Introduction:
The Problem of Definition
In 1979, the Canadian geographer Louis-Edmond Hamelin
wrote that the North is as much a concept as a place. He noted that because
of this, the North was (and still is) the subject of a great deal of ignorance
and misconception. People tend to define the North for themselves based
on peculiar mental constructs that often bear little relation to the reality.1
Thus, for most, "the North remains a stranger. . . ."2
It is "an unknown quantity. Even though [Canadians] experience its influence,
they do not know what it is, how far it extends, how it may be subdivided,
or what its future may be. . . ."3 This problem
is not limited to the general public. At a 1989 conference that gathered
experts from many Circumpolar countries to discuss the matter of Arctic
security, the proceedings began with a debunking of ten of the most commonly-held
misconceptions about the North.
 Academics studying
the North are as susceptible to creating a personal definition of the North
as others. Furthermore, beyond a researcher's individual predilections,
each scholarly discipline has relied on its own criteria for defining the
high-latitude cold regions of the northern hemisphere. Piecemeal definitions,
applicable sometimes and in some disciplines, have proven to hinder far
more than they have helped. There has been no common ground.
This paper highlights
several methods that demonstrate the trend towards increasingly complex
methods of constructing a geographical definition of the North, focusing
primarily on Canada. Such a summary provides a basis for a brief discussion
of whether a useful and comprehensive method of defining and delineating
the Canadian North has been devised.
Single-Factor
Definitions
Early scholars of the North, working with limited data and focusing
on climate and biology, tended towards single-factor definitions of their
areas of study. These took many forms, depending upon the [end
p. 21] type and scale of research being done. These single-factor
definitions were be global or local, climatic or biological. A brief selection
of such factors will illustrate this point.
The
northern environment is a function of the tilt of the earth's axis and
its orbit around the sun. Physical geographers divide the portions of the
globe which are located above latitudes 55 North and South into three zones
each: the subarctic and subantarctic zones (lat. 55º to 60º N
and S), the arctic and antarctic zones (lat. 60º to 75º N and
S), and the polar zones (lat. 75º to 90º N and S). On a global
level, these divisions are accurate enough. They fail, though, to consider
local differences that occur due to such factors as elevation, maritime
location and other features.4
The
mere presence or absence of trees has also been used as a defining characteristic.
After the establishment of the extensive string of weather stations across
the North, it became obvious that the tree line roughly follows the isotherm
joining locations with a mean July temperature of 10ºC. This isotherm
is often thought of as the southern boundary of the tundra, or, interchangeably,
the Arctic. While climatic factors might be satisfactory for delineating
the North, one might ask, as Louis-Edmond Hamelin did: "In terms of demarcating
an area, what is the relevance of a single aspect, during a single month
of the year, expressed as a mean value?"5
The tree-line/isotherm definition is insufficient for two important reasons.
First it does not recognize that the taiga-tundra division is not an actual
line, but rather a broad band or ecotone 50-100 km wide, and second because
it does not hold true for coastal areas.6
A third single-factor
definition is more biological than climatic, though obviously related.
The North is a region characterized by low levels of solar energy which
supports few individual faunal species and only the hardier floral species.
Deciduous trees, creepers and suckers cannot thrive beyond the southern
limit of the taiga, or boreal forest. Again, this apparent boundary, accepted
on biological grounds, as much a function of climate as of biology, is
a convenient way of separating North from South. But this biological line,
as with those created by lines on the globe or by climate, represents only
a fragment of the whole North.
These
kinds of definitions, global, climatic and biological, though narrow, continue
to be used and accepted.7 They reflect those
archetypal concepts about what constitutes the environment of the high-latitude
cold regions which still influence much of northern studies. As Hamelin
has stated, "A single physical factor, taken in isolation, cannot decree
the limits of the North and hence be expressive of the entire region."8
Limited definitions of the North tend to [end
p. 22] reinforce the romance of the North and do little to
explain or demonstrate its complex nature.
Multiple-Factor
Definitions
In response to the limitations inherent in single-factor definitions,
scholars began to examine the possibility of using multiple-factor definitions.
