First Theme:Relevance of History

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First Theme: Relevance of History

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The Ravens have settled on the rocks in my backyard.Sometimes there are just the two, who seem to havemade themselves at home there, sometimes a flock of13, when I have just fed them with the leftovers frommy kitchen. Their beautiful shining black bodiesmake perfect contrast with the white snowy earth.They fly and dance and converse and inspire me inmy work. Yesterday they seemed excited aboutsomething, their dancing was a staccato movementand as their number increased on and around therock their attention was all elsewhere. Suddenly theyall took flight. I walked into the kitchen and lookingout the window there to the North I saw the sky filledwith ravens, all the ravens of the area it seemed. Inthe very centre of the black flock there was an evenbigger more powerful bird, a silvery Gyrfalcon.

This was one of the moments when thinking makesway for experience, intuition, a deep nostalgic feelingthat has nothing to do with ideas or opinions, noth-ing with belief, all with experiencing and remembering.

The thoughts came later. A falcon does not visit thistown every day, and never before have I seen themaccompanied by a flock of ravens. From the oldmyths I have learned that the Goddess Freyja oftenwore a falcon-cloak and that her companions, thevalkyries, dressed as ravens or swans. For most peo-ple these old myths are now but vague memories. Somight a sight like this become. A vague memory. Thefalcon is an endangered bird and has been for long,

and the raven, one of the most common birds for anyIcelander, has now joined the flock of endangeredspecies.

Memories from the winter of 1998

It is said that to know where you’re going, you needto know where you come from.

It is said that the Great One created themequal, woman and man.

I would like to express my gratitude to the organisersof this important Forum, for inviting me to be a partof it. I am deeply concerned for the future of ourhome, whether we see it as the Arctic or as Earth her-self. I am also convinced that if the Arctic isdestroyed, so will the rest. I am concerned about mydaughter’s future and about people’s lack of con-nectedness in modern society, with themselves andtheir roots and, therefore their inability to takeresponsibility for their own future.

The French philosopher Simone Weil wrote:

To be rooted is perhaps the most important andleast recognized need of the human soul. It is oneof the hardest to define. A human being has rootsby virtue of his (or her – my addition) real, activeand natural participation in the life of a commu-nity which preserves in living shape certain par-ticular treasures of the past and certain particu-lar expectations for the future.

Re-searching for Balance – Through Conversation*

Valgerður H. Bjarnadóttir

* Invited Position Paper

Whether male or female, Icelandic, Sámi or Inuit,Norwegian, Russian or Canadian, the growing ornurturing of our roots means being in a constantauthentic dialogue with the different parts of our-selves, as well as with the world around us. With thetreasures of the past, as well as our expectations forthe future. Our world and we the self-crowned mas-ters of this mother earth have lost our balance and wemust urgently re-search for it. Some of the answers toour questions lie hidden in our roots. Some in theconversation between us. There may never have beena time of perfect balance, there may never be. Therehas however been a time where the people of earthhonored the search for balance, and the science of thosepeoples evolved around that search. For some six oreight thousand years man has been forgetting thisbasic science, this basic law of nature. This forgetful-ness has led to wars and oppression and, later, eco-logical violation and consumption to the degree oftotal madness.

One of the truths that I have learned in my search isthat whatever we think of the evolution of conscious-ness, the fact is that the ideas and beliefs of womenand men gone before me, whether a hundred years, athousand or five thousand, are just as deep and wiseas those of the wisest and deepest today. I can“remember” how a woman perceived existence thou-sands of years back, because she left traces of it forme to follow. Those traces of thought are usually eas-iest to detect when they are written or orally remem-bered words, poetry, myths, stories. Through the artof women and men thousands of years back we canalso detect traces of ideas and beliefs, which reflectwhat we know inside, but have forgotten. Sometimesthis knowledge comes forth without detectable inspi-ration, as when a person’s hands form a sculpture ora painting, or write poems and stories, containing“symbols” or images consciously unknown to thisperson. In our dreams of the night we often “experi-ence” old myths or long forgotten happenings, with-out any logical explanation. The person rememberswithout conscious knowledge of what she or he isremembering.

There was a time when this kind of research was val-ued, when dreams and visions were valued. There

are still cultures, here in the Arctic, where visions anddreams are still valued, but they are just as endan-gered as the falcon. The Norse queens and kings ofScandinavia as late as the 9th or 10th centuries senttheir children to Sápmi to study with the wisemenand wisewomen, the scientists of that age. TheIcelandic word for science is vísindi, literally wisdom.A vísindakona (literally science-woman) was of old thevölva (literally she who turns or revolves; Latin: vol-vere), the sibyl or seeress, the one who could dreamand vision the connections. She could relate one factor sign to another, see the whole picture and connectto make a whole, a logical sense.

When the late archaeomythologist Marija Gimbutasstarted collecting folksongs and tales from the oldones in Lithuania at the age of 16, she may have beenunconscious of the fact that she was actively re-col-lecting her inner ancient and yet timeless beliefs.When she later studied archaeology she was still re-searching those same beliefs, to still later becomeaware of, remembering, the meaning of it all. Whenshe held the remnants of old European cultures in herwoman’s hands she started to remember her roots.She remembered who she was and where she camefrom, and what she believed in. She remembered themeaning of her life and she expressed it. And her pas-sionate expression of what she remembered hashelped millions of others to remember. That is thekind of re-search needed in our imbalanced North.Our particular luck in this area, is that so much of theold wisdom, the old science, is still living and thriv-ing amongst us.

However, in this part of the world as elsewhere, theimbalance between the scientific status of modernand indigenous sciences is a barrier. So is the imbal-ance between male and female influence. The imbal-ance in man’s relationship with nature seems to be incorrelation with male/female imbalance. Although Iam no expert on either history, indigenous science ormodern science, I believe that in using history, mir-rored in indigenous science on the one hand and inthe human created imbalance of nature on the other,we just might have a chance to turn the wheel andhead towards a restored balance. This will not bedone, however, without the active participation of

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women. If we are not willing and able to restore thenatural balance between the two fundamentalhuman energies, male and female, all other efforts ofgaining balance become superficial and thereforeuseless.

I have come to the conclusion – long since – that myview of the world, and the way I attain and approachknowledge, is based on the fact that I am a woman.Not only as a social being, but also as a physicalbeing. This may seem adversary to another belief ofmine, that I am everything, and can access the malepart in me as well as the woman’s, but that’s the love-ly paradox. I do not think that my view is limited towomen, not accessible to men, I merely think that itis more innate or natural to a woman than to a man.I will not go in detail into explaining this difference,nor the source of it, and I want to make clear that I amfully aware of the social and cultural effects of gen-der. But my womanness is an essential part of me, myNorthernness is another.

It is in a woman’s body, in the womb, that we all,women and men, begin our journey in this world,that is where our first awareness resides, and fromthere we have our first memories, the memories ofbeing One with the mother, the source. This memoryis respected among the indigenous peoples of theworld, and in a conversation with them others canlearn to remember. We can still find traces of this wayof thinking here in Iceland, we can still find peoplewho are in close contact with the land and the sea,and the creatures that walk this earth and swim in thesea. But they are few. This connection is muchstronger amongst the indigenous nations of NorthernScandinavia, Russia and America, in spite of theenormous problems they face every day. This maysound like a romanticised idea, a popular fix to mod-ern problems. It is not. I’m simply stating the urgentneed for us all to allow the kind of research whichcan only be accomplished in an ongoing conversa-tion, between the inhabitants of the Arctic who liveaccording to different mindsets and totally differentviews of man’s role on earth, and in that conversationwe must involve equally women and men.

The 13th century Christian scholar Snorri Sturluson,

wrote in his prologue to the Edda about the old beliefsand the evolution of consciousness. He explainedhow people of old saw a connection between theearth and all living beings.

