Circumpolar peoples

Circumpolar coastal human population distribution ca. 2009 (includes both Indigenous and non-Indigenous)

Circumpolar peoples and Arctic peoples are umbrella terms for the various indigenous peoples of the Arctic region.

Approximately four million people are resident in the Arctic, among which 10 percent are indigenous peoples belonging to a vast number of distinct communities. They represent a minority with the exception of Greenland of which 90 percent of its population is composed of Inuit.

It is difficult to find an exact number of the indigenous peoples in the Arctic as states have a tendency to downplay the numbers. Moreover, each state has its own different methods to count its indigenous population. For instance, Russia excludes from the official status of "small peoples of the North" (Russian: "малые народы Севера" or "Коренные малочисленные народы Севера") every community that exceeds  50,000 people. They are therefore excluding from the definition certain numerically large indigenous communities like the Komi peoples, Karelians or Yakuts.

Prehistory

The earliest inhabitants of North America's central and eastern Arctic are referred to as the Arctic small tool tradition (AST) and existed c. 2500 BCE. The AST consisted of several Paleo-Eskimo cultures, including the Independence cultures and Pre-Dorset culture. The Dorset culture (Inuktitut: Tuniit or Tunit) refers to the next inhabitants of central and eastern Arctic. The Dorset culture evolved because of technological and economic changes during the period of 1050–550 BCE. With the exception of the Quebec / Labrador Peninsula, the Dorset culture vanished around 1500 CE.

Dorset / Thule culture transition dates around the 9th–10th centuries. Scientists theorize that there may have been cross-contact of the two cultures with sharing of technology, such as fashioning harpoon heads, or the Thule may have found Dorset remnants and adapted their ways with the predecessor culture. Others believe the Thule displaced the Dorset.

Historical and contemporary peoples

By 1300, the Inuit, present-day Arctic inhabitants and descendants of Thule culture, had settled in west Greenland, and moved into east Greenland over the following century. Over time, the Inuit, and other related peoples, have migrated throughout the Arctic and subarctic regions of Canada (Inuit Nunangat), Greenland, Russia (Siberia), and the United States (Alaska).

Other Indigenous peoples of the circumpolar north include the Chukchi, Evenks, Iñupiat, Khanty, Koryaks, Nenets, Sámi, Yukaghir, and Yupik. Yupik people still refer to themselves as Eskimo which means "snowshoe netters", not "raw meat eaters" as it is sometimes mistakenly translated.

List of peoples by ethnolinguistic grouping

Chukchi, one of many Indigenous peoples of Siberia. Representation of a Chukchi family by Louis Choris (1816)

• Ancient Beringian – Siberia and Alaska
• Chukotko-Kamchatkan
  • Chukchi, Siberia (Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), Russia
  • Koryaks, Siberia (Kamchatka Krai), Russia
• Tungusic
  • Evenks, China (Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang), Mongolia, Russia
  • Evens, Siberia (Magadan Oblast, Kamchatka Krai and Sakha), Russia
• Turkic
  • Northeast Turkic
    • Dolgans, Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia
    • Yakuts, Siberia (Sakha), Russia
• Eskaleut
  • Eskimo

    

    A group of igloos forming an Inuit village, 1824, by George Francis Lyon

    • Yupik: Alaska and the Russian Far East (Chukotka Autonomous Okrug)
      • Alutiiq, Alaska
      • Yup'ik, Alaska
        • Cup'ik, Alaska
        • Cup'ig, Nunivak Island (Alaska)
      • Siberian Yupik, Siberia (Chukotka Autonomous Okrug), Russia
    • Inuit: Greenland, Northern Canada (Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Northwest Territories (Inuvialuit Nunangit) and Yukon), Alaska, United States
      • Kalaallit, Greenland
      • Iñupiat: Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs and the Bering Straits, Alaska, United States
  • Aleuts: Aleutian Islands, Alaska, United States and Kamchatka Krai, Russia
• Uralic
  • Finno-Ugric
    • Permians
      • Komi, Russia (Komi Republic and Perm Krai)
      • Udmurts, Russia

        

        Sami people in Norway, c. 1900, painted by Wilhelm Peters

    • Sámi: Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia (Murmansk Oblast)
    • Balto-Finnic
      • Finns, Finland, Norway
      • Karelians, Finland, Russia
  • Samoyedic
    • Nenets, Russia
    • Enets, Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia
    • Nganasan, Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia
    • Selkup, Siberia, Russia
• Yukaghirs, East Siberia, Russia
• Indo-European

  

  Russia's Arctic coastline from the White Sea to the Bering Strait had been explored and settled by Pomors, Russian settlers from Novgorod.