Yet how could a coherent definition of an area be negotiated if there are
a multitude of conflicting concepts about it? One answer has been to grade
certain key elements according to a priori criteria, which, when
variously scored and weighted, combined and totalled, would yield some
kind of numerical value that expresses something about the whole: in short,
an indexed definition. Nevertheless, the method is not simple. Armstrong,
Rogers and Rowley, authors of a textbook on the Circumpolar North, summarized
the problem succinctly:
the difficulty arises when one tries to find a definition to suit all
subjects. ...the most desirable solution is a flexible one: to think of
the Arctic and sub-Arctic as a group of concepts and attributes, concerned
with climate, vegetation, fauna, presence of ice and snow, sparseness of
urban habitations, remoteness from industrial centres, and many other factors....9
The idea of an index is a logical extension of the demand for detail and
accuracy. An index is a very useful tool for it can be used to combine
quantitative values reflecting both subjective and objective elements.
Phenomena that are felt by a person or measured by a device can be treated
equally. Another advantage is that an index can also be used to depict
relative differences within the whole. The prime difficulty for the index-builders
of this century, however, has been to decide which indicators should be
included or excluded so the index expresses something meaningful. What
follows is an investigation into the development of more complex northern
indices.
In 1928, Soviet
scholars proposed several single-factor definitions to define their North.
One, L.L. Breyfus (1928), proposed the 10ºC July isotherm as the southern
boundary of the North. Another, B.P. Alisov suggested that the North was
that area which was affected by arctic air masses throughout the year.10
However, neither of these definitions accurately reflected the seasonal
extremes in which the Soviets were particularly interested. Accordingly,
in the late 1950s, some attempted to devise a "definition of the boundaries
of the North ... based on the combined effect of physical-geographic (natural)
and economic-geographic (human) factors...."11[end
p. 23]
In the Soviet search
for a way to classify the northern environment and its effects on steel
machinery, several multiple-factor definitions were developed. S.V. Slavin
proposed a four-point definition which contained many aspects that would
be included in the later Soviet indices. Regions were northern if they
were
[1.] situated to the north of economically developed and settled regions
of the country and [were] distant from the principal industrial centres;
[2.]...distinguished by sparse population and a low level of development
of the basic mass-production sectors of the economy; [3.]... [characterized
by] high costs of construction compared with other regions of the country;
and [4.] ... distinguished by a harsh physical environment making economic
development more difficult.12
In 1967, an engineer, V.F. Burkhanov, established a geographic-engineering
boundary for the Soviet North that used combined climatic data as a single
indicator of climatic harshness. His index used "the distribution of minimum
temperatures, wind speed, humidity and solar radiation (from March to October)
and, in mountain areas, also barometric pressure,"13
the extent of permafrost and other, similar, geographical factors.
Burkhanov's index
was somewhat restricted for it was designed principally to give particular
results for engineering purposes. When the range of harshness values were
mapped, four zones emerged: Arctic zone of maximum harshness, subarctic
zone of high harshness, northern harsh zone, and an eastern moderately
harsh zone.
Building on this
early work, the Canadian geographer, Louis-Edmond Hamelin pointed out the
necessity of creating a concrete and universally acceptable definition
of the Canadian North and a language with which to discuss it.14
Hamelin worked almost exclusively with Canadian data, but felt strongly
that any index should be applicable to any circumpolar location. He saw
the need for a system or method that would capture the essence of the North
but would be flexible enough to express the differences encompassed within
it. He first outlined his idea for a "polar index" in an address to the
Canadian Association of Geographers in Vancouver, B.C. in June, 1965,15
and reiterated those ideas in a paper published in 1970-71.16
The problem, as Hamelin saw it, was whether such a flexible solution would,
in fact, produce what he wanted, a scale of nordicity that would apply
and accurately reflect all aspects of the global North.
Hamelin defined
"nordicity" as "a state or level of 'northness,' real or perceived."17
He was convinced that his "nordic"18 index
needed to establish the southern boundary of the North as well as other,
[end
p. 24] internal, boundaries which would divide the North
into zones exhibiting similar nordicity. He felt, though, that those zonal
boundaries could not be drawn "without identifying the fundamental elements
that enter into the actual definition of high-latitude cold regions."19
Hamelin identified
ten fundamental elements (latitude, summer heat, annual cold, types of
ice, total precipitation, natural vegetation cover, accessibility by means
other than air, air service, population, and degree of economic activity)
as "the raw material for a specific index of nordicity."20
Properly weighted and scaled, these elements permitted the presentation
of the nature of the North as a whole, without regard for national boundaries21
and allowed "every intranorthern location to be quantified."22
The index was calculated by scoring the criteria out of a possible maximum
of 100 and then summing the results to yield a total score which represented
the nordicity of a particular place. This was the theoretical basis for
Hamelin's Global Nordic Index.
