Thoughts on Education, the Training of Arctic Scientists and Arctic Research - The Changing Arctic Environment: The Arctic Messenger - page 322

skills that would enable them to occupy all levels of society. The emotional stress on Arc-
tic indigenous young people who are obliged to leave their cultural environment in order
to obtain a university degree presents a difficult hurdle to their achievement of academ-
ic success. The lack of such institutions also presents a barrier for research into topics of
particular interest to Canada's Arctic indigenous peoples (including the environmental sci-
ences). It is not surprising that one of the recommendations from the national strategy on
Inuit education in Canada is for the establishment of a university in Arctic Canada.
The creation of the circumpolar University of the Arctic is an interesting story. It also
demonstrates what can be achieved if a handful of people with different vocations set to
work on an idea. In January 1997, the Netherlands hosted a reception at an Arctic Monit-
oring Assessment Programme (AMAP) meeting in Groningen (the Netherlands). In casual
conversation, Bill Heal (from Durham University in the United Kingdom) asked Lars-Erik
Liljelund and me what we thought about the idea of a University of the Arctic. He ex-
plained the concept of a consortium of existing universities and institutions cooperating on
a circumpolar scale and capitalizing on each other's strengths. It was a fascinating idea. I
asked Bill to give me a brief proposal for the next meeting of senior Arctic officials (SAOs)
that was only about six weeks away (March 1997 in Kautokeino, Norway). In the mean-
time, I set about finding a way to slip it into the agenda. It was too late to do it officially,
so we slid it into my report on AMAP progress, calling it “A Concept Paper From Canada
and Sweden for a Possible University of the Arctic”. At the same time, I explained the idea
to Terry Fenge of the Inuit Circumpolar Council in Ottawa and Terry offered to see if the
indigenous peoples' organisations represented in the Arctic Council would support the pro-
posal. Terry came back with their support within a week.
WeusedBill's draftintheconceptpaperexactly aswritten butaddedafewparagraphs
to give it Arctic Council context. We then made some off-the-cuff proposals on how to
proceed as we watched the reactions of the SAOs at Kautokeino. There was interest (par-
ticularly from Finland), but the SAOs were not prepared to express support at that time.
We therefore sought and were given a decision that asked Canada, Sweden and AMAP to