My role as Policy Advisor to the Northern and Remote Forum of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has afforded me many unique travel opportunities. In the past 12 months, I’ve been north of the 60th parallel five times visiting Cities of Iqaluit, Whitehorse, Haines Junction and Anchorage. Of these places, Iqaluit and Nunavut Territory (Canada’s youngest northern Territory both in terms of population and political existence) struck me as being most unlike the Canada in which I grew up. On the one hand plucky, sophisticated, young entrepreneurs are organizing and advancing political, commercial and cultural initiatives to bring the region into its own; forging a new future for the North. On the other, communities with conditions that can be described as “Third World:” high unemployment, lack of safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor housing. As an example, the infant mortality rate in Canada in 2007 was 5.1 deaths per 1,000 live births; in Nunavut it was three times higher at 15.1 . In the midst of this dichotomy, families struggle with widespread substance abuse, domestic violence and with shocking rates of teen suicide that threaten to make the promise of Nunavut, “Our Land,” unattainable for generations. Read More