From this they reasoned that the earth was aliveand had a life after a certain fashion, and theyrealized that it was enormously old and mightyin nature. It fed all creatures and took possesionof everything that died. For this reason they gaveit a name and traced their ancestry to it.

Later, he says, they realized that there had to be aneven older power behind the universe, the heavenlybodies the sea and the weathers and

they gave names to everything, and this religionhas changed in many ways as nations becamedistinct and languages branched. But theyunderstood everything with earthly understand-ing, for they were not granted spiritual wisdom.Thus they reasoned that everything was createdout of some material (transl. Anthony Faulkes,1987, p.1-2).

Now we know that the people of old were right.Everything is created out of some material. In themeantime, we have fallen into the trap of dualism, asSnorri already had. We have distinguished betweenspirit and material, we have defined them as oppo-sites, and worse, we have set spirit above material,heaven above earth. Man above woman. Westernman has appointed himself as master of earth, spiritsrepresentative.

A small example of this blindness was a footnote inthe program for the forum. The dress code for theGala Dinner and the summary section at Bessastaðirwas *Dress code: Dark suit. Although this example isutterly insignificant, I found it illuminating. As awoman I could have found this exclusion offensive,and so might the President of the Sami Parliament(forgive me if I am jumping to conclusions). My expe-rience is that the indigenous people of North, almostwithout exception, dress up in their national cos-tumes at special occasions, and the Sámi and Inuitcostumes are far from being a dark suit. Of course ittook no great effort to change this little footnote, so

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that we could all be as colorful as we chose. I believeit is of utmost importance that we face the fact of theimbalance created out of this magnomanic illusion ofwestern male-dominated cultures, which has by nowspread to societies all around the globe. All countriessuffer from a male-female imbalance, as well as animbalanced nature.

I want to make it clear that I don’t mean to suggestthat women are in any way better than, less blindthan, or superior to men, not at all. I don’t mean tosuggest that women are less responsible for the situ-ation of our world than men are. We have all createdthis situation, and therefore we are all equallyresponsible for setting things right. But things willnever become right if the power of woman is notallowed to stand by the side of man’s power. If wemen and women of the world don’t find the femalesource within us all, this imbalance will only deepenfurther and without this fundamental dialogue andintegration of female and male energies, there will beno foundation for any true growth.

I believe we need to look to the ancestors and the oldmyths to be able to dream a sustainable future intoreality. I hear callings for new myths to guide us. Idon’t think we need them, myths are in a way time-less. If we look closely there is no contradictionbetween the old myths and the new science. There isno contradiction between indigenous science andwestern science. They are equal but different ways oflooking at life and defining our world. What we needis to see and acknowledge both as guiding tools formodern humans in balance with earth.

In the old poem Völuspá the völva foresees how theviolated earth sinks into the sea and then is bornagain.

She sees being borna second time

green earth growinggreat from the sea

Falling watersflying eagle

from the mountainfish catching.

Völuspá, The Poetic Edda (own translation)

Let us not wait for earth to get rid of us, so that shecan be reborn, green from the sea. Let us be part ofthis rebirth, by focusing on research and actionswhich enhance balance, together woman and man,using indigenous and western scientific methods andsources.

Myths are about re-membering. Dreams are about re-searching. Dancing and singing can be about re-viewing, moving the cells in our bodies, spinning,spiraling so that they get in touch with the memoryinstalled there. Conversing with nature re-storesmemory. Conversing across cultures and gender is avaluable research method.

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Alaska Natives number more than 90,000 people andspeak 20 indigenous languages. This cultural diversi-ty exists against an historical background of culturalrepression as well as the contemporary resurgence ofindigenous rights, resource ownership, politicalautonomy, and cultural voice. Within this context, therelationship between Alaska Native peoples and cul-tural researchers from outside their communities hasundergone a fundamental transformation. Anthro-pologists, archaeologists, historians, economists, andother social scientists, as well as the universities,museums, government agencies, private companies,and foundations that employ and support them, allstand on a far different footing with respect to Nativecommunities than was the case until even the lastdecade.

Today, researchers seek permission, collaboration,and communication as a matter of course. Informa-tion is shared with communities, and ethical stand-ards of informed consent, indigenous participation,data sharing, and respect for privacy are pre-condi-tions for project approval and funding (e.g. Guidelinesfor Research, Alaska Federation of Natives; Principalsfor the Conduct of Research in the Arctic, U. S.Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee andthe National Science Foundation; Draft Principals foran Arctic Policy, Inuit Circumpolar Conference).Alaska Native communities have also prioritized

self-representation of their cultures in books, media,and museums.

In the long history of arctic research, these principlesand responsibilities were often unrecognized orignored. In broad terms, the indigenous critique oftraditional social science practice indicts researchersfor lack of community review and access to publica-tions, disrespect for cultural values, disregard forrestrictions on the use of oral traditions, removal ofobjects without proper permission, disturbance ofburials and removal of human remains for study, fail-ure to reciprocate village cooperation, lack of creditand financial return to Native colleagues, and otheroffenses.

Reform of the relationship between researchers andcommunities can be credited in large measure toadvocacy by regional, national, and internationalindigenous organizations, as well as to specific U. S.federal legislation. Repatriation laws have had abroad impact, including both the Native AmericanGraves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)and the related National Museum of the AmericanIndian Act, which applies specifically to theSmithsonian Institution and its Native American col-lections. NAGPRA and the NMAI Act reassign legalownership of many human remains and certain cate-gories of cultural objects (sacred items, objects of cul-

New Dynamics of Cultural Research and Representation in Alaska*

Aron L. Crowell

* Invited Position Paper

tural patrimony, grave goods) from federally-sup-ported museums to tribes. Widely resisted at first bymuseums and anthropologists, these laws redressedsome of the most fundamental grievances of Nativecommunities and shifted indigenous rights to theforefront.

The U. S. National Science Foundation (NSF), theleading source of northern social science funding(almost $2 million in fiscal year 2000 through itsArctic Social Sciences division in the Office of PolarPrograms) has been highly influential by directing itssupport toward projects that actively involve thecooperation and participation of local communities(Arctic Social Sciences: Opportunities in Arctic Research,ARCUS 1999). The many federal agencies that con-duct social science research in the north have alsoadopted goals and standards that reflect the new pri-orities. Agency work is coordinated by the U. S.Arctic Research Commission and the InteragencyArctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) (see ArcticResearch of the United States, published biannually byIARPC).

In recent years, the NSF supported creation of theAlaska Native Science Commission to encouragecollaborative project design in such areas as northerncontaminants research and incorporation of tradi-tional ecological knowledge into environmental andclimate change studies. NSF also provides principalsupport for the Alaska Rural Systemic Initiative, astatewide effort with the University of Alaska andthe Alaska Federation of Natives to develop cultur-ally integrated science and mathematics curricula forAlaskan schools. The emphasis is on incorporatinglocal knowledge and Native world views into scienceteaching. The Smithsonian Institution’s ArcticStudies Center (National Museum of NaturalHistory) has played a role in establishing new work-ing relationships for research and education withindigenous communities in Alaska, Canada, andRussia.

Beyond these specific institutional initiatives is agrowing recognition that a collaborative, communi-ty-based research model can be applied in a wide

range of contexts, and work effectively within thevalue systems of both villages and scientific disci-plines. Archaeological excavations, linguistic studies,oral history, cultural landscape studies, subsistencestudies, documentation of museum collections, andrecording of indigenous knowledge of arctic ecosys-tems are a few examples of current cooperative work.Both communities and researchers benefit from con-sultation, information sharing, cost-sharing, and co-design of such projects, and many are organized,funded, and/or directed by Alaska Native organiza-tions. Such projects help to support essential goals ofAlaska Native communities – the integration of cul-tural heritage and contemporary identity, socialhealth, education, and management of criticalresources. Local involvement and educational out-reach can be incorporated through many channels.For example, anthropologists and others contributeto the development of tribal museums, cultural cen-ters, and exhibits, and to educational materials forschools.

