Arctic sovereignty? Canadian Inuit would like a word’
On the election trail, Canada’s federal leaders pushed military and industry in the North. Sara Olsvig, head of the cross-border Inuit Circumpolar Council, weighs in.
This story was originally published on The Narwhal, a publication about the natural world in Canada
Iqaluit has long been a stop on federal election campaigns. But over the last few months, as Liberal Leader Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh each visited the Nunavut capital, something was different. While the stops still offered snowy photo opportunities, they seemed like more than a ticked box for an election campaign. In 2025, Nunavut, and the Arctic more broadly, is a serious talking point.
Both Carney and Poilievre made splashy promises about Arctic sovereignty, which for them means increased military might and resource development, both requiring new infrastructure they promise will be a boon to local communities. But this isn’t the first time residents of Inuit Nunangat — the Inuit homelands in Canada — have been under a spotlight wielded by politicians and industry leaders. Like other Arctic states, Canada’s interest in its northern territories ebbs and flows, driven by geopolitics and trade. While increased attention can be a boon, it can also cause significant harm.
Since 1977, the Inuit Circumpolar Council has provided Inuit across Canada, Alaska, Chukotka (Russia) and Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) — the circumpolar North, or Inuit Nunaat — with a unified voice on the global stage. Today, it represents approximately 180,000 Inuit and is chaired by Sara Olsvig of Kalaallit Nunaat.
Olsvig spoke with The Narwhal about this current geopolitical moment, what those on the ground think about all the Arctic talk right now and how sovereignty for Inuit means self-determination is non-negotiable.
“We are here as Inuit and we will be here in the future. We’ve been here for time immemorial,” Olsvig said. “We are working every day, step by step, to develop our societies in the way that we want to see them develop. Home rule and self-government arrangements — those are things that we are not backing down from.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Inuit Circumpolar Council was founded during the Cold War to provide Inuit across the circumpolar North with a platform to present a unified voice on issues ranging from the climate to global affairs.
Yet here we are nearly 50 years later and Arctic Sovereignty is back in the spotlight in a big way. How is what is happening now different? Or is it?
It is different. When the Inuit Circumpolar Council was founded in 1977, we were able to meet as Inuit from Kalaallit Nunaat, Canada and Alaska. And one of the first things that Inuit did was to call on the then-Soviet Union to allow Inuit from Chukotka to become members of our organization. What Inuit were able to do was to work through diplomacy, sometimes quiet diplomacy, to create those connections.
Our shared organization, the Inuit Circumpolar Council, has been an extremely good diplomat, so to speak. We have conducted Indigenous diplomacy to re-establish those connections people-to-people, human connections between Inuit across four very, very different nation states, with four or more very, very different self-government arrangements.
That’s the big difference today, I would say. We have a Kalaallit Nunaat which has its own parliament and government, strives to become an independent state, is asserting its rights as a nation. We have other arrangements across Inuit Nunaat in Canada, different arrangements in Alaska and a whole other arrangement in Chukotka. And I think it’s really important to say that all of these arrangements and self-government of Inuit was never something that dropped down from heaven to us. It was not something that was granted us. These are achievements that we built ourselves through our own diplomatic efforts.
Today we also have an international recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples and our right of self-determination affirmed in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. We live under very different international institutional and legal frameworks than we did 50 years ago.
Talk around Arctic sovereignty can come from a country wanting to assert its dominance over its Arctic territories, or from Inuit sovereignty and self-determination. Which Arctic sovereignty are we hearing about right now?
There’s always been some level of pressure from the nation-states that do approach the Arctic as some kind of new frontier, more as a source of resource and expansion than an inhabited region where peoples have lived for for time immemorial.
When we talk about sovereignty seen from an Inuit perspective, it’s always important for us to reconfirm and assert the fact that we were here for time immemorial. We have been here before state borders were drawn on maps, before different waves of settlers came in and out of the Arctic. Inuit have thrived and survived and lived here, regardless of whatever kinds of acts of securitization or acts of sovereignty in a state-centered way have happened.
I always get quite proud to know that Inuit leaders for many, many decades have had the skills to navigate those different spheres of how you view the world, how you can act side-by-side with states who pursue a certain kind of sovereignty at the same time as not losing our inherent Indigeneity and Inuit way of living, an Inuit way of conceiving and thinking of sovereignty. Those things can coexist. We have bandwidth in our heads and as Inuit to navigate those things. States and others think that Indigenous Peoples don’t think about hard security issues or Westphalian state sovereignty and so on. But that’s not true. That’s exactly what we have been navigating in our assertion of our rights.
Much of the driving force behind the Arctic sovereignty and security conversations comes from southerners, extraction and shipping industry leaders and politicians who live outside of the Arctic. No one community across the Arctic is the same, but when you speak with Inuit around the circumpolar North, do your conversations sound remotely similar to what we’re seeing in headlines?
It’s exactly correct what you’re saying, that no Inuit community is the same. We have very different relationships with the states within which we live, very different relationships with the military organizations of those states. Some Inuit organizations and rights holder organizations and so forth work in close partnerships with the defense of the state they live in, making a lot of their income from servicing the defense and military presence in those regions. In Kalaallit Nunaat, Greenland, the agreements about U.S. military presence here were done before we had any say in international relations. Nevertheless, the government of Kalaallit Nunaat has paved its way into making this not a bilateral U.S.-Denmark relation, but a trilateral relation between Kalaallit Nunaat, Denmark and the U.S.
Across Inuit Nunaat broadly from Chukotka, Alaska, Canada, we have quite different views on nationhood. When I speak to Canadian or Alaskan Inuit, they might have a different view on their sense of nationality [or the] presence of military in our homelands. What is cross-cutting for all Inuit is our right of self-determination. That we ourselves are those to decide what relationship we want with the military presence. We do not want to see repetition of historical events, such as forceful displacement of people of Inuit in relation to creating new military installations. We do not want to see a militarization where we are not included in decision-making.
The bottom line is that there is no such thing as saying, “You have a self-determination, but only to this line”. We also have self-determination on those areas that states would consider hard security or sovereignty, and therefore we still have some way to go in terms of working with our states to fully implement our rights of self-determination.
Countries are driving a global Arctic security conversation, but what is being discussed on the local level? Are there different priorities, such as health, housing, and food security?
That’s a question that speaks to the importance of remembering that we have the bandwidth to encompass both. We do conceive of other forms of security in our societies as being related to our human security — access to health services, access to infrastructure and so forth. All of those things are deeply related to our human security, as are the more hard security issues. One thing does not exclude the other. And if we as Inuit do not continue to have our focus on both, we know that, especially on the hard security issues, these decisions will continue to be taken without us.
In 1977, when the council was founded, one of our first resolutions, 7711, talked about how we as Inuit want our region to be peaceful, to be used for peaceful purposes only. We reaffirmed that resolution in 2022. And I think if we as Arctic Indigenous peoples didn’t say so, who would? But we do say it with open eyes and open ears, knowing what’s going on around us. These past months here in Kalaallit Nunaat, I can say that hard security issues are also something that people talk about on the streets and over coffee.
Discussions about access to “critical minerals” and Arctic shipping routes — like the Northwest Passage, which itself is a 175-year-old conversation — are not new. How much of today’s dialogue about these topics are driven by the clear effects of climate change in the Arctic?
I often see the narrative that, you know, ice is melting and the resources are suddenly available. That’s not how it is here in Kalaallit Nunaat. There’s been mapping of the resources of Kalaallit Nunaat for centuries. We have a high degree of knowledge about what resources are here.
I think the big difference across Inuit Nunaat is, again, the level of how concretely we can exercise our right of self-determination into terms of deciding to utilize those resources, extract those resources or not. We here in Kalaallit Nunaat have full self-determination on whether to mine or not. The whole resource extraction question became a cornerstone in the economic relationship between Kalaallit Nunaat and Denmark with the self-government agreement from 2009. That’s not the case for all Inuit. The basic principle of the questions of resource extraction is that no projects go ahead without free, prior, informed consent obtained before starting.
I would say the same about shipping. Inuit are ship owners. Inuit are big fish company owners. We are dependent on being able to navigate the seas we have, which we have done for millennia and we have transitioned into huge, successful businesses. That’s also why Inuit Circumpolar Council worked so hard to become part of the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, to sit with states and make sure that no decisions are taken without us. So when we talk about shipping lanes, I think that on one hand, in some mainstream media it’s a bit exaggerated and on the other hand, it sounds as if it’s another one of those, Arctic frontiers where people will go because nobody’s ever been there. But that’s not true.
