Background#

For thousands of years, perhaps since the end of the Last Glacial Era made some regions of the Arctic inhabitable, the Minor Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic have lived in relative isolation, with the only threats coming from the severe local environment and from warfare with other minor indigenous peoples (such as when the Dorset culture, once dominant in present Greenland and Nunavut, gave way to the Thule culture—the ancestors of nowadays Inuit—between the 12th and 16th century). This allowed them to stick to their relatively primitive lifestyle until very recently. But, during the latest decades, a number of challenges have been emerging, which have the potential to destroy not only their traditional lifestyle, but also their mere existence as separate groups, making them susceptible of assimilation or marginalisation.

A main issue affecting them is related to the presence of enormous natural reserves in many of the lands inhabited by the minor indigenous groups. In Russia, for instance, Sakha (Yakutia) hosts huge deposits of gold, diamonds and uranium; but the main bone of contention is probably the Yamal peninsula, which is at the same time the homeland and a traditional pasture land of the Nenets nomads and the location of the largest gas deposits in Russia. Many of them have been inaccessible for a long time, but technological developments and climate change are making their exploitation increasingly viable. Finding a conciliation between these clashing needs is not always easy, and while the development of oil and gas industry will create employment opportunities also for the natives, the impact for those sticking to the traditional nomadic way of life may be dramatic, especially in case of environmental disasters.

Another main challenge is the progressive abandonment of their traditional lifestyles, sometimes as a result of the policies carried out by the Arctic countries, but also because the mere contact with modern lifestyles can make the traditional ones unattractive. There have actually been instances where the number of people engaged in traditional activities is actually increasing, at least in absolute terms: in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, whose native population (the Nenets) is traditionally engaged in nomadic reindeer herding, the members of the minor indigenous populations engaged in traditional activities went up from 9,806 in 1927 to 12,976 in 1997 and to 14,667 in 2010. Nonetheless, even in these instances, their share is decreasing in relative terms, moving from 83.63 per cent in 1927 to 37.29 in 1997 and to 35.41 in 2010 (although there has been a slight percentual increase between 2005 and 2010).

A side effect of the loss of traditional ways of life is the vaporisation of the native culture, which often goes hand-in-hand with the loss of the native language, and the subsequent assimilation of the people affected into some dominant culture (or, otherwise, marginalisation and extinction). A low number of speakers is not necessarily a sign of an imminent language death, if this is transmitted to the children, and even language death does not imply the death of the ethnic group which speaks it, since an ethnic minority can remain distinct from the local majority group through elements such as religion, culture and national or local identity. The cases of Egyptian Copts, Manx and Diaspora Jews are emblematic in this sense. But, for the minor indigenous peoples of the Arctic, there is often a cause-effect relation between the loss of a traditional lifestyle, language switch and assimilation into a majority ethnic group in the arch of a few generations. Switching to city dwelling or non-traditional activities often implies also a language switch, and it shouldn’t be surprising if all the languages spoken by them are classified by UNESCO as somehow endangered.

No language spoken by the minor indigenous populations of the Arctic, including those which have some official status, is classified as “safe”. The main Eskimo-Aleut languages, such as Inuktitut and Greenlandic, are classified as “vulnerable”, which implies that the language is spoken also by the children generation, but mostly in private settings. The same applies for Cree, a Canadian language (actually a series of dialects) spoken on a belt which goes from the Northwest Territories in the west to Quebec in the east and which borders the Inuit lands in the north. The languages of the main minor indigenous peoples of Russia, such as Chukchi, Dolgan and Tundra Nenets, are classified as “definitely endangered”, which implies that children no longer learn the language as native. Sami languages are classified either as “definitely endangered” or as “severely endangered”, and the latter means that “the language is spoken just by grandparents and older generations, and while the parent generation may understand it, it does not speak it to the children or among themselves”. Finally, some of the most isolated languages such as Itelmen (a language traditionally spoken by Itelmens, a population of Northern Kamchatka), East Cape Yupik and Aleut are classified as “critically endangered”, which implies that the even the grandparents’ generation speaks the language partially and unfrequently, while the younger generations don’t speak it at all. If nothing changes, therefore, languages such as Chukchi and Dolgan are just two generations away from the fate of Itelmen, although in this case a language revival is undergoing in order to prevent its death.

