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Thursday, June 11, 1998 Tundra for two: dividing Canada's far-north is no small taskBut across one of the world's least-populated regions -- 65,000 people in an area bigger than India -- anticipation of the breakup is mixed with apprehension. In the eastern half of the Territories, to be named Nunavut, Inuits' pride at gaining self-governance is tempered by poverty, unemployment, crime and substance abuse rates that far exceed the national average. The Inuits -- formerly known as Eskimos -- will make up 85 percent of a population of 26,000. The western half is groping for an identity: It doesn't even have an official name to distinguish it from Nunavut, though residents use the term "Western Arctic" while awaiting a final decision. And while the west faces less daunting economic problems than the east, it faces a more complex political struggle: After the split on April 1, 1999, its population will be divided almost 50-50 between aboriginals and whites, raising questions about how to allocate political power. "It's not a source of friction, but it's a concern," said Charles Dent, a white member of the territorial Cabinet in Yellowknife. "One way or another we'll have to find a way for all of us to work together." Native leaders voice similar sentiments. "It's exciting, it's difficult," said Bill Erasmus, chief of the region's biggest Indian tribe, the Dene. "We need to have patience and understanding of each other." A committee is drafting proposals for a new constitution that eventually will be put in a plebiscite. The basic choices are to form separate governments for aboriginals and for the territory as a whole, or combine the two. All the parties are reluctant to create any government body specifically reserved for non-aboriginals. The Western Arctic's Indians, plus the one Inuit community that will remain after division, insist their self-government rights cannot be diminished by any new constitution. They note that in the Northwest Territories, unlike the rest of Canada, aboriginals have rights to huge tracts of land instead of small reservations. "This is Dene country," Erasmus said. "Some non-native people bring baggage from the south, but they soon realize it's different here. They can't do things they might do in the south, in terms of neglecting us." Stephen Kakfwi, a former Dene chief who is now territorial minister of economic development, recalled how some uneasy whites formed a "white brotherhood" in the 1970s to counter what they perceived as ecessive native militancy. "We've come a long way since then," Kakfwi said. "I see aboriginal and non-aboriginal people really having made the commitment to listen to each other." Though the Northwest Territories' breakup was endorsed by voters in both halves, the logistics occasionally have been contentious. For example, Nunavut leaders favor creating their own power company, rather than sharing the one now serving the entire territory. There also has been sparring over who gets the territory's distinctive polar bear-shaped license plates. Nunavut is claiming the plates because most of the territory's real polar bears live in the east. Westerners aren't ready to give up easily. "People here are very fond of those license plates," said Cooper Langford, editor of a Yellowknife-based magazine called "Up Here." Within the Western Arctic, residents and politicians must decide what name they want for their soon-to-be-shrunken territory. An informal poll two years ago showed strong sentiment for keeping Northwest Territories, while the joke name "Bob" was a distant runner-up. Many Indian leaders favor calling the region Denendeh -- "our land" in the Dene language. Kakfwi, for one, scoffs at the idea of retaining Northwest Territories as the name. "It's a colonial name," he said. "We have to get a name that identifies us as a people." A task force of Western Arctic legislators is deliberating issues related to the breakup, ranging from whether to keep the Northwest Territories flag, to how to celebrate the division next April. Langford said some westerners are unsure whether they should be celebrating at all. "Nunavut is in the process of building something," he said. "Here in the Western Arctic, it's more like a corporate downsizing. ... There's a lot of uncertainty." |
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