For each element
or criterion, he outlined a set of possible values that reflected the situation
in northern latitudes. Each specific attribute was graded on the scale
of 0-100 where 100 reflected extreme nordicity, and zero, a total lack
of nordicity. The actual number of points awarded to each criterion quantified
the characteristics of the given area or community. Thus, nordicity scores
(which Hamelin called
valeurs polaires, or VAPO) were expressed
as a score out of a possible 1000, theoretically reached at the North Pole.
Hamelin further suggested that a line drawn through all places having a
nordicity value of 200 VAPO--an isonord--would constitute the southern
edge of the North or conversely, the northern edge of the ecumene or Base
Canada. Using latitude as an example, any place south of 45ºN scored
0 VAPO, so a community lying at 60.14ºN would score 55 VAPO. In the
case of summer heat, a place where the average summer temperature does
not exceed 5.6ºC, would score the maximum 100 VAPO.
A community with an average of more than 150 days above 5.6ºC, a temperature
that represents the lower threshold for plant growth, would score the minimum
of 0 VAPO. The totals for each of the ten individual criteria were summed
to give a number out of 1000 VAPO, the maximum total.23
Hamelin then used
the scores to establish internal regions within the North. VAPO scores
were easily mapped. He used certain maximum VAPO scores to define the zonal
boundaries. The isonords he drew provided those zones geographers and others
had long sought. The furthest southern extent of the North and of the North's
[end
p. 25] divisions into Extreme North, Far North, Middle North
and Near North had been defined. The advantage of using the isonord approach
was that it allowed the zone borders to be independent of political boundaries.
They "have the advantage of reflecting an all-embracing reality."24
The Extreme North
(to use Hamelin's terminology) included all places that scored between
800 and 1000 VAPO, the Far North between 500 and 799 VAPO and the Middle
North between 200 and 499 VAPO. Some places in the Middle North include
Fort Simpson, NWT (377), Watson Lake, Y.T. (379) and Fort Nelson, B.C.
(282). The boundary of the ecumene, or Base Canada was drawn at VAPO 199.
So generally applicable was Hamelin's index, that to exclude certain places
that might score points in many categories because of remoteness, cold,
small populations or limited economic activity but are not northern, he
used 45ºN as a cutoff.
Aside from being
able to map the results, there was another advantage to Hamelin's method.
By not concentrating entirely criteria which related solely to populated
areas the Global Nordic Index allowed the calculation of the nordicity
of uninhabited, coastal or maritime regions by including alternate guidelines
in some categories. The types-of-ice category had secondary charts for
ground ice, sea ice and ice sheets. The population category was subdivided
so that either density or aggregate population could be used to calculate
the score.
After 1972, Hamelin
continued to refine his index. He wanted it to reflect the degrees to which
physical and emotional factors actually combine to produce that quality
he termed "nordicity." The changes he made essentially constituted an elaboration
and a broadening of the point scores and guideline choices possible to
better exhibit degrees of economic activity, population by number of inhabitants,
air service and accessibility, vegetation, types of ice and latitude.25
His book, Canadian Nordicity: It's Your North, Too was published
in 1978. It included a presentation of the Global Nordic Index and its
theoretical background. What is crucial is that Hamelin's method, like
that of the Soviets Burkhanov and Slavin, recognized that the North cannot
be identified, understood, or quantified on the basis of a single criterion.
Hamelin stated his case clearly: ". . .a purely climatic or botanical delimitation
of an area does not appear to be adequate to a scientist who is concerned
with the whole."26
Other
Indices [end
p. 26]
Geographers and engineers were not the only people with an interest
in locating the boundaries of the North. Governments and other major employers
in the North also had a keen interest in the issue, for they desperately
required an equitable method of determining levels of benefits for northern-based
employees. In this section, a variety of approaches relating to the payment
of scaled or tax benefits will be examined in light of the problem of defining
and delineating the North.
