Skip to main content

Nunavut


Yeah most people have only barely heard of this place.  Basically the Canadian Northern Territories eastern part that was split out 12 years ago.  A tiny (29,000) population an incredibly harsh climate and really far from the beaten track.  From Montreal it’s a 5 hour flight with a connection. The last road north ends at James Bay project, nearly 500 km from the southern border.  There are no roads between the communities (distance and cost).  Nunavut is Land area 1.6x the size of India.  

The Globe and Mail has a fascinating series on the territory – discovered while reading the Economist… Saddening is the level of despair, extreme binge drinking, low education standards (or even completion rate) and massive unemployment.  Although I didn’t live in Canada when the region was formed, it remains that a territory constituted I remember wondering what was the benefits of creating this new territory. 

Turns out that those who runt he place agree, that Nunavut has been a disaster, the idea to create a specific administrative zone for the Innu people sounded good, but the reality is that with extremely low education levels it is very difficult to fill the job openings for the local population.  Moreover, the education system allows for student to graduate with very low standard (High school graduate but functional illiterates)

Those who decide to make their life in such a region, by choice, and to serve the local community deserve high praise.  Although the Innu peoples’ way of life was destroyed more than a century ago (hunting and fishing) and that the life expectancy has risen dramatically from 35 years to 60 years, theirs is not a happy lot.  Canada has wrong these people robbing them of their culture and language (Canada instituted “Residential Schools” where Innu children were taken from their home and forbidden from speaking the own language).  Unfortunately, the damage has now been done, and there are few obvious options; unable to attract good teachers, and the lack of any real job prospects (aside from working for the government) means that their lot will continue to be difficult.  Some communities are experimenting with a return to their roots (hunting and gathering) as an alternative – but it also means that as a population their life is that of a museum piece, which I personally find extremely sad.

Read the article, fascinating

Popular posts from this blog

Ok so I lied...a little (revised)

When we began looking at farming in 2013/14 as something we both wanted to do as a "second career" we invested time and money to understand what sector of farming was profitable.  A few things emerged, First, high-quality, source-proven, organic farm products consistently have much higher profit margins.  Secondly, transformation accounted for nearly 80% of total profits, and production and distribution accounted for 20% of profits: Farmers and retailers have low profit margins and the middle bits make all the money. A profitable farm operation needs to be involved in the transformation of its produce.  The low-hanging fruits: cheese and butter.  Milk, generates a profit margin of 5% to 8%, depending on milk quality.  Transformed into cheese and butter, and the profit margin rises to 40% (Taking into account all costs).  Second:  20% of a steer carcass is ground beef quality.  The price is low, because (a) a high percentage of the carcass, and (b)...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spray painting Taylor Swift G650 aircraft (updated)

 First, a bit of paint will not harm anyone.  These climate activities are going to learn two things in the next few days:  (1) Trespassing at an airport is a felony almost anywhere in the world.  That means criminal prosecution.   (2) removing paint from an aircraft is expensive.   So these climate activists are about to find out the reach of the British criminal system and it will not be pleasant, the UK has very strict laws about that, I would be surprised if cleaning the aircraft of all the paint will cost less than $100,000.     I am sure that when they planned (premeditation) this little show they had a very valid logic to doing this.  Tonight, they are probably realizing the depth of their troubles.   I understand that in the UK it's a minimum one-year jail sentence.    Also, good luck travelling with a criminal trespass charge against you.  I am relatively certain that the airline industry will ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Janet Yellen from China supporter to Hawk...

There is rarely serious news in the world these days, it seems that most newspapers are filled with headlines and little else, and then Ms Yellen went to China.  Secretary Yellen has long been known in the Biden administration as the voice of moderation when dealing with China, yet as her trip which concluded yesterday a hawk was born:  She warned the Chinese against dumping goods in the United States.    fighting words! The American administration is very concerned about the lack of Chinese domestic consumption.   Even before the COVID-19 epidemic, there were already the beginning signs of a slowdown, automobile sales were off.   China is facing domestic deflation (a clear sign of collapsing demand) China imports few consumer goods, they import raw materials and intermediary goods.   It seems that the American administration is concerned that the Chinese administration will dump consumer goods abroad to keep its manufacturing machinery ...
Post a Comment
Read more