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The June 1990 issue of Arctic carried a lament by Ed Struzik about the possible demise of the Boreal Institute and the lack of support for northern research in Canada. This editorial begged a number of questions about the North and research there. What is northern research about? Expanding the frontiers of knowledge? Academic publication, promotion and prestige? Aiding northern development - or conservation? Informing policy makers in Ottawa - or empowering local residents? Getting off campus for the summer and into a less claustrophobic place? . [The author discusses his experiences in northern research and the northern dilemma - to exploit or conserve - and concludes with this wisdom:] . from the North I carried away first-hand knowledge of three living forms and their fate that point the way to possible futures for the North - and Canada. Caribou that fight tangle their antlers and die when they cannot free themselves. Muskoxen, when attacked by wolves, form a circle, horns pointing outwards. This ancient strategy provided no defence against Peary and his people, who shot down these great beasts for food: we found their heaped, bullet-shattered skulls in northern Elesmere Island. We also found many forms of lichen, flourishing where nothing else grew, drawing sustenance from air and rock. Lichens are symbioses of algae and fungi, two completely different forms of life. Through mutual aid, each serving the need of the other for nutrition, they produce a myriad of colourful forms that cannot be created by separate organisms. Lichen are not theories, concepts, hypotheses or even paradigms. They are living presences and witnesses to the necessity of cooperation for survival in a vast and hostile land at the very end of the earth. They indicate how traditional ways and modern science, northern peoples and southern in-comers, theory and practice, rational and intuitive ways, the North and the nation can be developed. They point the middle way to a North that can be more than a place to loot and leave - or where only man is vile. And from our northern experience, in science and in the daily struggle to solve practical problems, Canadians can carry messages about cooperation and symbiosis to a world weary of conflict and confrontation.

Two commissions of inquiry were appointed by the Canadian government to investigate the likely consequences for the land and peoples of northern Canada affected by pipelines proposed for the delivery of Alaskan natural gas to American markets. The author compares these two commissions which were chaired by Mr. Justice Thomas Berger and Mr. Kenneth Lysyk respectively. He sees them as together illustrating that the problems of northern development do not begin in the north, but rather in the minds of white people from the south because of their assumptions.

. Ever since the new thrust towards northern development began in 1954 with the creation of the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources, a ding-dong battle has been fought in Canada over the "right" way to develop the North. For a long time, it seemed, development was just a matter of mines and roads, of building schools and educating the native peoples. But over the past few years the process of northern development has become highly politicized. The North has become the ground upon which a number of national conflicts are being fought out: conservationists against developers, modernists against traditionalists, humanists against technocrats, evolutionaries against revolutionaries. … The bright promise and the messy reality are paraded side by side for all to see. From an objective standpoint, there seems to be some great split here in Canadians' view of the North. What is wrong in the North? Why do great dreams and ideals keep crashing to the ground? Why are attempts to "help the native peoples" continually being frustrated? The following two recent Canadian publications help to answer these questions …. Both books clearly indicate the alternatives open for the future development of the North. A History of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada is written from the inside. It documents the integrity of the traditional way of life in the North without romanticizing it and shows how cooperation among people in the North, and between northerners and southerners, occurred in the past. It also tells of the terrible impact of the contact between cultures. It is wise and gentle in tone and has an air of patient explanation about it. The Genocide Machine in Canada is a muckraking account of northern development that accuses the Canadian government of plotting genocide in northern Canada - by which seems to be meant the destruction of the way of life of the indigenous peoples. It is a devastating attack upon existing assumptions about the North and the values of the decision makers, and is angry and ideological in tone. The Crowe book arose out of the Man in North project of the Arctic Institute of North America. That of Davis and Zannis criticizes the Institute, while acknowledging extensive use of its excellent library. … Basically, the two books present two contrasting views. Crowe's book is informed; that of Davis and Zannis is opinions. Coming from such different directions, both books reach essentially the same conclusions - that the North and its peoples will have to be approached in a different way in the future, and that northern development is basically a problem of southern attitudes. … These two writers have hit upon a fundamental truth about the North that explains a lot of what is going wrong in the region. The North has been treated as a colonial area where there is "control by one power over a dependent area or people." In such a situation, dependency is created by the colonists, who are the givers of all goods, the source of all benefits. And this encourages manipulation by the colonized, who soon learn how to put the squeeze on their colonial masters. The result is that everyone has to take sides. … One thing is certain. The future of the North cannot be merely a continuation of the past. Somewhere there has to be a qualitative change in the Canadian approach to the North. And that means that people have to change their minds about the causes of the problems of the North. There are not going to be any easy solutions to the problems of northern development, because development is a process, not a product. And a process implies continuous change, adaptation, movement. … The books clearly present the choice ahead in the Canadian North - between confrontation and co-operation.

