoveries of diamonds mines, oil and natural gas reserves, incredible living marine resources such as fishery and a thriving tourism can attract visitors from all over the world and help the region usher in an era of economic opportunity, only if managed properly in a sustainable way. There is tremendous potential for job and wealth creation through resource development. In recent decades, the Government of Canada has paying more attentions and trying to deal more about the plight of the region, with federal subsidies for aboriginal cultural renewal, northern education, healthcare, social programme, infrastructure. The government will try to engage as much as the indigenous people to enter into business with indigenous-owned enterprises. The federal and the territorial governments are now the main source of indigenous people employment. The indigenous can still continue to lead their traditional lifestyle, fishing and hunting, which are considered culturally significant and a resource of self-respect. However, the possibilities of their renewable resource, fish and meat, should not be neglected. For example, the fish and mammal resources of the Northwest territories can provide protein sufficient for human population in that region two to five times the present size. Caribou, muskoxen and arctic char can be marketed as gourmet food globally and promoted in commercial market locally within the territories. Thus, an urgent need to address the economic and social issues in North is important to create successful and sustainable solutions.

How to proceed

Picture 2: A map of Canada with the Canadian flag on top, source: Financial Post (n.d.)

Northern Canada, struggling with harsh climatic condition, has enormous resource potential. It is likely that with time, these resources will be increasingly explored, as every nation is in the need of resources. Therefore, advanced technology and massive investment through international cooperation are crucial. This process will help Northern Canada to get a better infrastructure and local communities will be able to connect more easily. In one way, climate change will help to explore resources in the North through relatively better working conditions and reduced ice mass but at the same time, permafrost gets reduced due to global warming will threaten the stability of infrastructures. So, the basic rule to develop infrastructure in the North is to consider environmental viability along with economic viability. Furthermore, the northern part of Canada is a fragile region and everyone interested to work in that area must respect the ecosystems and culture, if we want to have a sustainable future. Consequently,

while thriving resource exploitation and infrastructure development, the entire life cycle of the processes must be assessed. Renewable energy will guide the way into a sustainable future, hence fossil fuels may not be available in the expected amounts. The Government developed Canada’s Northern Strategy in order to provide an overarching vision for the Northern region. The Strategy has four interrelated priority areas: promotion on economic and social development, exercise on Arctic sovereignty, protection on the North’s environmental heritage and establishment on northern governance. This is even more important, when we want to ensure the unique and virgin nature of the North in order to preserve its environment and at the same time increase eco tourism and urban development. The region is imprinted with aboriginal tradition and Inuit culture as well as architecture. These treasures can’t be forgotten and must be included in every strategy that might be developed concerning Northern Canada. With changing conditions and an unclear future, sustainable and flexible plans have to be made on how to tackle the further development in Northern Canada.

References

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Conclusion

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