Last but not least, compelling issues currently facing the Minor Indigenous Peoples of the North care climate change, as well as weather and environmental factors as a whole. Although the environment in which these populations live may look very harsh, we must remember that their lifestyle is a consequence of a century-long adaptation to a specific environment. So climate change, with all its repercussions on the traditional diet and lifestyle of these populations, may have dramatic effects and adapting to the new conditions may be all but easy. But, even without considering global warming, we should always be mindful that communities engaged in traditional lifestyles in remote areas are way more subject to weather patterns than city dwellers or also people engaged in agriculture, fishing and animal husbandry who can rely on the help of modern technology. For the Nenets living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, for example, the anomalous heat experienced in 5-7 summers in a row caused a dramatic increase in the population of bloodsucking insects such as mosquitoes and a forced change for some traditional pasture routes, while the overall increase in the number of reindeer farms is causing an exhaustion of the pastures. The times when potato blight caused around 1 million deaths in Ireland are now over, but the consequences of these environmental, climate and weather issues may still be severe.

Dealing with the Natives: Russia#

Before dealing with the differences in the treatment of the Minor Indigenous People of the Arctic between Russia and the Arctic Anglo-Saxon countries (Canada and the U.S.), we should remark that the concept of “Minor Indigenous People” enjoys a legal recognition only in Russia; but, if these legislative criteria would be applied everywhere, pretty much every indigenous ethnic group of the Arctic would be classified as a “Minor Indigenous Population”, with the only exception of the Greenlandic Inuit, who would barely miss the population criteria, while the eight subgroups of the Cree people (around 350,000 people) would become “minor indigenous people” if taken singularly. In fact the list of the Minor Indigenous People of Russia, currently amounting to 40 ethnic groups—17 of which natives of the Russian Arctic—includes every single ethnic group which fulfils the following criteria:

• They must have a population below 50,000 members living within Russia;
• They must live in their traditional territories;
• They should self-recognise themselves as a separate ethnicity;
• They should preserve their traditional way of life, occupation, and trades.

Russia inherited the administrative structure of the Soviet Union, which gave each ethnicity its own administrative unity according to their consistency. The major ethnic groups—the threshold was 1 million people—were entitled to a Republic, while the minor ethnic groups were given an Autonomous Republic, Oblast or Okrug in a decreasing scale of autonomy. Within their entity, titular ethnicities were entitled to their own party, their language got official status. Excluding the short-lived Karelo-Finnish SSR, no ethnic group of the Russian Arctic ever achieved its own republic due to their relatively small populations: in fact the major ethnic groups, namely the Sakha (Yakuts), the Karelians and the Komi got an autonomous republic, while the Chukchi, the Nenets, the Evenki (Tungus), the Mansi, the Khanty and the Dolgans obtained some autonomous okrugs.

While the Tsarist domination didn’t greatly affect the life of most Minor Indigenous peoples, if we exclude the Christianisation of some of them, after the late-20’s nomadic groups such as the Nenets were affected by the sedentarization and collectivisation policies, which implied a loss of traditional lifestyles, with the consequent social problems especially for the male population (among the Nenets, for instance, the reindeer herders are male) and the cultural assimilation of some of them; but these policies were reverted after 1953, allowing many of them to recover their traditional lifestyle. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when the Republics became independent, the Autonomous Republics of the newborn Russian Federation were officially renamed Republics, but the overall federal structure stayed pretty much unchanged and is likely to remain the same also in the future.

