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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Natural News, State Discourses & The Canadian Arctic
example, Moscow helped to block efforts of the Nixon administration to prevent Canada
from enacting the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act of 1970 following the
unauthorized voyages of U.S. icebreakers accompanying the tanker Manhattan in Canadian
Arctic waters. As well, Canadian and Soviet diplomats worked together in the mid-1970s
to procure Article 234 of the Law of the Sea Treaty, which gives coastal states special
rights of non-discriminatory regulation over adjacent ice-covered waters. Indeed, were
Canada ever required to defend its Arctic sovereignty claim before the World Court, we
would definitely want a Soviet jurist on the panel of judges that heard the case‖ (Griffiths,
1989: A17).
An interest in environment was subsequently reflected in the press more generally. Not only did the
number of articles published on the Arctic in this decade grow with respect to a state-based
environmental agenda, so did the idea that Canadian Arctic might be understood from a post-Cold
War lens. For the Canadian Government this meant a focus upon ‗human security‘, and subscription
to a larger international agenda on the circumpolar North (Heininen & Nicol, 2007; Kesitalo, 2004).
Such a reorientation was in keeping with a growing international consensus which, beyond the
purview of both the media and state, included landmark texts like the Brundtland Report (Williams,
2010; Heininen & Nicol, 2007; UN, 1987). Still, the decade closed with a lamentation that a
burgeoning environmental awareness, throughout Canada and not just in the North, was poorly
presented in the governance agenda of the state, although an interest in Arctic environmentalism
had been fuelled by the Exxon Valdez disaster (see Table 1: Disaster and Rescue, where a higher
number of incidents for this year stem from the Exxon Valdez incident).
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It is important, however, not to overstate the shift in perception and representation. While a new
understanding of military civilian relations was emergent within the Arctic region, the complex
interweaving of a military and mastery of climate discourse as a corollary of the Arctic ‗science‘
discourse still remained important if somewhat less so than in previous times. For example, an
article reporting on a military exercise on Ellesmere Island, using the aptly titled ―Icy cold, polar
bears Arctic test for soldiers‖, repeated the gendered and colonial texts, and observed that ―Warrant
Officer Larry Hartenberger of Regina said ‗outdoor challenges like this are good for the fellows‘, and
that Brig.-Gen. C.A. Walker, commander of the Prairie Militia, said the exercise helps to reinforce
Canadian sovereignty in the North…‗It‘s a way of showing the flag and demonstrating the capability
of our troops to put down anywhere in Canada regardless of the terrain or temperatures.‘ (Toronto
Star, 1989).
Re-Framing Indigenous Peoples‟ Interests
‗Showing the flag‘, however, became an increasingly qualified exercise in the late 1980s. The
discursive shift from Cold War to post-Cold War geopolitics left some wondering just why nuclear
submarines were necessary, and why military capacity was necessary for sovereignty. Along with the
rise of an international context for environmental negotiations in the Arctic, for example, came a
corresponding increase in the way in which the Arctic was constructed as a potential nuclear-free
zone, and one in which Inuit peoples played a role within sovereignty and security discourses.
The
Toronto Star
noted, in December, 1985 for example, that: