What these communities need are entrepreneurs that will start businesses providing more services and goods and at lower prices. If I lived up there and saw those prices I would import goods as quickly as possible, undercut the existing competitors, and make some good coin while benefiting the community.

i wonder what they do make money up there, salaries and that sort.

What these communities need to do is be self sustaining like they were for the past 1000 years. Instead they wanna sit in their shacks playin xbox and bitch bout how the easy life is so hard and more government help is needed to keep it easy.

Many residents of the region work for the Canadian Rangers and companies related to the oil and gas industry, but the fur trade is also still alive and well in the Arctic and many successful First Nations artists work out of the Northern Territories.

If you were as capable a business person as you think you are, a little thing like not living there wouldn't stop you.

The government should subsidize the locals if they contribute somehow to a positive return. If the locals aren't useful then it's up to them to develop their own community from what resources they have.

I can imagine if the locals are oil or mining workers, then $104 for a pack of water bottles may be a BIT high (depends how much they're making) which it then becomes an issue for them to raise with their employers. But if these locals are doing squat, they don't deserve to be subsidized.

Iqaluit is the government's logistical hub for the Arctic. It's also a platform jump for many northern explorations. As stated before, there's a definite need for a presence up there, especially when it comes to UN issues and disputes over who controls the Arctic.

.

If that is where they lived for hundreds of years how did they do it before without snowmobiles, tools, gas and ammunition?

snowmobile? sled dogs
tools? they should last a long time... or make your own... they did it before... do it again
gas? did they have gas hundreds of years ago? hell its windy up north a lot... wind turbines..
ammunition? again how did they kill animals before?

I'm so sick of supporting natives.

Isn't that like telling homeless people in Vancouver to live in caves?

Those water prices have got me thinking. For less than10K you buy your bottled watering system that will distill/filter the water and bottle it but I don't even think you would need need to distil/filter the water. The biggest problem would be getting the bottles. Maybe bottle them in some type of reusable bottle or something.

Snowmobiles?
Training and caring for sled dogs is not a casual endeavour, it's a very time consuming pursuit to achieve a mode of transportation that is less reliable and fast than snowmobiles. The residents could work less and depend on sled dogs, but then the residents would need assistance to compensate for the time spent not working.

Tools?
The average person in the Arctic owns many more tools than someone living in a more urban environment, because self-reliance is essential. Still, tools aren't that expensive and last a long time, strange example for the woman to bring up.

Gas?
Wind turbines might be an option, but given the extreme operating conditions in the Arctic they might not be viable, and the cost per capita of installing a green technology which has really not fully matured would likely be prohibitive without government subsidization. There's also the cost of retrofitting electric appliances and heat into every private structure currently set up for gas to accommodate the infrastructure change, who's going to cover that cost?

Ammunition?
If hunting by spear were more efficient, the residents would still be doing it. Society has changed, people now need to dedicate time once allocated to sustenance hunting to working.

I'm so sick of people with uneducated, illogical views.

^
THIS!!!
Except, let's not get racist here. I don't think race needs to be brought into this at all.
What I see here is a group of Canadians that want it both ways.
They want modern conveniences and amenities, while living a lifestyle in a location that does not support it.


Homeless people didn't choose to be homeless. The vast majority of them were dealt some really shitty cards in life.
Abusive families, mental illness, or whatever choices they made in the past have put them so deep into the hole they do not have the ability to claw their way back out. Some just literally cannot sleep indoors where they feel caged in the same way they were abused, many feel safer sleeping outdoors.
I have more than a few in my circles of friends that work with homeless/low income individuals. The few times I've worked with the homeless/low income or encountered them, it's very evident that they are good people, that have been hurt or are ill.
Mental illness is as real as cancer and I daresay it's worse.
Cancer took away my mom and my grandparents, but compared to that, abusive homes and mental illness is far more damaging.



Mindbomber, I respectfully disagree with your view.
You are right, society has changed.
It has grown up from hunter-gatherer, to domesticating animals, to developing agriculture, building industry and etc.

One important aspect to this evolving societal picture is skill specialization and urbanization. In order to attain this, simple logistics dictate that specializations would overlap be be located physically close to each other.
In that way, you can have a baker, a cobbler, a seamstress all doing what they do best and having others cover their gaps.
With this comes money and cities.



So Mindbomber, I would challenge your view that you can be BOTH hunter-gather and a skill specialist while still be located in a non-urban environment.
To claim as such, I'd daresay that is an illogical view.
It is simply not sustainable.


You can't have it both ways.
And for those that can make hunter-gathering work in an environmentally AND economically sustainable manner. Good on them, they learned, they evolved, they adapted. But it's not the norm.
And I would hazard to say that nobody is entitled to get their feet wet in both systems.


If you want to hunter-gather in a way that won't decimate a species, then go ahead, live off the land.

But if you want money for modern technology, then you have to learn to play the game just like every single one of us.
And if you want consumer products at urban prices, then you have to live somewhere economies of scale can happen.

And people choose to be born in the Arctic? There should be no homeless people in Vancouver. It's one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in. People who are homeless should move to a city that has a lower cost of living instead of using prime real estate to house them. As an apartment manager I have also dealt with people on income assistance and you can only help them so much. You would think when the government is paying their rent there would be no problems but they always find a way to mess it up and get kicked out.


Demographics of Nunavut

1. Inuktitut 20,185 69.54%
2. English 7,765 26.75%
3. French 370 1.27%
4. Inuinnaqtun 295 1.02%

28% are non Native.


