Unfreezing the Arctic: Science, Colonialism, and the Transformation of Inuit Lands

by Andrew Stuhl

In recent years, journalists and environmentalists have pointed urgently to the melting Arctic as a leading indicator of the growing effects of climate change. While climate change has unleashed profound transformations in the region, most commentators distort these changes by calling them unprecedented. In reality, the landscapes of the North American Arctic—as well as relations among scientists, Inuit, and federal governments— are products of the region’s colonial past. And even as policy analysts, activists, and scholars alike clamor about the future of our world’s northern rim, too few truly understand its history.
 
In Unfreezing the Arctic , Andrew Stuhl brings a fresh perspective to this defining challenge of our time. With a compelling narrative voice, Stuhl weaves together a wealth of distinct episodes into a transnational history of the North American Arctic, proving that a richer understanding of its social and environmental transformation can come only from studying the region’s past. Drawing on historical records and extensive ethnographic fieldwork, as well as time spent living in the Northwest Territories, he closely examines the long-running interplay of scientific exploration, colonial control, the testimony and experiences of Inuit residents, and multinational investments in natural resources. A rich and timely portrait, Unfreezing the Arctic offers a comprehensive look at scientific activity across the long twentieth century. It will be welcomed by anyone interested in political, economic, environmental, and social histories of transboundary regions the world over.


The author intends to donate all royalties from this book to the Alaska Youth for Environmental Action (AYEA) and East Three School's On the Land Program.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Hardcover

Published November 3, 2016

Reviews

[Mato Mauno · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend, it raises topics and questions that shoud not be forgotten, that unfortunately many have…

[Floris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well and conscientiously researched. As someone still learning how to study and write about the Arctic, this seems to be a good example of a (non-indigenous) scholar doing his due diligence, working with rather than on Arctic communities, taking into account research protocols and ethical considerations, and looking bring indigenous voices into his work. More an environmental history than history of science, Stuhl’s book accounts for a century of American and Canadian involvement in the North American Arctic Basin. Looking at the High North’s “postcolonial” period, he identifies different ways in which the region was transformed by scientific and colonial actors, from the promises and effects of economic activities such as fur trading and reindeer herding to the realities of exploiting its oil reserves. It was the book’s title that made me want to read it. As we are increasingly concerned with melting ice (and beginning to see efforts to “refreeze” the Arctic as a technological means of fighting climatic change), a call to “unfreeze” it seems provocatively adversarial. But Stuhl’s point is that the melting of glaciers and thawing of permafrost in the Arctic should be cause for reflecting on existing “southern” (American and Canadian) perceptions of the Arctic: as a region frozen in time, pristine, empty of life, antithetical to progress, ripe for exploitation, and so forth. Perceptions that have their roots in the colonial period and still linger today. Stuhl makes a good case for seeing the Arctic as a dynamic space (for better or for wors), whose peoples have voices and interests that often remain neglected.

I didn’t always find the arguments in each chapter particularly convincing, however. I’m all for being inclusive when it comes to labelling things as “science” or “scientific”, but I felt Stuhl was including quite a lot under those terms. Fur trading, whaling, oil drilling, reindeer herding… in my mind these are first and foremost economic activities, which as Stuhl rightfully shows are rooted in colonial visions of and presence in the high north. Of course they have a scientific dimension to them, whether it be the ecological knowledge that underpins animal husbandry and trapping, or the geological knowledge that underpins prospecting, mining, and drilling operations. Yet all of the complexities of these activities seemed to be grouped together quite easily under concepts that are deployed very broadly: what counts as a “transformation” of the north is quite flexible, from conceptual understandings to physical changes in the land; what counts as “strategic” is also flexible, referring equally to economic resources as to military activities. The final chapter is a particularly clear example, as Stuhl weaves together the expansion of the petroleum economy, the elaboration of ecosystem sciences, mainstream environmentalism, and indigenous rights movements all in the same narrative (112-3). I would have liked to see some more analytical teasing apart in such cases. Although I recognise that Stuhl probably prefers to not absolve colonialism of its scientific underpinnings and vice versa. The mention of Gregg Mitman’s support in the Acknowledgements somewhat explained to me how Stuhl moves so freely between environmental history and history of science.

[Greyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuhl takes the reader through the modern colonial history (roughly 1860 until the present) in the US-Canadian far north, stretching generally from Point Hope to the eastern coast of northern Canada but with particular emphasis on areas near Point Barrow in Alaska and the Mackenzie River Delta in the NWT. As a historian of science, he emphasizes that "our" scientific and exploratory lenses are colored by the prevailing notions of the day (read: generally racist and xenophobic), and that in reading both history and science of the past, this must be taken into account. To which most educated readers would say: yes, and? It is vital to recognize the high Arctic (and its people) as a living, malleable geography when considering modern climate and energy policy with all its ramifications. To reduce it to a mere image of a polar bear on a shrinking ice flow is reductive, but I would hope that policy-makers--if not the general public, though that would help considerably--are better informed than that.

He does do an excellent job of tracing the economic and political forces driving colonial impulses (whales, fur-bearing mammals, a surprisingly robust section on technocratic reindeer herding initiatives, and ultimately the almighty oil), so credit for that because there is a dearth of literature on pre-oil North Slope colonization after the 1867 purchase, and the international lens offers useful comparisons between government-Inuit relations across decades between both countries. Not sure whether I would agree that ANCSA/ANILCA/Inuvialuit Treaty reforms in the 1970s-1980s offer a glimpse at post-colonial structures. The existence of formal mechanisms for "consultative engagement" certainly does not imply de facto self-determination; certain critical theorists would probably argue the exact opposite--that by enveloping northern voices into traditionally-Western power structures in fact alters the rules of the game such that everyone is playing by the "same rules" with vastly different experience levels and available resources.

A subtle and complicated narrative for a subtle and complicated web of issues.

[Bren | Wordwanderlust · Rating 5 out of 5]

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[Mills College Library]

971.9 S9339 2016