Headlines, North America

TECHNOLOGY: Internet Heats Up Debate on Arctic Traditions

Mark Bourrie

OTTAWA, Sep 3 2003 (IPS) - As Internet use takes hold in the Canadian Arctic, the new media is being seen both as a saviour and a threat.

The technology is being used to sell Inuit art, to carry e-mail, local news, distance education courses, and government services. In the high Arctic, its use is somewhat limited because of the lack of broadband capability.

In the near-north – isolated parts of Canada that are accessible only by airplane but are within range of satellites – broadband Internet is letting communities hook up to medical services in the south and to host mirror sites for Inuit commercial ventures.

Inuit have quickly adapted to the Internet, says Joe Mauryauma of the Inuit-owned Nunavut WWW Communications, based in Iqualuit on the high Arctic Baffin Island. About one-half of the town’s homes – some 1,000 dwellings – have dial-up Internet access.

The technology reached the high Arctic about six years ago, he said.

”We make the best of it, even though we don’t have broadband. We know that it’s coming, that it’s just a matter of a few years. The Internet has given us an instant link to the world,” Mauryauma said.

And Inuit have become skilled at using the technology to make money. Nunavut WWW Communications is holding its own as an Internet service provider, despite competition from the country’s largest phone company, Bell Canada.

Inuit art and other aboriginal-owned companies have set up mirror Internet sites in the sub-Arctic community of Yellowknife, which has broadband access. Ordering is done through forms that can be handled by the telephone dial-up systems in Iqualuit and other Arctic communities hundreds of kilometres away.

But Mauryauma believes the Internet has also widened a cultural gap between generations. Most Inuit elders speak only Inuktitut, a language that has its own alphabet; they get very little from the Internet, he says.

George Goose, a spokesman for the Nunavut Territory’s Language Department, says the Internet has also created a gulf between urban Inuit and those who live the traditional nomadic lifestyle.

”People who are out on the land aren’t going to log onto the Internet, even if they could,” Goose said in an interview. ”Traditional Inuit living is very hard. Most of their waking time is spent trying to make a living.”

But filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk says Inuit women have already experimented with wireless Internet technology while they were "out on the land".

Based in the high Arctic community of Baffin Island, Kunuk says his company has access to e-mail via government-owned fibre-optic lines, but the rest of the community of 500 people is waiting eagerly for Internet service.

”I think it may be as important to us as the GPS (global positioning system, which enable people to get their bearings in the wilderness), he said in an interview Wednesday.

”I don’t think people understand what it is they’ll be getting. Right now, the e-mail is the big thing. People here have not seen the rest of the material on the Internet."

Marie Francoise Guedon, a University of Ottawa professor and one of the world’s leading experts on the culture of the Dene Indians of the Arctic and subArctic, calls the Internet the latest assault on traditional cultures.

”Any northern aboriginal people who settle in communities and who have electricity will have access to this technology. Is it fair to tell Inuit or Dene kids that they can’t use it? Is it possible to even try?” she said.

”The loss to the world of traditional world views and cultures is very great, but, at the same time it’s almost impossible to stop unless the people themselves choose to somehow integrate the new media into their culture and to carefully protect their languages and traditions,” she told IPS.

"Is it happening? In some ways, I would say yes, but maybe not with the critical mass that’s needed.”

But Kunuk, director of the critically acclaimed film ‘Atanarjuat’ (The Fast Runner), based on an ancient Inuit myth, believes Inuit culture and language can survive the new technology.

”Children learn English in schools and speak Inuktitut at home. I don’t think that’s changing,” he said.

A partner in Isuma Igloolik Productions, a feature film and television company specialising in Inuit stories, Kunuk says the Internet has already become a necessity for him.

He tracks local news through an Arctic-based web site, communicates with his Montreal-based distribution office by e-mail and sells his films through a web site hosted in southern Canada.

”I do see it changing our lives, but the change is for the better. And no matter what, it is coming.”

Mauryauma and supporters of Arctic Internet access say the technology can provide the north with lifesaving links to the world.

For instance, in isolated Canadian wilderness communities that have broadband access, small hospitals can be linked to larger medical centres in major cities, allowing specialists live access to MRI pictures and a means to give advice during surgery.

”I don’t think the clock will be turned back," says Mauryauma. ”The people who live here want the same access to the Internet that everyone else has. I think it’s a matter of fairness,” he said.