A few specific areas of active collaborative researchmay be highlighted in the present context. For exam-ple, human interactions with the changing arcticenvironment are an important focus of interdiscipli-nary and cross-cultural study. With NSF support,Henry Huntington and the Inuit CircumpolarConference worked with North Alaskan coastal com-munities to document traditional ecological knowl-edge of beluga whales and their migrations. TheMarine Mammal Commission (with Caleb Pongawi)has compiled hunters’ observations of shifts inwhale, walrus, caribou, and seabird behavior.Anthropologists with the Alaska Department of Fishand Game cooperated with the University of Alaskaand communities in Prince William Sound and CookInlet to develop educational films and interactiveCD-ROMs about local subsistence practices and tra-ditional knowledge. The U.S. Fish and WildlifeService, National Park Service, Alaska NanuuqCommission, and Union of Marine Mammal Huntersof Chukotka recently collaborated on an internation-al study of polar bears that relied heavily on indige-nous observations. A recent workshop by the MarineMammal Commission, National Oceanic and

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Atmospheric Administration, and National MarineFisheries Service focused on linking climate changeobservations by scientists and Native communities.

Archaeology provides a window into cultural historyand human-environmental interactions in the past.Archaeological sites can be ideal opportunities forcollaborative study and community involvementbecause they are often in or accessible to contempo-rary villages and are easily linked to school pro-grams, training opportunities, local cultural heritageefforts, and tribal museums. The National ScienceFoundation and the Kodiak Area Native Associationco-sponsored excavations by Bryn Mawr College atthe Karluk 1 site on Kodiak Island, leading to a widerange of educational efforts and the foundation of theAlutiiq Museum in 1995. The Utqiagvik ArchaeologyProject in Barrow (State University of New York,North Slope Borough, National Park Service, Bureauof Indian Affairs) was another landmark project.Research was carried out jointly, including studiesmade of human remains recovered at the site. Overthe past 15 years, many excavations and field schoolshave featured close cooperation between Nativeorganizations and the National Park Service (espe-cially its Shared Beringian Heritage Program),University of Alaska, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service,Arctic Studies Center, and other agencies and univer-sities.

Museums, collections, and exhibitions are anotherhighly active area of cultural study and collaborativeeffort. Archaeological and ethnological collections,scholarly reports and publications, photographs, andarchival research data gathered during two centuriesof scientific contact in the north are of inestimablevalue to present-day Alaska Native communities. Anetwork of new Alaska Native museums and cultur-al centers has opened over the past five years inAnchorage, Barrow, Kodiak, Unalaska, Bethel, andother locations. These organizations house culturalcollections and have become focal points for localand regional projects in oral history, archaeology, andtraditional arts. These institutions are locally run andsupported, and provide an important venue for self-representation of cultural values and perspectives.

The on-going process of repatriation under NAG-PRA, which requires extensive consultation betweenoutside museums and tribal groups, has created anew awareness of the wealth of Alaskan collectionsin U. S. museums and around the world. TheSmithsonian Institution’s National Museum ofNatural History alone holds more than 35,000 ethno-logical objects from Alaska, of which some portionwill eventually go back to the state through repatria-tion. Others will return through exhibits developedby the Arctic Studies Center (ASC) in coordinationwith Alaska Native organizations, the AnchorageMuseum of History and Art, and other partners. Anexample is ASC’s Looking Both Ways: Heritage andIdentity of the Alutiiq People, which was co-developedwith the Alutiiq Museum using information provid-ed by Alutiiq elders and scholars. ASC offers on-going student internships and community scholaropportunities and over the next two years will workon a major project with Alaska Native consultants todocument Smithsonian collections and to producenew exhibits, publications, and a web site. TheAnchorage Museum’s Living Tradition of Yup’ik Masksis another prominent example of community-basedexhibition development, and has been followed byfurther NSF-sponsored study of European museumcollections by Yup’ik elders (with curator AnnFienup-Riordan).

Information may be returned in other ways. Forexample, ASC’s Beringian Yup’ik Heritage Project(led by Igor Krupnik, Willis Walunga, Vera Metcalf,and Lyudmilla Ainana) has assembled historical doc-umentary records, notes, maps, and genealogicaldata from the past century of anthropologicalresearch on St. Lawrence Island to create a communi-ty sourcebook of Yup’ik heritage and history.

It is clear that a new paradigm of U. S. arctic socialscience has emerged in response to broad political,legal, and intellectual trends. The opportunities andchallenges are both large. Joining local and scientificknowledge in the area of environmental observationis difficult, and requires the construction of newinterpretive frameworks. An increasingly importantissue in cultural research is intellectual property.

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Research protocols signed with indigenous entitiesnow often call for restricted access to the informationgathered, in line with cultural values and fears that itwill be misused or misrepresented. To what extentwill researchers agree to restrictions on publication?Repatriation entails other unresolved matters thatmay undermine the collaborative efforts of Nativecommunities and museums, including disagreement

over what objects can be defined under the law assacred or as inalienable because of cultural patrimo-ny. In general, and across all aspects of social andcultural research, collaboration with indigenouscommunities requires time, patience to listen, andwillingness to share control and to work towardalternative goals.

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More than a decade has passed since the iron curtainfell, unlocking gateways for intercultural and inter-ethnic communication throughout Northern Eurasiaand the whole North. During that time, many obvi-ously fruitful contacts were replaced by oppositetrends, such as the appearance of the newly entrenc-hed borders between Russia and Baltic countries.Once again, political and economic priorities weremany jumps ahead of human relations, evolving andhighlighting deadlocks previously concealed. TodayRussia seems to be even more suppressed by politicalbooms and games than it was under the pressure oftotalitarianism years ago.

The striking diversity of peoples and cultures inRussia clashes with a striking scarcity of intercultur-al encouragement and enrichment. That is the causeof the Russian heartache currently erupting inChechnya, and simmering in many other ethnic com-munities. Neither political nor institutional reformscan dispose of this controversy before the notion of„ethnicity“ has been returned from the battlefield tothe field of mutual reverence and cooperation.Obviously, the way to overcome hostility is the sameas the way to overcome ignorance. A multilateral dia-logue of cultures and peoples, which avoids politicalambitions and emphasizes cultural values seems tobe a real path for northern interregional and interna-tional contacts, for communities and regions toresolve their differences in the harsh politicalenvironment.

The Northern Route: From the OldBjarmia to the New Northern Europe

The background of the first story is extensive.Prehistorically and historically, the coastal territoryof the White, Barents and Kara Seas appeared to be arelatively self-sufficient cultural realm, despite itsvarious connections to southern political headquar-ters. Ethnographically, the system of indigenous eth-nic communication provided consolidation ratherthan division of the arctic territories. Saami andSamoyeds covered vast areas along the Arctic Ocean,from Scandinavia to the Taymyr peninsula. Intensivehorizontal links connected the Samoyeds (Nenets),despite their stretching over boundless tundra, into avast and unified cultural entity and allowed them tokeep speaking one dialect from the White Sea to theYenisei River. The boundaries which divided, or con-nected, Saami, Samoyeds, Ostiaks, Chukchi and oth-ers were adequate to traditional activities, sometimesbeing established by intertribal centers of trade andrituals. Natural (native) borders were floating due tomigrations, conflicts, epidemics or climatic fluctua-tions. The northern system of communication wasconsiderably broader in the past and oriented toanother set of wants and needs.