In the 1950s, with
the burgeoning of the federal government's involvement in the North and
later with its "Northern Vision," public and private sector employers found
it difficult to attract the kinds of skilled workers needed to provide
services and expertise to government, mining, and development projects
in the North.27 Native employees were often
not suitable, partly because of lack of skills and partly because many
were still relying on a seasonal subsistence lifestyle which conflicted
with the time demands of the wage economy. Further, government policy and
public opinion often led to misunderstanding and misconceptions about the
capability of Natives to participate in the wage economy. In that decade,
the Indian Act still firmly controlled the lives of status Natives across
the country, and strongly affected non-native attitudes and perceptions.
Mobility of non-natives
also created problems for many companies and government departments.28
People would accept employment and, for various reasons, remain in the
positions for only a short time. For some, it was a case of earn-and-run.
The North provided a chance to earn a considerable amount of money in a
fairly short period of time. For others, such as the RCMP and some federal
government employees, working in the northern communities constituted a
necessary and expected stage in a relatively fixed career path which often
ended in the South.
Thus, encouraging
manpower to relocate to and incentive to remain in the North was the fundamental
goal of most northern bonuses and allowances. As Hamelin noted in "A Zonal
System of Allowances for Northern Workers," the scales of these early incentives
were often confused and the amounts paid generally inadequate:
In Northern Canada, payment of allowances is not universal. Where allowances
do exist, they are not paid on the basis of a rigorously established scale.
. . . The absence of an overall plan leads to a large number of special
solutions. Moreover, the different scales - where there are scales--are
not properly adjusted to nordicity. . . .allowances are [end
p. 27] independently established by a host of employers.
. . which assign allowances at their own discretion. In short, northern
allowances represent an anarchically complex situation....29
After 1958, the federal government provided incentive payments, usually
increasing with the degree of discomfort or hardship experienced, to encourage
its employees to accept positions in "fringe" areas. A primitive form of
indexing was used to determine how much to pay and for what hardships and
even to ascertain what those hardships were. The allowance was a lump sum
paid in three separate categories to offset the higher costs of living
and fuel, and to compensate for the distance and lack of access to the
nearest town with a substantial population. This allowance system was limited
and strictly speaking not purely a northern allowance. All remote areas,
from Sable Island, Nova Scotia, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia were
included.30
There were problems,
too. The allowance was paid unevenly. Federal workers in some northern
communities were paid for one or two of the categories but not all three.31
In response, in late 1969, the federal government announced further changes
to its allowance system which from then on would incorporate the work of
Louis-Edmond Hamelin and would "take the natural situation more into account.
. . ."32
By the late 1960s,
the advantages of indices were becoming obvious, and the idea was catching
on. In 1969, the Meteorological Branch of the Department of Transport in
Toronto published a climate map based on four criteria: hours of sunlight,
precipitation, and annual cold and heat.33
Others soon published more and more comprehensive indices.34
In 1978, B.M. Burns,
F.A. Richardson, and C.N.H. Hall presented their index which attempted
to remove some of the subjectivity from Hamelin's index. The trio disagreed
with Hamelin's seemingly "subjective evaluation of a multitude of parameters."35
They proposed an improved northern index that could be "objectively calculated
for any community for which all the data are available."36
The Burns, Richardson and Hall index was generated using calculation formulae
derived by weighting eleven numerical parameters: latitude, mean annual
number of heating degree-days, mean annual number of growing degree-days,
mean annual number of freezing degree-days, mean length of the ice season,
mean length of the snow ground cover, mean annual precipitation, the number
of major roads, railways and aircraft movements in 1971, and estimated
1971 population.37
It is obvious,
though, that this index was somewhat confined. It relied on a subjective
appraisal of the weight applied to the criteria [end
p. 28] and it could not present a calculation for nordicity
for maritime or uninhabited locations. It made diachronic comparison of
nordicity nearly impossible because of its reliance on 1971 data. For communities,
though, it did allow calculation of a nordicity value which would be the
same for any researcher using the same data. The authors' assessment was
that the "project to formulate an objective approach to the determination
of a nordicity index appears to be successful."38
Hamelin noted their results with a certain smugness. He wrote that "recent
studies based on methods comparable to my own. . . produce very similar
zonations of the polar world."39
Another group to
examine the issue and produce a northern index was a federal government
task force. Changes to the Income Tax Act became necessary after a Revenue
Canada audit in the late 1970s revealed that many northern Canadians were
not reporting taxable benefits, such as travel and housing. To allow time
for review, a remission order passed in 1980 temporarily declared those
benefits tax-free though they clearly constituted a taxable benefit under
paragraph 6(1)(a) of the Income Tax Act. Discussion of the problem
of taxable benefits continued for several years.40
Meetings were held
with the public in 1985 in which the major theme was northern development.