Anglo-Saxon scholars usually claim that this policy was motivated by two apparently contradictory principles. On the one hand, there was the adoption of the self-determination principle emerged during the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and restated by the then-U.S. President Woodrow Wilson as part of his vision for the post-WWI Europe; on the other hand, the need to establish a socialist society through the idea of a common path of the Soviet peoples towards a Brighter Tomorrow. The French demographer Emmanuel Todd, who discovered an interesting trait-d’union between the locally dominant family systems and the expected institutional and political tendencies, also sees the influence of the exogamous communitarian family—the dominant traditional family model both of the Eastern Slavic core of the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and among some of the non-Slavic ethnic groups of the FSU, such as the Kazakhs—as a major factor. Indeed, the idea of “brotherly nations” with the Russian people playing the role of a primus inter pares (or, to put it simple, of a big brother), but where the smaller brothers still have equal access to the USSR central structures, plays well with the hierarchical structure of the exogamous communitarian family combined with the equality among brothers. Indeed, the role played in the Soviet central institutions by non-Russians, especially Georgians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Jews, is well-known.

The Article 69 of the Russian constitution officially recognises the right of the minor indigenous peoples to preserve their culture and lifestyle. These rights are enforced by further legislative measures; but, as put by a study conducted in 2019 by a pool of five Russian academicians, even more precise formulations do not prevent the inevitable conflicts of interpretation arising by the clash of the needs of the indigenous populations and those of the business, as shown by the cases of the USA (Alaska), Denmark (Greenland) and Norway. In these cases, therefore, the pool proposes trilateral agreements between native peoples, local authorities and business representatives. Therefore, during the latest years, new national and local laws have been approved to cover many legal vacuums and loopholes, such as the new local laws of Sakha (Yakutia), the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug which make agreements with the representatives of the native peoples mandatory for the launch of new projects in certain sectors such as oil and gas.

Likewise, the state-sponsored initiatives to protect the life and the environment of the Minor Indigenous People of the Arctic are increasing. One of them is Clean Arctic, an initiative originally launched by the captain of the icebreaker “50 Let Pobedy” Dmitriy Lobusov and the geologist Gennadiy Antokhin, organises instead cleaning initiatives in some protected areas of several Arctic locations with the help of volunteers. The project is active in nine regions (Karelia, Murmansk Oblast, Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoyarsk Krai, the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Yakutia, Komi and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug) and is supported by a number of major Russian corporations, such as Rosatom and Norilsk Nickel. The topic of corporate social responsibility is back. Another corporation, The Far East and Arctic Development Corporation (FEADC), makes use of state support mechanisms in order to channel investments and new businesses in the Russian Arctic and in some regions of the Russian Far East. Together with the Centre for Arctic Initiatives, an institution set up in 2019 with similar aims, the FAEDC established Deti Arktiki (Children of the Arctic), a foundation whose website publishes advice on Arctic destinations, basic notions in native languages and studies devoted to native peoples of the North. A step forward would be the launch of native language courses, be it physical or online, and material supports for arctic tourism.

Finally, in a contest where oil and gas companies have often been accused of being insensitive to the needs of the indigenous populations, these companies themselves have started to engage with them as part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Among the companies operating in the Russian Arctic, Lukoil’s efforts are particularly remarkable: Vagit Alekperov’s oil company, operating also in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Yamal project), the Nenets Autonomous Okrug just west of the Urals and the Krasnoyarsk Krai, has indeed supported traditional lifestyles among the indigenous Khanty, Mansi and Nenets populations, held the Red Chum project to provide medical assistance to the nomadic communities since 2002 and promoted the preservation of the native languages. According to their 2022 3-year report, the latest one to date, around 428 million roubles have been devolved to indigenous populations in 2022 alone, with an increase of around 15.7 per cent from the previous year, while no instance of involuntary resettlement of indigenous peoples was recorded in relation to the company’s operation in 2022. Some instances of positive relations between oil and gas companies and indigenous peoples have been recorded also in other regions, such as Sakha (Yakutia) and the Sakhalin and Irkutsk oblasts.