Artificial borders were brought to the North fromSouthern political centers. Sometimes the attitude ofthe political capitals towards the northern territories,especially during periods of centralization, showed

Two Northern Stories Meet Two Northern Projects

Andrei Golovnev

more jealousy than consent. In the Russian case, forexample, in the 14th century, Moscow (Ivan I,Dimitry) took over Novgorod’s tributaries; in the 15th

(Ivan III), it cancelled Novgorodian political autono-my; in the 16th (Ivan IV), it mounted a blood purgeagainst Novgorod; in the 17th (Michael Romanov), itrestricted the use of the Northern sea route byPomors; in the 18th (by decree of its founder, Peter I)Saint-Petersburg annihilated the Pomor fleet. Inresponse, Novgorodians, Russian Pomors, and Sam-oyeds maintained, and even strengthened, their oppo-sition to Central-Russian policy, not least to serfdomand the State Church (most of the Pomors were rigidOld-believers, while Samoyeds remained heathens).

South-north opposition in Russia grew out of a pro-found confrontation between two conflicting culturaland political traditions, the northern (Novgorod) sys-tem formed under Scandinavian influence, and thesouthern (Moscow) system which originated fromthe Tartars and Mongolians. The duel between the„Nordic“ and „Turkic“ political traditions did notend when Moscow finally defeated Novgorod in1570. It was, and still is, a continuing struggle bet-ween the impetus towards centralization andtowards regionalization. Particularly, it is imprintedin the history of those northern peoples and terri-tories where Novgorod preceded Moscow for a half amillennium, and where northern tradition had beendeeply rooted. Initially the main difference betweenthe two opposing Russian cultural-political centerscould be seen in their manner of ruling colonies orsubordinated territories. Novgorod produced, in fis-sion style, a chain of new centers based upon a net-work of trade; Moscow, through tax collection, sub-dued, in centripetal style, a vast surrounding areathrough administrative coercion.

Coming back to the sources of Northern tradition,one can easily find the Viking (and pre-Viking) Baltic-Scandinavian influence upon the Upper Rus’ (the oldname of Northern Russia, in contrast to the Lower, orSouthern, Russia). Viking raids preceded theNovgorodians’ movement to the north and east.Ladoga (Aldejgja), the Viking headquarters in theeast, played a key role in the origins of the Rus’ and,later, in the Russian movement south-east, to the

Caspian Sea along the Volga River, and north-east tothe Bjarmia (Bjarmaland). Icelandic sagas tell aboutroutes to Bjarmia through both the Barents/White(Gandvík) and Baltic Seas. Russian chronicles in turntell the story of Ladoga’s Jarl Uleb (a Swedish Viking)who in 1032 mounted raids which reached to the IronGates (the old name of the Kara Gate Strait).

The well-known etymology of bjarmar, from theBaltic-Fennic perä-maa (‘back land’, ‘land behind thefrontier’) and the obvious correspondence of theNordic ‘Bjarmia’ with the Russian ‘Perm’, give a clueto the Viking-Ladogian-Novgorodian route northand east. Mediaeval Russian chronicles mentionKoloperem’ (Kola Perm) and Perm’ (Old Perm’ on theVychegda River) among the Novgorodian tributaries;Saxo Grammaticus in the early 13th century also notedtwo Bjarmias. 14th century Russian sources mentionalso the Great (Velikaia) Perm’ –– the third Bjarmia ––on the Kama River, near the Urals. It is still question-able who brought this name to the Urals: Vikings,Ladogians or Novgorodians. It is quite clear, howev-er, that the area of ‘back land’ moved, or retreated,further east due to the Viking-Ladogian-Novgoro-dian expansion. Starting from the Kola peninsula,this track reaches to the Kama River, where the latestversion of ‘Bjarmia’ is preserved in the place-namePerm’ and the ethno-name, Komi-Permyak.

A project, launched by the author and Dr. LassiHeininen, has as its main objective the tracing of theconnections between peoples, cultures and societiesof the Eurasian North, from the North Atlantic in thewest to the Northern Urals in the east. In several his-torical periods –– for example, the Viking Era, theNovgorod Era (from the 11th to the 15th century), thePomorian Era (from the 15th until the 17th century),and the Russian Empire Era (from the 18th until thebeginning of the 20th century) –– there have been con-tacts and connections between Fennoscandia, theRussian North, the Urals and Siberia by Saami andSamoyeds/Nenets, and Scandinavians, Finns andRussians. In the Soviet Era, starting in the 1920s, thepattern of northern interrelations changed dramati-cally due to the isolationism of the Soviet Union and,later, to the Cold War which froze cooperation andemphasized military political affairs.

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After Great Novgorod had been devastated byMoscow troops, the Pomors and western seafarerswere those who maintained the northern connectionsin spite of, and sometimes as a counter to, prohibi-tions by the central powers. Even during the SovietEra in the 1920s, the northern route was still in use bysome northern Russian Pomors and Scandinavians.Indigenous peoples, Saami and Samoyeds (Nenets),played key roles as the permanent stakeholders onthis route, and these connections remained in mostcases independent from the southern centers.

These links, and this historical tradition of interna-tional and inter-cultural contact, are too little knowntoday, when northerners are looking more and moreattentively at the Arctic as a path convenient for re-establishing horizontal connections between Euro-pean and Russian regions in the North. The historicalunderpinnings of the aforementioned project,suggest a particular approach to understanding thesources of sustainability and the long-term continuityof the relationships between northern indigenouspeoples and other northerners. It is important to keepin mind that the idea of the „New Northern Europe“is not really a new discovery, but a renewal of the oldhistorical tradition. This is not only a multidiscipli-nary research project, as a part of the work of theNRF, but also a way to make known the history of thenorthern regions to the general public.

A Traveling Northern Film Festival

The second story touches on recent events related tothe ethnic revival movement in Russia. Anthropo-logical films, as well as cultural anthropology, shouldbe the gateways for intercultural dialogue within andoutside Russia. In the Soviet era, the Estonian centerof Tartu hosted a festival of anthropological films.Then, in the post-soviet years, after a disturbingpause, Salekhard, the administrative center of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (region), took responsi-bility for holding the 1st (1998) and 2nd (2000) RussianFestivals of Anthropological Films (RFAF). RFAFaimed successfully at becoming the interregional andinternational cultural forum for filmmakers, scholars,artists, journalists, and other participants. The ex-

change of ideas, knowledge, and experience in film-making and other visual arts, and research in differ-ent fields of culture and ethnicity should strengthenthe general status of cultural activity. This is theforum where every participant has a voice, wherepeoples are not thought of as „big“ or „small,“ over-developed or underdeveloped, where beliefs andreligions are not thought of as „good“ or „bad,“ poli-tically blessed or prohibited. This is the culturalvenue for the expression of the authors’ personal dis-coveries. This is a meeting place where those who areeager to perceive their own and others’ culturalvalues can make bridges across borders, preservingand disseminating their cultural legacy.

The results of the two RFAFs were critically dis-cussed by Russian and international experts. One ofthe crucial needs, mentioned unanimously, is that ofmoving from biennial meetings to continuous activi-ty, by linking the RFAF with other similar events.Another point is to encompass as many regions,countries, peoples, cultures as possible, though theRFAF originates in the Yamal-Nenets region, with anemphasis on Uralic (Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic)peoples and cultures.

The first step towards broadening the festival’s scalewas made in June 2000 by organizing, in Petro-zavodsk (Karelia), a session of short documentaryfilms (by Finnish, Karelian, and Russian artists, com-bined with a seminar on the ‘Anthropological Film asMessage’) which was conjoined with the Day of theCity, and a symposium on ‘Finnish-Karelian-RussianDialogue.’ The festival-symposium was, at the sametime, promoted as an activity under the aegis of theNRF. This cooperation between the NRF and theRFAF provided an opportunity to propose the idea ofan international Traveling Northern Film Festival asa project for the NRF.