Employers again stressed the difficulty of attracting and keeping skilled
employees. Other intervenors pointed out that progressive tax rates were
inherently unfair, as higher northern wages were paid to offset the higher
cost of living and did not relate to an effectively larger income. Thus
northerners bore a greater tax burden. In 1986, in response to the public
concerns, the Minister of Finance outlined further changes to the benefit
scheme which would allow all qualifying residents to claim a residency
deduction. All residents north of 60ºN were automatically eligible.
Those living north of 55ºN were eligible on a temporary basis.
People
in the temporarily qualifying areas, were extremely worried. They foresaw
the loss of their taxation benefits. The government, however, needed a
way to determine eligibility that was firm and sensible, yet easy to reassess
and alter should conditions change. As a result, the Finance Minister,
Mr. Michael Wilson, in a speech on given in December 1987, "expressed concern
with the issue of non-qualifying communities situated near ones that were
prescribed. He also announced his intention to establish a Task Force to
study the appropriateness of the eligibility criteria for determining northern
and isolated areas."41 [end
p. 29]
The
Finance Minister's Federal Task Force on Tax Benefits for Northern and
Isolated Areas was established on 29 April, 1989 with a mandate to
review the impact of the existing criteria on communities in northern
and isolated regions of Canada; to develop and recommend revised criteria
to reduce anomalies and inequities; and to recommend an on-going mechanism
for periodic review of anomalies.42
Ignoring the North beyond the 60th parallel, whose residents
would automatically receive the benefits, the Task Force was directed to
examine the possibility of using some system "of graduated levels of benefits
for communities south of 60ºN."43 To
this purpose, it examined the federal system then in use for determining
eligibility, a system based on the Treasury Board's Isolated Post Allowance
scheme for federal employees.44
The
Treasury Board's system was, and remains, a mature version of the federal
system introduced in 1969-70 and outlined above. In it, the criteria for
determining benefit levels were divided into three separate categories:
environment allowance, living cost differential, and fuel and utilities
differential. The environment allowance level was calculated using a simplified
point-scoring scheme based on Hamelin's work. It took into account only
such factors as population, climate, vegetation, and access.45
The living cost differential was a an allowance paid "when the price of
goods and services reache[d] an index level of 115 or higher in relation
to an index of 100 at the major source of supply to the isolated post."46
The fuel and utilities differential was paid on a rebate basis when the
employee paid for those commodities directly. It was calculated on the
difference between "the National Composite Billing cost for fuel and utilities
plus 20%, and the calculated fuel and utilities cost at the isolated post."47
In cases where housing was subsidized, this differential was not paid.
The Task Force
decided that this method was not suitable for determining eligibility of
a taxpayer, though it worked well for federal employees. The main drawback
to the Treasury Board's method was that it necessarily assumed that all
beneficiaries were residents of identifiable communities. Border cases,
problems with rural inhabitants, and misinterpretation of the criteria
were common complaints heard by the Task Force in 1989 when it conducted
its public hearings in the affected areas. It became patently obvious that
some other system had to be used. [end
p. 30]
 |
Figure 1 Canada: Comparison
of the southern boundary of three northern indices. Sources: L.-E. Hamelin,
Canadian Nordicity: It's Your North, Too, 1979; R. M. Burns, F. A. Richardson,
and C. N. H. Hall, "A Nordicity Index," the musk ox, No. 17, 1975;
and R. Brunelle, M. McGillivray, and E. P. Poole, The Report of the
Task Force on Tax Benefits for Northern and Isolated Areas, 1989.
