Nunavut: The Construction of a Regional Collective Identity in the Canadian Arctic

In 1999, a new political entity emerged in Canada. The Nunavut ¹ Territory was carved out of the Northwest Territories (NWT) on April 1, 1999 (Légaré 1998a, 1999; Dahl et al. 2000). It is the largest political unit of Canada, covering one-fifth of the Canadian land mass, 2,121,102 km ². Nevertheless, this vast geographic area is sparsely inhabited by only 27,000 people, a majority of whom are Inuit (82 percent). ² Nunavut's tiny population is scattered among twenty-seven far-flung communities with great distances in between; the capital Iqaluit is the largest community, with only 5,000 people.

Nunavut was first proposed in February 1976 by the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada (ITC), the institution representing the political interests of Canadian Inuit. The Nunavut proposal (ITC 1976) was aimed at settling the outstanding aboriginal rights of the Inuit of the NWT. The basic idea behind the proposal was to create a territory within which the vast majority of people were Inuit.

In Canada aboriginal rights are rooted in aboriginal title. This title is recognized in the historic British document known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763. According to British law, aboriginal title arises from long and continuous use and occupancy of the land by aboriginalpeoples prior to the arrival of European colonial powers in North America. It is a form of property rights. The Royal Proclamation recognized this title and requires that the Crown (i.e., the federal government) settle outstanding aboriginal title rights through a land-ceased treaty-making process (Usher et al. 1992, 113). According to the latest version of the federal government policy on outstanding land claims (DIAND 1987), a claimant group who surrenders its aboriginal title will obtain control and ownership of vast parcels of land over specific geographical areas.

The reasons behind the Inuit desire to push for their own political unit were threefold. First, there was the absence of any land cession treaty with the Canadian government. Second, the Inuit possess a demographic majority and cultural homogeneity in the Canadian Eastern Arctic. Third, the Inuit desired to control their own political, social, and economic agendas (Légaré 1996, 1997). Ultimately, ITC shared the idea that a Nunavut Territory would better reflect the geographical extent of Inuit traditional land use and occupancy in the Canadian Eastern Arctic, while its institutions would adhere to Inuit cultural values and perspectives (ITC 1976, 15).

This paper explores the symbolic and spatial construction of Nunavut, with particular attention to its impact on the collective identity of the Inuit. Its primary focus is on how a group of people's cultural traits have contributed in delineating the boundaries of a region, and how regional symbolisms born from that process were used to shape a common collective regional identity for this group of people. Put directly, this essay is about how an emergent regional political unit (Nunavut) is spatially delimited and how it simultaneously defines a corresponding regional collective identity for the people living there (the Nunavummiut). ³ By addressing these issues, we can also explore other important questions such as: Which essential Inuit historical cultural indicators contributed to the spatial construction of Nunavut, and which symbols were used to create a collective identity within this new political unit of the Canadian federation? Which Inuit and non-Inuit actors were involved in the construction of Nunavut? Why did the idea of Nunavut emerge, and which alternative spatial conceptions of Nunavut were rejected? This essay will examine how a region is constructed from specific cultural traits, and how such a region, embedded with regional symbolisms, is used to create among all its residents a common feeling of togetherness leading to a collective identity. ⁴

In order to examine these questions, notions pertaining to collective identity and region as socially constructed categories need to be explored. Research and writings on social constructionism began as part of the field of sociology in the beginning of the 1970s. Social constructionism was linked to...