A Traveling NFF presupposes international circula-tion through various channels, and in various forms.The calendar of the festival series could be coordinat-ed with schedules of existing festivals (e.g. the bien-nial RFAF, which will next be held in Salekhard, inSeptember 2002), though that wouldn’t exclude thedevelopment of new and experimental actions. The

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idea of a Traveling NFF which was proposed at the1st Northern Research Forum (Iceland 2000) shouldbe further discussed and reviewed in the session‘Film/Video on Indigenous Peoples of the North’within ICAAS IV. The integrative focus of the sessionis to put together different experiences on how ananthropological approach facilitates cultural self-awareness and interpretation, how it makes it possi-ble to cross ethnic, administrative and political bor-ders, facilitating intercultural and interethnic dia-logue on the North, allowing for the mutual transla-tion of various cultural values and stereotypes, andrevealing how diverse and many-hued the circumpo-lar cultural realm is today.

The 2nd RFAF was complemented with a special ses-sion on the NRF initiative. One decision of the ses-sion was to launch the Northern Research Forum ofRussia. A second initiative was that of broadeningRFAF’s international presence. The ‘TravelingNorthern Film Festival’ project seems to provide aneffective channel for NRF activity, taking into accountthat the NRF is also a ‘traveling’ Forum. It impliesthat the Forum should participate in a variety ofevents (conferences, expeditions, festivals, etc.),emphasizing the theme of dialogue between peoples,cultures, and countries of the North.

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In terms of the historical record on East-West rela-tionships in the circumpolar regions, there appears tobe a common theme dating back to the earliestknown times and forward to the present - that of theneed for cooperation as opposed to conflict for sur-vival in a polar environment. For many years, espe-cially during the Age of Imperialism and morerecently during the Cold War, cooperative endeav-ours were frequently at odds with the divisivenational interests inherent in the South-Northdynamic directed by southern-based governments.Rather than being a document filled with historicaldetail, this paper will present an overview of the his-torical trends and pressures on the East-West dynam-ic. The term „dynamic“ is defined here as a motiveforce and applied to inter-relationships between cir-cumpolar countries.1

Beginning with the arrival of the first immigrants tothe polar regions of North America, there was a ten-dency to seek cooperation with one’s immediateneighbours to optimize the sharing of resourcesrequired for survival - notably for food, clothing,accommodation, and travel. If cooperation was notforthcoming, neighbours would still seek means toavoid outright conflict. As an example, in the case ofthe Thule Inuit arriving at locations already inhabit-ed by the Dorset Inuit, there were no reports of con-flict over resources, but merely the departure of theweaker Dorset Inuit (called Tuniit by the Inuit) to

other regions, until their eventual demise during theLittle Ice Age. This tendency was only relevant to theInuit. The northern Indian tribes residing in NorthAmerica, originating from earlier migrations fromSiberia that had moved southward towards warmerclimates, were known to have aggressively attackedInuit camps, just as they did with the Norsemen whoattempted to settle at L’Anse Meadows in what isnow known as northern Newfoundland. In generalterms, however, it appears that cooperation and def-erence were considered essential to survival in anArctic environment.

Applying these same principles to the European andAsian circumpolar regions is more problematic, pos-sibly because conditions above the treeline had a sig-nificantly different impact on cultural traditions thanthose in the sub-Arctic. Similarly, the situation inIceland was not comparable to that experienced else-where in the circumpolar regions, which had beensettled for many thousands of years before the arrivalof Asians or Europeans to their shores. Instead, thefirst Norsemen who settled in Iceland around 870 ADfound an uninhabited island. Even then, the need forpeaceful co-existence seemed to be the primarymotive behind the expulsion of Erik the Red and hisfamily, who departed in 970 AD to settle inGreenland. Some stories about their early encounterswith the indigenous peoples found there (calledSkraelings by the Norse) suggested violent clashes,

Circumpolar Regions: Frontier or HomelandHistorical Relevance of the East-West Dynamic in Relation to South-North Priorities

Shelagh D. Grant

but archaeological evidence shows extensive traderelations between the two races with some legendssuggesting close friendships had existed.2 In Europeand Asia, the continued existence of numerousindigenous peoples - such as the Sami, Komi, Khantyand Mansi, Yakuts, Dolgans Yukagirs, and Chukchito name only a few - suggest there must have beensome form of peaceful co-existence established thereas well.3

The Age of Imperialism, as it applied to Europeanand Russian expansion, marked a new era for thenorthern hinterlands of the circumpolar countries.During this period, they were considered a frontierfor discovery and exploration, and, in the process, ameans of expanding a nation’s boundaries and itsaccess to resources. As such, it also marked the begin-ning of southern influence and, in some regions,attempts at colonization. Polar exploration continuedover several centuries and, in a sense, was still ongo-ing during the immediate post-war period of WorldWar II, when the United States Army Air Forceactively sought undiscovered islands in the ArcticArchipelago for use as military outpost camps.4 Tothe best of my knowledge, there were few if any inci-dents where the indigenous peoples violently resist-ed the various forms of control exerted by the south-ern nation states. Instead, it would appear that coop-eration and deference were practised in the mostnortherly lands of both hemispheres. Once mostlands had been „discovered,“ the Arctic shifted frombeing an exploration frontier to being a scientificfrontier, as reflected in the First International PolarYear of 1882-83, dedicated to the sharing of knowl-edge gained from active studies. Another fifty yearswould pass before a Second International Polar Yeartook place in 1932-33. Much of the shared knowledgeduring these initiatives centred on the environmentand the possibilities for future development.

During the 18th and 19th centuries and into the firsthalf of the twentieth century, the northern hinter-lands of the circumpolar nations were largely viewedin economic terms, as a source of wealth - whether inthe form of minerals, furs, whales, or other naturalresources. In the North American Arctic, theseresources were extracted and exported south, in most

cases without major benefit to the inhabitants. Onthis point, it might be argued that Greenland was anotable exception. In Fennoscandia, the Sami andtheir ancestors were thought to have inhabited theirlands since the end of the Ice Age - approximatelyeight thousand years. Although these hunters would,on occasion, be forced to pay tribute in the form offurs and hides to the Norse Kings, for the most partthey appear to have been left alone. In RussianSiberia, the indigenous peoples were initially asource of trade in ivory and furs, but the creation ofthe USSR greatly altered their lives because of theconcerted efforts to integrate them into industrializa-tion projects and into Russian society. As a result, thevoice of these original inhabitants were muffled, ifnot silenced, and their culture, for the most part lost.

By mid-century, the northern polar regions had takenon a new importance. With advances in aviationchanging the character of war, the North AmericanArctic gained strategic significance during theSecond World War and, increasingly so, during theCold War. For the United States, the polar regionsbecame central to its defence plans for the westernhemisphere, just as the Asian Arctic became critical tothe military strategy of the USSR. European circum-polar nations, such as the Scandinavian countriesand Great Britain, were also drawn into in a northernmilitary strategy through NATO commitments in thedefence of Europe. Iceland, which had gained partialindependence in 1912 - and full independence in 1944- seemed less vulnerable to American pressures thanother members of the NATO alliance. Although therewere numerous efforts made by southern-based gov-ernments to improve the living conditions of theirnorthern residents in the post-war years, the indige-nous peoples did not gain any significant voice insuch matters for several decades. For American sci-entists and, most likely, those of the USSR as well, theArctic frontier had essentially become identical witha military frontier, a venue for testing new technolo-gies, and it remained so until attention shifted to thespace frontier.