[end p. 31]
The Task Force
therefore proposed the creation of a single "northern zone" in which all
residents would be eligible. This would prevent problems that were sure
to arise under a graduated scale of benefits. And in determining the location
of the North in Canada, the Task Force may have succeeded better than earlier
attempts because it was able to take the work of scholars such as Hamelin,
Burkhanov and Burns et al into account when building their own system.
In one area in particular, the Task Force noted difficulties with Hamelin's
criteria.
The
Task Force felt that the major problems associated with Hamelin's index
were the subjective nature of some of the criteria and the relatively small
number of community VAPO scores with which he constructed his zone map.
Echoing Burns, Richardson and Hall, but using a different approach, the
Task Force tried to substitute and refine the index criteria so "only those
which could be objectively utilized were included."48
To avoid using a subjective criterion like economic activity, the Task
Force instead used population figures as indicators of the level of services,
which, in turn, implied a certain level of economic activity and could
be conveniently measured. To ensure that the premise was correct, the Task
Force mailed a survey to the 4,699 northern communities listed in Statistics
Canada's Place Name Master File. The responses showed there was
a positive correlation between population and the level of services and
other economic activity.49
The
Task Force used two separate methods to establish the boundary of the Canadian
"northern zone" to cross-check its results. The working group first designed
a Northern Ranking System (NRS) similar to Hamelin's but altered to avoid
using the subjectively-valued criteria like economic activity. The Task
Force's NRS produced an index figure based on points scored for twenty-eight
criteria,50 twenty of which were already
compiled into three indices. The second was the Isolation Ranking System
(IRS). It combined and indexed factors affecting the isolation of a community
by awarding points for climate, population and distance from larger centres.
The results of the IRS corroborated those of the NRS.
Both
systems had their drawbacks. The Task Force found that the IRS led to a
community-by-community approach that, while working well with government
employees and urban residents, performed miserably with those living outside
organized communities.51 With the NRS, Task
Force members had difficulty creating an indexing system that left little
to subjective judgement. They soon recognized, as had Hamelin and Burns,
Richardson and Hall before them, that [end
p. 33]
development of criteria [required] an element of subjective judgment
because their measurement and relative weight [were] arbitrary. Consequently,
it [was] difficult, if not impossible, to structure totally objective criteria.52
A single "northern zone" was the answer the Task Force submitted to the
Minister of Revenue in its report submitted in October, 1989.53
The southern boundary was determined by combining the results of the IRS
and the NRS. It also concluded that within this zone, there was little
point, for tax purposes, in further subdividing it into even smaller zones.
For the purposes of eligibility, all Canadians living in this zone would
qualify for northern benefits. In some places, the Task Force's boundary
is similar to Hamelin's southern boundary. Where Hamelin included a portion
of the Rocky Mountains, the Task Force did not. For the most part, though,
the results are fairly similar (see Figure 1).
The main difference
between Hamelin's 200 VAPO isonord and the southern boundary of the Task
Force's "northern zone" is one of point of view. The latter was much less
flexible. In matters of taxation, accuracy and consistency are important.
Hamelin's index and zone delimitations were drawn primarily for academic
purposes and could be easily redrawn as data and conditions changed.
Conclusion
Indexing is a tidy way to combine certain factors, which together give
a reasonably accurate summary of a region or community. Thus, Louis-Edmond
Hamelin's legacy endures. The methodology of which he has been a key Canadian
proponent has been widely adopted as the most useful in the pursuit of
the definition and delineation of the North. It is a testimony to his depth
of understanding of geography in general and of the North in particular
that he recognized and championed a broad approach, which combined elements
of both the emotional and the empirical North to the task of cutting through
the illusion of the North and exposing the reality to the scrutiny of academics
and federal task forces alike.
Hamelin's work,
with that of his Soviet predecessors and his many successors, is evidence
of a contemporary realization that the North is a complex place and must
not be categorized or delineated by simplistic criteria. The North is an
important part of the modern world, and as such deserves the same intensity
of scholarship and scrutiny as any other area or subject. The dream and
the reality of the North are equally important and any definition of the
North must necessarily reflect both. While residents, scholars and students
may have wildly divergent notions about what the North means to them, indexing
provides the key to amalgamating those notions into something which has
meaning and utility. Where the problems exist--where the subjective feelings
and the objective measurements produce conflicting assessments--indexing
has emerged as a very useful tool. More accurate and more encompassing
than any single-factor definition can possibly hope to be, indices such
as those of Hamelin, Burns, Richardson and Hall, Burkhanov, the Task Force
and the others mentioned in this study, have proven to be most likely to
yield useful results.