Remarkable efforts have been started also by Norilsk Nickel, the largest producer of nickel in the world, but with a different spirit. Like many other companies in Russia and abroad, Norilsk Nickel’s CSR policy implies first of all the development of local communities along the concept of company town (monogorod in Russian), where the main employer offers not only most employment opportunities, but also several social and community services such as schooling, housing, sport clubs and cultural institutions like theatres. Norilsk Nickel’s most important company town, needless to say, is Norilsk, the company’s namesake and headquarters location as well as one of the largest cities in the Russian Arctic with almost 180,000 inhabitants; but the main example of implementation of CSR by Norilsk Nickel is probably in the relocation of Tukhard, a small town around 100 km west of Norilsk hosting some gas deposits owned by a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel and inhabited by Nenets. Given the high pollution rate in the town, which caused its inclusion into a health protection zone where human settlements are prohibited, Norilsk Nickel is starting to build a new Tukhard in a safer location, actively engaging local Nenets with the aim to build a town suitable for reindeer herders. Moreover, starting from November 2023, the metallurgical company has engaged a team of UN experts in order to develop a new approach towards the Minor Indigenous Peoples living in the region.

Dealing with the Native: the USA#

While the Russian system is based on the idea that every person belongs to his people, but still emphasises equality among peoples, the Anglo-Saxon approach, which according to Todd stems from the absolute nuclear family dominant in England and its diaspora countries, tends to reject the notion of equality and is rather characterised by a sort of moderate differentialism, often based on visible attributes. Moreover, the United States and Canada were born as settler colonies, and such remained also after their independence. As a consequence, Native Americans were seen as “others”, the expansion of both Canada and the United States was accompanied by a systematic marginalisation of the natives into the lands the colonists didn’t wish to settle (known as Indian Reservations in the U.S. and Indian Reserves in Canada), and even people with mixed ethnic backgrounds tended to be considered as somehow “other”, as shown by the inclusion of the Canadian Métis among the indigenous people (in Russia, people with a mixed ethnic background tend to be assimilated into the dominant culture, usually the Russian one).

Moreover, having been born as Anglo-Saxon settler colonies (Quebec, while similar to Anglo-Canada with regards of being born as a settler colony, can be considered a different nation and will be treated as such), the federal structures of both Canada and the United States have been created to fit the needs of the colonists, with little regards to the indigenous populations. Native-held lands are not federal entities like the Soviet (and then Russian) republics, but rather domestic dependent nations, neither fully independent nor somehow integrated, and until 1999 there was no native 1st-level administrative entity in either the U.S. and Canada (the attempt of the Five Civilised Tribes of the Indian Territory in nowadays Oklahoma to get statehood as Sequoyah failed).

But, while Canada and the United States share the same Anglo-Saxon matrix, there are some differences between them. Apart from segregation, the States have swung between further attacks against Native American lifestyles (see the 1887 Dawes Act, which dismantled tribal organisations and replaced tribal lands with private property which often ended in the hands of European colonisers, or the Indian Termination Act), attempts to assimilate them into the dominant Anglo-Saxon American culture (see Indian Citizenship Policy) and inversely to restore traditional governments and lifestyles (see Indian Reorganisation Act, Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act). The last two acts, approved in 1934 and 1975 respectively, form now the basis of the relations between the federal and the tribal governments: the former led to the recognition of tribal governments, while the latter gave the natives fiscal, educational and legal autonomy within the reservations’ border and set the legal basis for Native American gaming in the states which forbade gambling. They came too late to preserve traditional lifestyles, especially for those Natives who practiced a nomadic lifestyle, but helped some of them to take benefit of the self-government provisions to promote economic development, especially tourism and gambling: some examples are the Seminoles of Florida, the current owners of the Hard Rock Cafe chain, and the Kumeyaay of Southern California, which currently own six casinos around San Diego as well as the historic U.S. Grant Hotel in Downtown San Diego. This, nevertheless, is more the exception than the rule; only a few tribes have been able to get rich thanks of tourism and gambling, usually those living close to major cities (as in the aforementioned cases) or near major tourist destinations, while for the great majority of Native Americans, especially those living in the reservations, everyday life is still made of poverty, unemployment and often alcohol and drugs addiction. The Sioux of Pine Ridge, for instance, would not be able to buy Hard Rock Cafe like the Seminoles.