Even among the more liberal minded, the importanceof the Arctic regions after the Second World War wasmeasured only in terms of southern benefits. As

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Laurence Gould, President of Carleton College inMinnesota, pointed out in the prestigious BowmanMemorial Lecture of 1958, it would only be whenpeace was restored that „the economic strategicimportance of the northlands will exceed their mili-tary significance.“5 Significantly, there was no refer-ence in his speech to the needs of northern peoples orthe responsibility of southern governments to attendto those needs. The attitude there reflected wouldchange dramatically over the next two decades, buteven so, the authors of The Circumpolar North, pub-lished in 1978, concluded their study with the viewthat the northern peoples were not likely to be suc-cessful in exerting any major influence upon thesouthern-based governments of their respectivecountries. Nor did they believe that the circumpolarcountries themselves would have any sizable influ-ence on major powers elsewhere in the world.

It is unlikely that the circumpolar countries willever become an exclusive group. All of them, per-haps excepting Iceland, have ‘southern’ interestswhich are more significant to the nation than their‘northern’ interests. They will enter into agree-ments with other countries on the basis of manyareas of shared concern, and northern lands andseas will be only one of these, in most cases ratherlow on the list. Furthermore, countries outside thegroup may have valid interest in the north. So thepolar Mediterranean does not have a unifyingpull, and a ‘polar club’ or community among thepowers is not likely to emerge. Nevertheless, thenorthern countries share many interests, and it isfor their statesmen to ensure that these becomethe basis for co-operation rather than division.6

The creation of the Arctic Council less than twentyyears later indicates that even the most respected arc-tic experts could be wrong in their predictions. Thefuture success or failure of the Council will deter-mine how wrong.

Generalizations are difficult to apply in the last quar-ter of the twentieth century, as changes occurred atdifferent rates and took different forms in each cir-cumpolar country. Scientific knowledge of the north-ern regions had been shared for centuries, but

exchanges between the scientists of the USSR andother northern countries abruptly ended with theescalation of the Cold War, and did not resume untilits end. Pressures to combine efforts and shareknowledge came from other quarters. In the 1970s,for instance, the northern indigenous peoplesignored national boundaries and joined together toprotest southern-directed activities that threatenedtheir homelands. In November 1974, they gathered atthe Indigenous Arctic Peoples Conference held inCopenhagen to discuss their various concerns. In1977, the first Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC)was held in Barrow, Alaska with the objective of cre-ating a unified voice among the Inuit of Alaska,Canada, and Greenland to protest the proposedexploitation of oil and gas in the North AmericanArctic. In 1991, the ICC organized and sponsored thefirst Arctic Leaders Summit which included repre-sentatives of the ICC and the Nordic Sami Council, aswell as the Association of the Indigenous Peoples ofthe North, Siberia, and Far East of the RussianFederation. The topics discussed included the needfor sustainable development of Arctic homelands, therecognition of Aboriginal Rights, the need for newpartnerships to address critical issues facing theArctic regions, and the need for governments to ded-icate greater resources towards the needs of indige-nous peoples. A second Arctic Leaders Summit wasplanned and organized by the Nordic Sami Council,and took place in 1995 in Rovaniemi, Finland.7 Theseinitiatives were only a few of the many that wouldeventually lead to the creation of the Arctic Council.

Meanwhile, the concept of Aboriginal Rights slowlygained acceptance throughout North America. Thefirst acknowledgement was inherent in the AlaskaNative Claims Settlement Act of 1971, passed by theUnited States Congress. Then, on 1 May 1979, theDanish government passed the „CommencementAct“ approving the introduction of Home Rule inGreenland. In Canada, „existing“ Aboriginal Rightswere recognized in the Constitution Act of 1982, withvarious land claims agreements negotiated from 1975through to the present. The most dramatic achieve-ment was the settlement with the Inuit of the Easternand Central Arctic, negotiated in conjunction withthe creation of a new territory in 1999 - Nunavut -

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with an Inuit majority of 80 percent: in essence, aform of democratic self-government. Other landclaims and specific rights to self-government havebeen settled, or are in the process of being settled,among other Inuit groups and northern Indian tribesin Canada. Meanwhile, initiatives were also takingplace in Europe, as in the case of Sami Council’sefforts to attain recognition of their right to self-deter-mination.8 By comparison, similar attempts by theRussian Association of Indigenous Peoples of theNorth (RAIPON) were ineffective.9

There were also a number of other initiatives whichhave contributed to a more unified voice on northernconcerns. Various transnational, non-governmentalagencies emerged during this period, including theCircumpolar Universities Cooperation Association,the International Arctic Science Committee, theInternational Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, andthe International Union for Circumpolar Health, toname only a few. Additionally, a number of govern-ment-sponsored agencies were founded, such as theNordic Council (1972), the Council of the Baltic SeaStates (1992), the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (1993),and the Council of Arctic Parliamentarians, as well asa number of committees and sub-committees of theUnited Nations. Organizations within each circum-polar country also sought collaboration with interna-tional scientists - the Arctic System Science Program(ARCSS) of the United States National ScienceFoundation is one example. Although some initia-tives centred on improved economic benefits oradvanced educational opportunities, as in the case ofthe proposed University of the Arctic, the majorityseemed to focus on concerns about Arctic pollution,leading to the establishment in 1991 of the ArcticMonitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP),and the publication in 1997 of its comprehensivereport on the status of Arctic pollution throughoutthe circumpolar regions.10 These initiatives also con-tributed to the creation of the Arctic Council in 1996,which eventually absorbed AMAP and the ArcticEnvironmental Protection Strategy working groups.

The ongoing dialogue among officials of the circum-polar countries is unprecedented, and relatedresearch initiatives far more successful than antici-

pated. Yet the ability to translate the research resultsinto political action has so far been disappointinglylacking. The work of the Arctic Council has also beenhindered by less than enthusiastic support from theUnited States. This reluctance was evident during thenegotiations leading to its creation, and was prompt-ed by concern that the Council might be used as aninstrument for trying to influence American andNATO defence strategies. Such concerns were legiti-mate, especially now that quasi-environmental con-cerns are being raised over the United States’ plans toup-grade their anti-ballistic missile defences in theArctic. As the President of the Inuit CircumpolarConference has argued, should the interceptors beactivated, the nuclear missiles would likely bedowned on Inuit lands.11 Twenty years ago, it wouldhave been considered ludicrous to suggest that theInuit people be consulted; today their approval of theNational Missile Defence (NMD) proposals wouldseem almost mandatory. Times have changed, andwith them, the power and thrust of the East-Westdynamic. Without the existence of a military or eco-nomic crisis in recent years, southern interests seemto have lost some of the influence they once held overnorthern residents. At the moment, however, the bal-ance is tenuous. Should the current situation in theMiddle East develop into a crisis of major propor-tions, demands for rapid expansion of Arctic oil andgas production will likely take precedence over envi-ronmental concerns. A similar result might occurshould there be a direct threat to the peace and secu-rity of Europe or North America.

At present, the Arctic Council has no authority toenforce its policies. As a consequence, it must look tothe support of representative countries and UnitedNations agencies to bring about any material change.There are additional difficulties on the horizon.Although the Council has taken a strong stand on theneed for environmental protection and sustainabledevelopment, these two policies may prove incom-patible in certain situations. Similarly, there are otherties which could limit the degree to which the cir-cumpolar nations are able to fulfil the policy direc-tives of the Arctic Council, such as conflicting priori-ties of members in the Economic Union or of signato-ries to the North America Free Trade Agreement, to

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give two examples.12 In this regard, the creation of theArctic Council did not guarantee that all the expecta-tions of the founding states could or would be met.