A funny thing is they complain about food prices people in BC complain about gas prices. Maybe people in BC should learn to travel like there ancestors did.

http://www.arthur-il.gov/vertical/Si...3F7736A%7D.JPG

I've been all over the NWT, it's a social disaster. (I lived in Yellowknife and Hay River and travelled all over the north playing soccer)

Yellowknige, Norman Wells, and Hay River are actually not that bad, but everywhere else.. Yikes.

Rae, Deline, Fort Good Hope, Tuk, Ft. Smith, etc.. are all such a complete dump. My father owned an optical in Yellowknife and spent a lot of time in the remote communities, and between his experience and mine, I think I have a fairly educated opinion on the matter.

Yes food, lodging, gas, etc are very expensive. Most people work in govt (Education, social workers, community support, etc), transportation, construction, or retail. There isn't much for oil and gas work outside of Norman Wells. There was at one time a rather large mining sector but that has really died down over the last 15 years.

The govt pays Northern Living Allowance amongst a host of various other programs to make it possible for people to afford the outrageous cost of living.

On the subject of tools, dog sleds, living off the land.. I can assure you that people who fall within the group of living off the land, riding dog sleds, or using tools, make up a very small percentage of the population. For the most part, everyone without a job (Which is unfortunately many of the first nathions people...) don't do much except drink. Sure they are "dry" communities, but there is a never ending problem with bootlegging all over the North.

I feel sorry for the RCMP officers that get stationed there cause it is brutal for them. The main issue is that for the younger generation, they have nothing to do, many have never left the NWT, they see no reason to stay in school cause the concept of post secondary or leaving home is beyond them, and there parents are usually losers so they lack any form of real parenting or leadership. Crime is rather high in these communities.

Anyway, cost of living is insane, even in a "big" city like Yellowknife they are forced to fly groceries in for 3-6 weeks per year when the ice bridge is out and the ferry isn't operating. They are however building a bridge accorss Great Slave Lake, so when that's done it will make things a lot easier.

Having said all that, Yellowknife is beautiful, I encourage everyone on here to check it out sometime, it's worth the trip!

You keep on bringing up easy but that was exactly my point. We are giving people money to the natives so they can have their own culture but the thing is they did fine for hundreds of years without the support of anyone. If they want to live a more modern life then they can live with the rest of us. They can get jobs like the rest of us. They can build their own cultural centers like all the rest of the "cultures" in Canada.

I work with a couple of natives. They pay no taxes at all which means their take home is like $100k a year yet they have no fucking money ever and end up missing work cuz they are too busy getting drunk. I'm sick of supporting them.
BTW my cousin works as a mental nurse in a town like the one in this article. She didnt even make it a year up there. Not cuz of the cost of living, weather or isolation. It was the people.

No one is giving money to natives to allow them to live a certain lifestyle, I'm not sure what's giving you that impression. Part of any governments responsibility is to construct and maintain transportation networks throughout a country. All over Canada federal and provincial governments finance sophisticated transportation networks that serve small populations, like ferries to the Gulf Islands here in British Columbia. The subsidized air based transportation network that helps to deliver food and supplies throughout the Arctic is just one of many examples. If a Canada does not maintain a transportation network to the Arctic to maintain a population presence, we would stand a much higher likelihood of losing territory disputes with Russia, U.S. etc. and would need to establish a much more costly regular force Canadian Military presence to replace the Canadian Rangers.

This isn't about Native people.

Hey!

Yeah, government subsidies are a bitch, and I'm real tired of supporting the whole lot of you.

The next time you get sick...pay your own bill. We'll charge you for road maintenance monthly(minus tax incurred from purchasing fuel). Your 1/30 millionth share of police/national defense and security is an annual bill.

But congrats! no income tax.

Christ, people are real good at pointing the finger elsewhere.

"I'm so tired of supporting the natives"

Well, I'm so tired of supporting everyone else.

Ratio of intoxicated first nations people to Canadian Rangers: 500-1.

Just sayin... I've seen it first hand, all over the North, it's a boring shitty place to live with very LIMITED resources. The way these people survived 100 years ago is essentially the best quality of life this land will ever offer, there is no agriculture, there is no infrastructure, there is no industry.

There are exceptions like Norman Wells and YK, and various NG formations, but NG is dirt cheap and found all over the earth, so it's not exactly a hot commodity. Transporting the NG is a logistical nightmare.. especially considering all the anti-pipeline hippie sentiment these days.

It's as simple as this, the parts of the world which can easily sustain life are already densely populated (when compared to the NWT), and it's that simple... if it was "practical" to live there, more people would.

I don't like the idea of supporting any geographic location, if the people living there cannot sustain living standards on their own, they should move to a more practical location.

I would rather they station the military in various outposts around the north.. It's just as bad as the fisheries complaining they need EI since there is no work... well if there is no work.. move on.

But it's okay cause Harper is coming down on the "seasonal workers" for abusing the EI system.

Mehhhh Mindbomber you're such a liberal hey lol. Me and you are complete opposites.

I agree, I don't necessarily like the idea of supporting isolated geographic locations transportation networks either. A massive expansion of road tolling across the country would be great, as would having ferry crossing fees reflect the actual cost of the trip. Try to implement that change however, liberals, conservatives, and ndp all have a sense of entitlement to subsidized road use in remote areas.

I'd bet any amount of money stationing military forces in the Arctic would be more expensive than the current, effective, system. If it costs more, I don't see a benefit to that.

I'm glad Harper is cracking down on season workers. If fisherman absolutely cannot work during the off-season, they need to charge more for the fish to survive the off months.