Le gouveroement de Terre‐Neuve amorca, en 1953, un programme de relocalisa‐tion visant a demenager les habitants des petits villages de peche (outport) vers les grands centres qui offrent plus de possibilites. Les quatre monographies que nous couvrons ici discutent les resultats de ce programme ainsi que les reactions des insulaires eux‐memes. Ces rapports sont bases sur des etudes effectuees de 1966 a 1968. Trois d'entre eux sont des etudes de cas de relocalisation et de changement social dans certaines regions de Terre‐Neuve. L'etude d'Ottar Brox presente une vue generate des conditions economiques et sociales de la Province. On considere que Terre‐Neuve possede une economie dualiste. Les rapports con‐tiennent un certain nombre de recommandations specifiques.In 1953, the government of Newfoundland initiated a resettlement programme to move people from the small outports to larger centres with more opportunities. The four reports discuss the results of this programme, and the reaction of the people on the island to them. They are based on research carried out in 1966–1968. Three reports are primarily case studies of resettlement and social change in different parts of Newfoundland. The report by Ottar Brox provides an overview of the social and economic conditions in Newfoundland, which is identified as having a dualistic economy, in which the two halves are separated by a "conversion barrier." The reports contain a number of specific recommendations.

The Centre (C.R.C.A.) was established in the early 1950s by Rev. Joseph E. Champagne, O.M.I. [Oblates of Mary Immaculate], Director of the Institute of Missiology at the University of Ottawa, with the help of the National Museum of Canada. It now forms part of St. Paul University, a small private Catholic university run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The Oblates have a long history of missionary work in the Canadian North. St. Paul University is federated with the University of Ottawa. Until recently, the Centre functioned mainly as an informal clearing house for anthropological research in Canada. In the last two years, its research and publishing activities have been expanded. It has a particular interest in: social science and community development (socio-economic development and change) with specific emphasis on social, cultural, and applied anthropology; community development in large, sparsely populated frontier areas; and traditional peoples in situations of change and poverty. The geographic regions in which the Centre operates include the Canadian Middle North and Arctic, particularly the Yukon Territory and Northern Ontario. The northern research program is financed almost entirely by a grant from the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development under its program of assistance to northern institutes and expeditions. The Centre has a vigorous publications program. It started in 1955 with the publication of Anthropologica, a bilingual journal in the social sciences, and has received support in the past from the Canada Council. The journal has carried a number of papers on the North. . In its monograph series, it has published: "Eskimo Townsmen", a study of Eskimo adaptation to town life at Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island, by John and Irma Honigmann; "The Metis of the Mackenzie District", a study of people of Indian and White ancestry in the Northwest Territories by Richard Slobodin; and "Kabloona and Eskimo in the Central Keewatin", by Frank Vallee. . The first of the Centre's Document series dealt with "Community Development in Canada" and included reference to activities in northern Canada; it was written by Antony Loyd, now with the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia. The Centre's Handbook series was initiated with Aleksandrs Sprudzs' "Co-operatives: Notes for a Basic Information Course", which is a guide to establishing and running co-operatives, with particular reference to Eskimo co-operatives . The Centre issues a small bilingual monthly newsletter called "Information," which describes its activities. .