The federal government is changing the way the North is managed — developed, patrolled and protected, transited and fished — by creating a new standalone “Arctic Region” and putting Inuit and other northerners at the centre of decision making. The enormous region will now be managed collaboratively by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Coast Guard, northern communities and Inuit leadership. While the reorganization is in its early stages, its administrative borders will largely adhere to the shape of Inuit Nunangat (the traditional Inuit homelands), an area that encompasses millions of square kilometres of Arctic Ocean and more than half of the nation’s coastline.

Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard, and Natan Obed, president of the national Inuit representational organization Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK), made the announcement in Iqaluit on Oct. 24. This is the first time government departments have been restructured in such a way that they focus on northern issues and are guided by northern communities and Indigenous groups, and the scale of the cooperatively managed area is also unprecedented in Canada.