Some circumpolar nations have shown strong leader-ship in their support of the basic objectives set forthby the Arctic Council, one of them being Canada as isevident from its recently published documentdescribing its new northern policy. The NorthernDimension of Canada’s Foreign Policy clearly defines itsobjectives:

1. to enhance the security and prosperity ofCanadians, especially northerners andAboriginal peoples;

2. to assert and ensure the preservation ofCanada’s sovereignty in the North;

3. to establish the Circumpolar region as a vibrantgeopolitical entity integrated into a rules-basedinternational system; and

4. to promote the human security of northernersand the sustainable development of theArctic.13

Other government departments appear to be devel-oping policy in support of Canada’s Foreign Affairsinitiative. The Northern Affairs Program, for in-stance, has issued a publication on its plans for north-ern research over the next two years, with the statedobjective „to ensure that federally funded scienceand technology continues to improve the quality oflife and the environment, social and economic well-being, and the advancement of knowledge in north-ern Canada.“14 Whether such policy initiatives can besustained if strongly opposed by American interestscannot be known until they are put to the test; butnow that they are published and essentially in thepublic domain, opposition may be more difficult.Moreover, Canada’s northern science policy is alsocompatible with the documents prepared andapproved by the World Conference on Science heldin Budapest in June 1999.15 Canada, like all circumpo-lar countries, must gain support from world organi-zations if they are to compete against more powerfuleconomic and military interests.

Policy and research aside, the ability to overcome

threats to the well-being, and perhaps even survival,of northern residents is still very much dependentupon the cooperation of southern interests. This wasclearly demonstrated by a recent study on dioxin pol-lution in the Canadian Arctic that linked the sourcesof contamination to southern Canada, the UnitedStates, Mexico, and countries outside North Americasuch as Japan, France, Belgium and the UnitedKingdom. The study was conducted by the Centerfor the Biology of Natural Systems at the CityUniversity of New York, for the North AmericanCommission for Environmental Cooperation. Inaddition to locating each source as a percentage ofthe overall pollution, the study identified the mainsource of dioxins found in the Arctic as coming from„US waste incinerators (municipal and medical),together with cement kilns burning hazardous wasteas fuel, and metal processing facilities.“16 As is sooften the case, the research effort required to identifythe problem may be far less than that needed forfinding the means to resolve the problem.

In summary, the primary force behind the East-Westdynamic in circumpolar relationships has, historical-ly, been driven by the need to cooperate with othersfor one’s survival - or, failing that, to avoid con-frontation by deferring to southern interests. Today,the success of the circumpolar countries in defendingtheir mutual interests is derived from the many coop-erative efforts of governmental and non-governmen-tal organizations. This has only been possiblebecause of a prolonged period of economic prosperi-ty and peaceful co-existence between the super pow-ers of the world. Should this balance be disrupted bya major crisis, the current advances in research andpolicy initiatives may not result in any meaningfulaction. On the other hand, the strong bonds nowestablished between circumpolar countries will like-ly make them less vulnerable to the pressures of arejuvenated South-North dynamic. Similarly, themore closely policy statements of each southern-based government are tied to the interests of itsnorthern peoples, the stronger the unified voice ofthe circumpolar nations will be in their defence. Eventhen, we must recognize that the strength of the pre-sent East-West dynamic has yet to be tested during atime of economic or military crisis.

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Notes

1 This is in contrast to a „Mercator-based East-Westparadigm“ as discussed by Paul Dukes of theCentre for Russian East and Central EuropeanStudies at the University of Aberdeen, in the„Introduction,“ James Forsyth et al. The Return ofNorth-South (Aberdeen, Scotland: University ofAberdeen, 1997), 5.

2 For instance, see Magnus Magnusson, Vikings(London: Bodley Head, 1980), Ch’s. 7 and 8.

3 For a summary of the history of the indigenouspeoples of the circumpolar regions see RichardVaughan, The Arctic, A History (Dover, NewHampshire: Alan Sutton, 1994), 1-34.

4 Shelagh D. Grant, Sovereignty or Security? Gover-nment Policy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950 (Van-couver: University of British Columbia Press,1988), 180-85, and Appendix G.

5 Laurence Gould, The Polar Regions in Their Relationto Human Affairs, Bowman Memorial Lecture SeriesFour (New York: The American GeographicalSociety, 1958), 10.

6 Terence Armstrong, George Rogers, and GrahamRowley, The Circumpolar North (London: Methuen& Company, 1978), 278.

7 Mary May Simon, Inuit: One Future – One Arctic(Peterborough, Ontario: Cider Press, 1997), 26-27.

8 Lennard Sillanpaa, Political and AdministrativeResponses to Sami Self-Determination (Helsinki: TheFinnish Society of Sciences and Letters, 1994).

9 James Forsyth, „The Komi People and theRussians,“ The Return of North-South, 7.

10 Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the ArcticEnvironment Report (Oslo: Arctic Monitoring andAssessment Programme, 1997).

11 Jane George, „Circumpolar Inuit oppose U.S.missile defence system,“ Nunatsiaq News, 28 (11August 2000), 1-2 and 18.

12 Mark Nuttall, Protecting the Arctic: IndigenousPeoples and Cultural Survival (Amsterdam:Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998), 69.

13 Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs andInternational Trade. The Northern Dimension ofCanada’s Foreign Policy (Ottawa: CommunicationsBureau, 2000), 2.

14 Canada, Department of Indian Affairs and

Northern Development. Northern Science andTechnology in Canada: Federal Framework and ResearchPlan, April 1,2000 - March 31, 2002 (Ottawa, North-ern Affairs Program, 2000), 4.

15 World Conference on Science, Science for theTwenty-first Century: A New Commitment (Paris:UNESCO, 2000).

16 North American Commission for EnvironmentalCooperation, news release „Study links dioxinpollution in Arctic to North American Sources“(New York and Montreal, 3 October 2000).

References

Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic EnvironmentReport. Oslo: Arctic Monitoring and AssessmentProgramme, 1997.

Armstrong, Terence, with George Rogers, andGraham Rowley, The Circumpolar North. London:Methuen & Company, 1978.

Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs andInternational Trade. The Northern Dimension ofCanada’s Foreign Policy. Ottawa: CommunicationsBureau, 2000.

Canada, Department of Indian Affairs and NorthernDevelopment. Northern Science and Technology inCanada: Federal Framework and Research Plan, April1,2000 - March 31, 2002. Ottawa, Northern AffairsProgram, 2000.

Forsyth, James, et al, The Return of North-South.Aberdeen, Scotland: Centre for Russian, East andCentral European Studies, University of Aberdeen,1997.

George, Jane. „Circumpolar Inuit oppose U.S. missiledefence system,“ Nunatsiaq News, 28 (11 August2000): 1-2 and 18.

Gould, Laurence. The Polar Regions in Their Relation toHuman Affairs, Bowman Memorial Lecture SeriesFour. New York: The American Geographi calSociety, 1958.

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Grant, Shelagh D. Sovereignty or Security? GovernmentPolicy in the Canadian North, 1936-1950. Vancouver:University of British Columbia Press, 1988.

Magnusson, Magnus. Vikings. London: Bodley Head,1980.

North American Commission for EnvironmentalCooperation, (News Release) „Study links dioxinpollution in Arctic to North American Sources.“ NewYork and Montreal, 3 October 2000.

Nuttall, Mark. Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous Peoplesand Cultural Survival. Amsterdam: Harwood Aca-demic Publishers, 1998.

Sillanpaa, Lennard. Political and AdministrativeResponses to Sami Self-Determination. Helsinki: TheFinnish Society of Sciences and Letters, 1994.

Simon, Mary May. Inuit: One Future - One Arctic.Peterborough, Ontario: Cider Press, 1997.

Tennberg, Monica, ed. Unity and Diversity in ArcticSocieties: Keynotes presented at the Second InternationalCongress of Arctic Social Sciences. (Rovaniemi, Finland:Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, 1996).

Vaughan, Richard. The Arctic, A History. Dover, NewHampshire: Alan Sutton, 1994.