Crises of northern
definition will no doubt continue for years, and the North will continue
to exercise a powerful attraction over dreamers, tourists, residents and
academics. But today, with the broader approach to definition that is permitted
by indexing, academics and governments will be better prepared to understand
the North in all its aspects. With indexing, we can take both into account.
And that, as we have seen, is the first step to broadening the definition
of the Canadian North.
Amanda Graham is the first graduate of Yukon College's
Northern Studies Programme and the 1990 recipient of ACUNS' Polar Studies
Undergraduate Medal for Canada. This essay is a revised version of her
winning paper.
NOTES
1. Louis-Edmond Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity: It's Your North, Too
(Montreal: Harvest House, 1979), pp 1-13.[back
to text]
2. Ibid., p. 281. [back
to text]
3. Ibid., p. 15. [back
to text]
4. Arthur Strahler and Alan Strahler, Modern Physical Geography.
Third Edition (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1987), p. 58.[back
to text]
5. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p. 16. [back
to text]
6. Steven Young, To the Arctic: An Introduction to the Far North
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1989). p.13. [back
to text]
7. A recent work on northern hydrology begins with a discussion of
six distinct physical boundaries of the North. They are: Polar circles,
temperature, snow and ice cover, frozen ground, vegetation, and run-off
direction. It was found that with these types of boundaries "the North
could be defined geographically to include as little as the area north
of the Arctic Circle or to encompass the entire land- mass of Canada and
much of the northern United States." T.D. Prowse, "Northern Hydrology:
An Overview," in T.D. Prowse and C.S.L. Ommanney, Northern Hydrology:
Canadian Perspectives, National Hydrology Research Institute Science
Report #1 (Saskatoon: NHRI, Supply Services Canada, 1990), p. 6.[back
to text]
8. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p. 16. [back
to text]
9. Terence Armstrong, George Rogers and Graham Rowley, The Circumpolar
North (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1978). [back
to text]
10. V.F. Burkhanov, "Criteria for Determining an Engineering-Geographic
Boundary of the North of the USSR." Soviet Geography: Review and Translation.
Vol XI, No.1 (January 1970), p.27. [back
to text]
11. Ibid. [back
to text]
12. Ibid. [back
to text]
13. Ibid., p.28. [back
to text]
14. There is little direct evidence in the articles or the books cited
here for the date when Hamelin first began work on his global nordic index,
but this quote suggests that it was the early 1960s: "I feel that this
to some degree substantiates my working hypotheses first stated almost
ten years ago." My italics. In Louis-Edmond Hamelin, "A Zonal System
of Allowances for Northern Workers: An Example of Applied Geography," the
musk-ox, Vol. 10, 1972, p.11. [back
to text]
15. The address was called "A Polar Index." Hamelin. "A zonal system...,"
p 14. [back to text]
16. The original article was published in French and reprinted by the
Laval Centre for Northern Studies. An English translation, by David Barr,
subsequently appeared. Louis-Edmond Hamelin. "Un système zonal de
primes pour les travailleurs du nord: Un exemple de géographie appliquée."
reprint from Cahiers de Géographie de Québec, #33
(December 1970), pp 309-328 and #34 (April 1971), pp 5- 27. Melanges,
#39. Quebec: Laval Centre for Northern Studies, n.d.[back
to text]
17. Louis-Edmond Hamelin, About Canada: The Canadian North and its
Conceptual Referents (Ottawa: Department of Secretary of State, 1988),
p. 41. [back to text]
18. Hamelin used the word in its original adjectival sense.[back
to text]
19. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p.15. [back
to text]
20. Ibid. [back
to text]
21. Ibid., p.18. [back
to text]
22. Hamelin, About Canada, p. 21. [back
to text]
23. For a complete outline of Hamelin's criteria, see Hamelin, Canadian
Nordicity, pp 19-21. [back
to text]
24. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p. 29. [back
to text]
25. He altered criteria numbers 1, 4a, 4b,4c, 6, 7, 8, 9a & 10.
These numbers reflect the order in which Hamelin originally presented the
criteria. For further elaboration, see Hamelin, "A zonal system..." or
Canadian
Nordicity, pp 19-21. [back
to text]
26. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p.16. [back
to text]
27. "Several surveys soon convinced me that here and there, certain
allowances are paid to workers in Northern Canada. Among the government
departments and private bodies which offer such benefits, one should note
the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, The National
Harbour Board (Churchill, Manitoba), the provincial "Hydros", the Direction
générale du Nouveau-Québec, certain Near North regional
education commissions, and perhaps the majority of the large private companies."