What we need to do is to make sure that everybody who goes to the waters across Inuit Nunaat do so in a way that least harms the environment, biodiversity, our flora and fauna. We are working to influence that through the International Maritime Organization, demanding that ships make less noise, because underwater radiated noise will affect our marine mammals and then that will then affect our access to hunting. This is about us asserting our seat at the table to inform the regulations on how shipping is conducted.
Part of the global push for critical minerals is an economic response to climate change. Government and industry says mining is essential to extract minerals such as high-quality ore that requires less energy to turn into steel, or the components needed for electric vehicles.
On one hand, this resource extraction could potentially help efforts to curb climate change globally, while providing jobs and increasing infrastructure locally. On the other hand, such projects have significantly harmed culture and the environment in the past and pose similar risks now. How can situations like this be navigated in a meaningful and respectful way?
I was honoured last year to take part in the United Nations Secretary General’s panel on critical energy transition minerals, as one of two Indigenous persons on the panel, together with the former chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum, Mejia Montalvo. It was a tough job, but we got the outcome document of this panel’s work to include full recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples— the right of self-determination, regardless of the world’s pressure. Even calls from other places in the world saying “you have better regulation, so we will do less human rights violations if we mine in your region than in this region”. In spite of all this pressure, and maybe even exactly because of all this pressure, what we must remember is that we have a right to say no.
If we don’t want a uranium mine, we’ll say no, like we did in Kalaallit Nunaat, or the people in south Greenland did. If we see that there’s a need for a specific mineral, let’s talk about it. In the end, if the Indigenous Peoples in mind are saying, “That’s not the road we want to take,” that needs to be respected.
At the Conference of Parties last year, in Baku, there was a fellow Indigenous woman from Belize, who represents a people that want to transition over to solar panels. And she raised a really interesting question — how can she make sure that the minerals that were used to produce the solar panels have not been extracted by violating other Indigenous People’s rights? And that question, to me, pinpointed the issue: we have to work with an industry which has a terrible track record.
So we need to change the industry, make the industry accountable. And how do we do that? Well we make sure that we can trace where the minerals come from, that those who are involved in producing and exporting and so on are made accountable in terms of human rights. That’s going to be a huge task, but that was the recommendation coming out of the panel. And of course, to ramp up circularity. Remove some of the pressure by ensuring that we have reuse of minerals.
The point of departure in this panel’s work was that 55 per cent, at least, of the known deposits are on or near Indigenous Peoples’ land, so we have no option but to address it. We all know as Inuit that our lands are rich. So this is something that we will have in front of us to discuss and decide upon in many years to come.
What I hope for everyone is that we find ways of doing this that doesn’t divide us. We’ve been through tough times here in Kalaallit Nunaat discussing that possible uranium mine. I belong to those who do not want to do uranium mining, but I’ve met with fellow Inuit and citizens who did want to do uranium mining, who were in trouble in terms of employment and income. So these paradoxes and dilemmas we will meet time and time again, and we need to approach them in a good way where we can reach a common understanding of what our different positions are and find the best way ahead.
Over the last few months, the world has become a little more volatile. The Inuit Circumpolar Council operates in four countries, with some projects, like protecting the waters of Pikialasorsuaq, or the North Water Polynya, literally spanning borders. How impacted has the council been by this shift?
It’s different from case to case, so particularly on the Pikialasorsuaq initiative between Kalaallit Nunaat and Canada, it seems that our governments are pursuing a positive development. We are supporting that. It might be different in other areas of Inuit Nunaat — we have yet to see exactly what’s going to be the situation. As you know, elections have taken place, are taking place and new administrations or old administrations are getting in place.
I do want to point to Inuit Circumpolar Council Alaska, which recently convened an Alaskan Inuit leadership summit with very, very strong and clear statements coming out of it. It’s important to say that there is no such thing as a better colonizer. Each of us have very complex relationships with the states around us and you cannot compare and say that it’s better to be Inuk here or there. This is the time where we stand side by side, shoulder by shoulder, and do not allow ourselves to be pitted against each other.
Was there anything else you’d like to add?
These are the times where we should all consider increasing our international engagement. This is the time where we go to the international venues and make our voices heard, assert our seat at the table. That’s something that I hope to see more of in the future, more Inuit youth, more Inuit leadership, more Inuit knowledge-holders to go out there and speak on behalf of our interests so that we can implement what we have been saying for so many years — nothing about us without us.