Alaska, as known, has been part of the U.S. since 1867; but the experience of the local natives is partly different from that of their brethren in the Contiguous 48. Given its harsh climate and its geographical isolation, most of Alaska didn’t experience a massive influx of colonists like the American West. Therefore, while Native Americans make up only the 21.9 per cent of the population of Alaska (which would still make it the most “native” U.S. state, with the possible exception of New Mexico), they are the majority in most of the state. Moreover, since Alaska was granted statehood only in 1959, federal laws, including the dispositions around Native Americans, did not apply automatically. The Indian Reorganisation Act, for example, was extended to Alaska two years after its approval, while the Indian Termination Policy was never implemented here, since its failure became evident well before Alaska became a state. After the discovery of oil, the issue of Native claims came to the forefront, leading to five-year long negotiations between the AFN and the Federal Government. These discussions led to the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which marked an innovative approach to indigenous claims. The ANCSA did not establish new Indian Reservations, but transferred around 180,000 km² of Native-claimed land and $962.5 mln to thirteen newly-established for-profit corporations. These corporations were to be native-owned, each native was to receive 100 shares of stocks in his local corporation, and the entitlement to these shared was to be ancestry-based: whoever had at least ¼ of Native blood was defined as “Alaska Native” and therefore entitled to the shares.

Based on the idea that Alaska Natives had to adapt to the capitalist system in order to survive as a distinct population and avoid the fate of their brethren in the Contiguous United States, the ANCTA encountered mixed reactions; but, at the end of the day, it was accepted by almost all Alaskan Natives, with the only exception of the Metlakatla of Annette Island, whose land was then turned into an Indian Reservation. More than 50 years later, we can say that the ANCTA helped to ensure for the Alaska Natives a better lifestyle than most of those of the U.S. mainland. The native-held corporations were highly successful, and they include 7 of the top 10 largest Alaska-owned companies. A side effect was the creation of a sort of symbiosis between corporate and native interests, as shown by the Willow Oil Project case: while environmentalists and some indigenous people oppose the project, claiming that it will dramatically affect the population of caribou—a vital food source for the natives, polar bears and other local animals, damage permafrost and produce as many carbon emissions as 70 new coal-fired power plants, the support for the project is strong even among the natives, as shown by the thumbs up given by the AFN and the Iñupiat Community of the Arctic Slope.

Are lifestyle and environmental concerns not so important for the Alaska Natives? The issue is thorny. According to the Native supporters of the project, the final deal will make it “possible for our community to continue our traditions, while strengthening the economic foundation of our region for decades to come”. On the other hand, the concerns about local caribou populations and traditional subsistence lifestyles are shared by the former Major of Nuiqsut (a town of 525 people very close to the proposed development) Rosemary Ahtuangaruak, but—given the bipartisan consensus the project enjoys in Alaska—she feels that voices like hers are being “drowned out”. But, while the concerns for the environment and traditional lifestyles are understandable, the virtuous examples of the Kumeyaay, the Seminole and the Alaska Natives themselves show that minor indigenous peoples can be economically successful (under certain conditions) while still keeping their tribal organisation and—at least in part—their culture. The case of the Kumeyaay of Southern California, which are now using their revenues also to revitalise their language—currently classified as “critically endangered”—and to support their ethnic brethren in Northern Mexico by buying and reselling their artefacts, shows on the contrary that economic success can become a tool to support the local culture, recover the native language and prevent young people from leaving the tribe in search for better opportunities. And to prove that Dawes was wrong.

Dealing with the Native: Canada#

Canada has apparently given a better deal to his local natives and is conscious of past wrongs. Unlike the United States, it recognises the Native American Genocide and its natives occupy a more prominent position in the Canadian social and political life, not just by virtue of their higher percentage. But this kindness could hide what some observers defined “a paternalistic approach”, and at the same time there are a number of shortcomings compared to the southern neighbour: as put by a local native representative, for instance, Canada doesn’t have a blanket recognition of tribal sovereignty, unlike the United States, except in certain circumstances when they have been forced to negotiate. Moreover, Canadian Indian Reserves are way smaller than U.S. Indian Reservations, and their overall extent (around 35,900 km²) is less than half of the size of the Navajo Nation, the largest Indian Reservation in the States.