World Conference on Science, Science for the Twenty-first Century: A New Commitment. Paris: UNESCO,2000.

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Our task in this session is to discuss the relevance ofhistory; and there is no shortage of problems andquestions confronting us. What do we mean by rele-vance - and, indeed, what do we mean by history? Dowe confine our thoughts to the economic or techno-logical progress of mankind in our contemporaryworld? And do we limit our notions of history to thetime-honoured narratives of school history books,which told of the rise and fall of kings, military lead-ers and political parties in the Western world overcenturies? If this is how we understand history, andif we then reflect on what history can offer our fellowcitizens, we may conclude gloomily that the answeris „very little“, for all the attraction which famoushistorical figures and events may exert on the popul-ar consciousness.

But if we take a broader perspective on questions ofwhat is relevant and what is history, differentanswers may emerge. Everything that can help us tounderstand ourselves, our own culture and the cul-tures of others, nature and the environment, and, notleast, how these individual elements relate to eachother and interact, can surely claim to be relevant forour time. And history certainly offers an abundanceof knowledge about these matters - if, that is, wedefine history in the broadest sense as that disciplinewhich deals with everything that has happened tomankind and nature over the course of time. Ratherthan asking about the relevance of history we might

usefully rephrase the question and ask instead: Isknowledge about ourselves and others important? Isunderstanding mankind and nature relevant? If wesee history in this perspective it seems bound to berelevant, and not just for our own age but for all andany time.

How, we may ask, is history relevant then? At thedawn of history in North-western Europe in theninth century we see the Vikings sailing out from themisty world of their pre-history, out of Scandinaviaand into the neighbouring lands and cultures to theeast, south and west, as well as into those unchartedNorth Atlantic territories previously inhabitedchiefly by seagulls and arctic foxes: the Faroe Islandsand Iceland, only visited sporadically before by Irishhermits. These same adventurous settlers alsoencountered uninhabited land in Greenland towardsthe end of the 10th century, after having farmed for acentury and more in Iceland. They settled inGreenland and found there the remains of peoplesimilar to those with whom they later had dealingsfurther to the north, west and south, in the land thatwe now know as North America but which theycalled Helluland, Markland and, furthest south,Vinland. For the next four or five hundred years theyhunted in the high arctic and brought their catchesback home to the farm lands of southern Greenland,leaving behind them occasional evidence of manycenturies of activity and contact with the Inuits

The Relevance of History

Gísli Sigurðsson

spread around in the high Canadian arctic - evidencewhich is now in the process of being discovered byarchaeologists. These people who had their homes inGreenland and Iceland also built at least one site furt-her south on the north-westernmost tip ofNewfoundland, in L’Anse aux Meadows. This loca-tion they used as a stepping stone for a handful ofexploratory voyages into the Gulf of St. Lawrenceand beyond, in which regions they came into contactwith native Indians, some of them hostile, othersmore commercially interactive and friendly.

These actions were commemorated in stories thatwere told and retold for centuries on end by oralstorytellers until they were set out on parchment inIceland during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.These texts took the form of sagas about legendaryVikings as well as about more historically authentickings in Scandinavia, and about those settlers inIceland who became the heroes of those muchpraised literary forerunners of the modern historicalnovel: the Sagas of Icelanders. These stories offer uswritten accounts of how people viewed themselvesand others. We learn how they wanted to rememberthe encounters of their ancestors with the new landthat was Iceland; and how they settled that new land,by creating a cultural as well as an agrarian land-scape. They assigned names to places associated withknown individuals, and they told stories aboutevents that had happened in that landscape, thusadding human history to a land which had hithertobeen untouched by any forces save those of nature.

This land can in our times also tell to the geological-ly literate the story of volcanic eruptions, ice ages,warm periods (much warmer than today), and of theconstant process of shaping and reshaping the landand its vegetation brought about by natural phenom-ena rather than by those forces of modern pollutionwhich we tend to think of as the ultimate engine forchange in what we sometimes imagine as the stablenature around us.

The early settlers also told stories or myths whichpreserve for us an imaginative interpretation of thoseforces of nature as they appeared to these people.These myths represent attempts to capture natural

and uncontrollable forces in story, and to render themin some way a part of their conceptual world, there-by controlling them as narrative art can do.

These events can tell us how Man - with a capital M- views nature, and how he uses his language andculture to enroll nature in his dominion. We canobserve how, perhaps mistakenly, he perceives ofhimself and the gods as the dominant partners in thatrelationship.

When we follow the Vikings in the other direction,into the already settled lands of Europe, we canobserve the meeting and merging of diverse peoples- as opposed to those very different encountersbetween man and nature in the North Atlantic. Sincewe in the circumpolar lands live on the fringe, withhuman cultures to the south and the wilderness tothe north, the history of these contacts may serve as aconstant reminder of our destiny. These two dimen-sions of the process of Viking expansion offer us ahistory not only of warfare, commerce and culturalenrichment but also of new settlement and culturalexpansion. Both led to new developments and cre-ativity, the like of which had not been seen before,due to the coalescence of human cultures, as well asto the confrontations of man with nature.

The lesson to be drawn from this aspect of history isthat we should keep both frontiers open and try toexpand our knowledge in both directions. It shouldalso remind us that every meeting has at least twoparties or sides involved. We tend to look at a meet-ing of cultures as a confrontation where we only hearthe story as remembered and told by „our“ people.This should also prompt us to reflect on the „discov-ery“ of the arctic regions which were explored,known and utilised for thousands of years on endwithout „our“ knowledge. This finally brings us tothe importance of local history and local knowledgeabout nature and its resources all around the globe.

The importance or relevance of learning about othersshould also become apparent when we realise that inthe past our own people were entirely different fromwhat we are today - and as a consequence we have totreat them as a different culture. They must be under-

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stood with the help of an entirely different experiencethan that which we possess at present. Thus we mustlearn about others in order to be able to understandour own people, expand our minds and make themost of what the world has to offer us in the way ofintellectual and emotional experience which theaccumulated cultural knowledge of mankind recordsfor us.

Learning about the past is thus bound to be relevantfor modernity at all times because it enriches ourlives and helps us to form a mutual understandingbetween us and others. It can help us to build up a setof values and a way of thinking that is relevant forour modern times. It can enrich the way we deal withpeople and, at best, it can add a dimension to life ofsuch richness as to render life without that dimensiona superficial and futile exercise.

History and knowledge go hand in hand. History isnot only what we in this part of the world have seenfit to write down and remember through the ages.History has been preserved in all cultures and it pre-serves knowledge and understanding of encountersbetween peoples and between man and his environ-ment. It is important that we can have access to thatknowledge and that we can share it with each other,rather than regarding it as the discovery by one oftruths which the other knew all the time.

The sharing of knowledge is not unproblematic,however, because of all the little cultural groups we

live in, be it our academic disciplines which focus, attimes, more on the integrity of the discipline than onthe shared scientific goal of seeking knowledge by allpossible methods in order to understand our com-mon but manifold human destiny. We may even besecluded in those cultural groups which we callnations. All these barriers are being systematicallybroken down by activities and enterprises such as theNorthern Research Forum.

This forum should thus give us an opportunity toshare each others histories and knowledge in order todraw up an holistic picture of the lives lived in thenorth, the lives of peoples who have met and inte-grated for centuries but who have always retainedtheir own version of the story to tell to their own folk.But it is in the human and cultural encounterbetween peoples that new things have happened anddeveloped, where the mind has been able to tran-scend its boundaries in the pursuit of creative think-ing. We can also share knowledge about ways inwhich we can live with our next door neighbour inthe north, without risking our mutual extinction: thewild nature of the arctic which is still more or lessgoverned by the same forces as it was when theVikings emerged from the mists of the past, eventhough the terminology with which we describethose forces may have changed somewhat throughthe ages.