  • Germanic
    • North Germanic
      • Icelanders, Iceland
      • Norwegians, Norway
      • Swedes, Sweden
  • Slavs
    • East Slavic
      • Pomors and other Russians, Russia

Political representation in the Arctic Council

The voice of indigenous people in the Arctic is important as they have usually been seen as the representatives and voices of the impact of climate change in the Arctic. Some numerically large indigenous communities hold a role in the geopolitics of the Arctic region through the status of permanent participant in the Arctic Council. It is the case of the Aleuts though the Aleut International Association, the Canadian and Alaskan Athabaskans through the Arctic Athabaskan Council, the Gwichʼin through the Gwich'in Council International, the Inuit through the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the Sámi through the Saami Council and the Indigenous peoples of the Russian north through Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON). Generally, when indigenous peoples participate in international discussion, they have the status of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), in order to differentiate them from states. However, the Arctic Council established a unique model of indigenous participation by giving them the status of Permanent Participants.

It is a new reading of their participation and consultative right granted by the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People in its article 18. Indigenous people are for once, seated at the same table as states representatives. It enables them to gain influence on the soft law making process, which was until now for states-only. They are also starting to gain influence in the making of legally binding texts as they participated in the making of the Arctic Search and Rescue (May 2011) or the Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution Preparedness and Response in the Arctic (2013). Certain areas still remain under a state-only control as the Arctic Council's aim is to focus on sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic region, excluding de facto other topics like security or border disputes. Circumpolar peoples do not have access or have only limited access to these types of discussions which concerns their land but are discussed elsewhere.

Political aims

In 2023, the Statement of the Arctic Peoples’ Conference 2023 – Inuiaat Issittormiut Ataatsimeersuarnerat 2023 was issued on the common circumpolar peoples' political goals for the 50th anniversary of the first Circumpolar Meeting of Arctic Indigenous Peoples. One of the main arguments is the defense of their right to well being.

A major preoccupation is the access to healthcare and the application of mental health policies as suicide, especially among the younger generations, is a major issue that threatens the future of these communities. They also call for climate justice and denounce green colonialism which is the land encroachment, resource extraction and renewable energy production on their land, without their consent as well as the  proliferation of marine protected areas that are not indigenous-led. They recall their right to determine their own priorities for development, which should be understood as not confined to economic development. Finally, they highlight the need to ask for their consensus before making any decision in the Arctic Council and that making decisions without consensus undermines its purpose and integrity.

Possible future discussions

With the melting of the ice and the possibility of opening new trade routes as well as extracting resources from the seabed, resource managements could be a major topic of discussion between Arctic States and Circumpolar Peoples. According to international law and indigenous rights, resource management should fall into a regime of co-management between the states and the indigenous communities present in the territory on which the resource extraction is being held. Moreover, the law states that indigenous peoples have to be part of « strategic planning », in other words in defining the various deadlines of such projects. They should as well receive a « fair and equitable benefit sharing ». A revenue sharing scheme would improve Arctic indigenous peoples' living standards and enable them to gain further economic autonomy. Finally, following United Nation Declaration of the Right of Indigenous People, circumpolar peoples are aiming at having more political representation and being more consulted at all levels : national, regional or international.

See also

• Indigenous peoples of Siberia
• Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic

Bibliography

• Takashi Irimoto, Takako Yamada (eds.) Circumpolar Religion and Ecology: An Anthropology of the North, University of Tokyo Press, 1994, ISBN 9780860085157.