In Hamelin, "A zonal system...," p. 8. [back
to text]
28. Hamelin, "A zonal system...," p. 11. For further discussion of
the problem of northern mobility see K.S. Coates and W.R. Morrison, "Transiency
in the Far Northwest After the Gold Rush: The Case of the Princess Sophia,
in K.S. Coates and W.R. Morrison, Interpreting Canada's North: Selected
Readings (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman Ltd., 1989), pp 185-198.[back
to text]
29. Hamelin, "A zonal system...," pp 8-9. [back
to text]
30. Ibid. [back
to text]
31. In a footnote, Hamelin remarks that "to show the variation in the
different situations, we noted that at Hay River, in 1970, employees were
only offered a cost-of-living allowance." Ibid., p.9, note 7.[back
to text]
32. Ibid. [back
to text]
33. Ibid., pp 9,12. [back
to text]
34. For example: D.W. Phillips and R.B. Crowe, Climatic Severity
Index for Canadians (Downsview, Ontario: Environment Canada Atmospheric
Environment Service, 1981), and E. Wiken (compiler), Terrestrial Ecozones
of Canada: Ecological Land Classification Series, No. 19 (Ottawa: Lands
Directorate, Environment Canada, 1986). [back
to text]
35. B.M. Burns, F.A. Richardson and C.N.H. Hall, "A Nordicity Index,"
the
musk ox, No. 17 (1975), p.41. [back
to text]
36. Ibid. [back
to text]
37. Ibid. [back
to text]
38. Ibid., p. 43. [back
to text]
39. Hamelin, Canadian Nordicity, p.22. A comparison of the results
of three nordic indices appears in Figure 1 [of this article].[back
to text]
40. R. Brunelle, M. McGillivray, and E.P. Poole, The Report of the
Task Force on Tax Benefits for Northern and Isolated Areas/Rapport du groupe
de travail sur l'indemnisation fiscale des localités isolées
et du nord (Ottawa: Supply and Services, 1989),p. 3.[back
to text]
41. Ibid., pp 3-4. [back
to text]
42. Ibid., p. 1. [back
to text]
43. Ibid. [back
to text]
44. It is interesting to note that Yukon government employees are not
paid an allowance of the isolated-post type. They receive a "Community
Allowance" which apparently relies on distance from Whitehorse for its
relative amounts. Inquiry did not reveal who had suggested this system.
The low is paid for Carcross ($350 per annum) and the high for Old Crow
($2673 per annum for single employees). Employees with more than one year's
service are entitled to the Yukon Bonus, round-trip airfare to either Edmonton
or Vancouver or its cash equivalent. In Articles 33 and 38 of "The Collective
Agreement Between Government of Yukon and the Public Service Alliance of
Canada," 1987, pp 60, 65. [back
to text]
45. Treasury Board of Canada, Personnel Management Manual: Isolated
Posts Directives, Vol. 25 (Ottawa: Treasury Board of Canada, 1987),
Schedule H, p.H1. [back to
text]
46. Ibid., p.H5. [back
to text]
47. Ibid., p.H7. [back
to text]
48. Brunelle, McGillivray, and Poole, The Report of the Task Force,
p. 21. [back to text]
49. Ibid., p.49. [back
to text]
50. Ibid., pp 48-9. [back
to text]
51. Ibid., p. 7. [back
to text]
52. Ibid., p. 19. [back
to text]
53. In December, 1990, the Minister of Finance announced that an interim
"Middle Zone" would be established to ease the removal of benefits from
certain areas. The new zone was announced after a group from Flin Flon,
Manitoba urged the government to consider partial benefits for their community.
They cited remoteness and higher costs of living in their argument. [back
to text]
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