In the past, Canada used to distinguish between the Native Americans from the Southern Provinces, locally known as First Nations, and the Inuit: the former were to be assimilated and turned from hunter-gatherers into farmers or city dwellers, with the children often removed from their families and forced to attend boarding schools, while the latter were to be “left to their natural mode of living and not depend upon white men”. The presence of assimilationist tendencies seems to contradict Todd’s findings, since assimilationist policies are often a by-product of universalism and are incompatible with the often-racist attitudes we can find in the traditional approach of both Canada and U.S. towards their natives. But, even considering this exception, Canada’s attitude towards Natives and Métis still reflects a differentialist mindset, and while Canada never reached the level of the nearby U.S. in defining rigid racial boundaries and banning mixed unions, the concept of “race” was still important, albeit on a (mostly) informal level, and the way Canadians perceive themselves is way closer to the U.S. melting pot (which is traditionallylimited to Europeans and those people with mixed or non-European background who can somehow pass as white or European, and while it applies increasingly to Asians and Latin Americans, it still admits race differences) that to the actual products of universalist societies like Latin American mestizaje (which takes a mixed ethnic background as a given) or the Russian idea of union of brotherly peoples. A native who attended a boarding school and spoke only English or French may still be perceived as “other”.

While the Inuit were also occasionally sent to boarding schools or deported to faraway locations (see High Arctic Relocation), they remained the overwhelming majority in the eastern and northern parts of the Northwest Territories, traditionally the most “native” Canadian entity due to the relatively low influx of European colonists. The proposal of a separate entity for the Inuit of Northwest Territories was launched for the first time in the 50’s, but the negotiation between the Federal Government and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), an organisation founded in 1971 to represent Canadian Inuit, started only in 1976, while the Nunavut province was finally created in 1999. Nunavut is the only incorporated indigenous administrative entity in North America so far. In the meanwhile, an Inuit autonomous area has been created in Newfoundland and Labrador (Nunatsiavut), an Inuit settlement area has been designed in the northernmost part of Yukon and the Northwest Territory (Inuvialit Settlement Area).

In Quebec, under the terms of the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the local Inuit set up the Makivvik, a corporation with the task of administer Inuit lands and the compensations awarded to the Inuit. This approach, similar to the Alaskan one, helped the local Inuit to set up important social services for the communities, including two regional airlines. But the attempt to create an autonomous area in the Inuit-majority Northern Quebec (Nunavik) haven’t materialised so far. In 2007, the then-Premier Jean Charest signed an agreement-in-principle in this sense, which would have would have merged three existing public agencies (the regional municipal administration, the school board and the health and social services), but it was rejected in a 2012 referendum with around 70 per cent of “no” votes, since critics claimed it would have jeopardised local Inuit’s rights rather than strengthening them. Meanwhile, on 24th July 2012, the Quebec government and the Grand Council of the Cree, an organisation representing around 18,000 Quebecois Crees, agreed to create Eeyou Istchee, a territory equivalent to a municipality administered by the Grand Council itself.

The creation of the Nunavut Territory represents undoubtedly a great conquest not only for the local Inuit, but for all the Natives living north of the Rio Grande (it’s the first—and only to date—1st-level Native administrative unit in North America, excluding Greenland); but, at the same time, it may sound like an attempt of the Canadian Anglo-Saxon core to whitewash its history (or, as put by an Inuit activist, to present Canadian history as “a three-way partnership between the English, the French and the Aboriginal People”). As a whole, nevertheless, Anglo-Canada has been more successful in dealing with its minor indigenous population than Quebec, which may even face the secession of the Cree and Inuit-majority regions in case Quebec secedes from Canada, as shown by the side consultation held by them on the wake of the 1995 Referendum. Therefore, while the attempt to rethink Canada as a sort of trinational state may actually succeed (although the third nation would be the Inuit rather than the Canadian indigenous people as a whole), historical grievances and strong pro-Canada feelings make the relations between Quebec and its Natives still rather thorny.

AUTHOR

Giuseppe Cappelluti
Independent Expert