Chief Pauline Frost of the Vantut Gwich'in First Nation in northern Yukon usually looks forward to late January, when the winter sun returns to her arctic village.
However, this year feels different from the frost. The projected return of the long day coincides with something far less predictable, and highly consequential: Donald Trump's return to the White House.
“We have uncertain times ahead of us,” Frost said from Old Crow, Yukon, where his First Nation is based.
“It's so unpredictable, you have to be ready to react. It's something we always think about.”
Preservation of Gwich'in Culture
The Gwich'in Nation spans Alaska, the Yukon, and the Northwest Territories. Both salmon and caribou are traditional staples and the heart of Gwich'in culture.
Protecting land, water and animals is a key part of security for the Gwich'in, Frost says — and she's bracing for the possibility of a new fight over those things under the next Trump administration.
The incoming US president has made clear his intention to develop Alaska's North Slope, home to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the goat base of the Gwich'in-dependent porcupine caribou herd. The region is also home to large oil reserves.
According to Frost, the stakes couldn't be higher.
The area is known as Gwich'in Iizhik Gwats'an Gwandaii Goodlit, or “The sacred place where life begins,” and the battle over oil development there has raged for decades, depending on who sits in the White House—as has the battle over offshore drilling.
The Biden administration sought to limit oil drilling in ANWR, even in its final weeks in office, but just days into the new year, the state of Alaska is challenging it in court.
For Frost, the incoming US administration means nothing certain.
She said, 'We can never predict what Trump will do.
Trump 'will continue to push us'
Frost is not alone among Northerners worried about what a second Trump presidency could mean for the Arctic region.
Ken Coates, chairman of the Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council, warned this week that Canada is “in one of the most troubled times you can imagine in terms of Arctic security.”
He cited the growing interest and aggression of Russia and China in the region, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement this week that he was resigning.
For Coates, Canada's international position in the Arctic is already weak — and likely to get weaker, at least until Trudeau's successor.
“Mr. Trump will continue to push us and as a result we will make bad decisions. Instead of working in the interests of the North, we will make those that work in the interests of the United States,” he said. said
“We should look instead of saying, 'What do we need in the North for our security and our defense?'
There is also the question of indigenous rights in the periphery, and some experts think that things could change dramatically in the coming months and years.
“If Trump's bullying of Greenland in the last few days is any indication, there is no respect or awareness of indigenous rights,” said Whitney Lackenbauer, Canada Research Chair in Studies of the Canadian North at Trent University.
Lackenbauer said the Biden administration represents the awareness and sensitivity to respect indigenous rights-holders, along with Trudeau's government and Greenland, and recognize them as key figures in setting the agenda for the Arctic region.
“Some of this may fall by the wayside,” Lackenbauer said.
He called Trump's recent comments about making Canada the 51st state and annexing Greenland bombastic and unprecedented rhetoric — but worth noting.
“This indicates that America under Trump is not going to be friendly or friendly, despite being a key ally to many of us.”
Kupik Kleist, the former leader of Greenland's government, said he agreed that Trump's comments could not be dismissed as silly or funny. Kleist said he remembers Trump's first term in office, when Kleist was commissioner of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and Greenland was seen as the center of a power struggle for the Arctic.
“These threats should be taken very seriously,” he said of Trump's comments.
“At least in my lifetime, that's the biggest threat.”
Greenland's current Prime Minister, Múte B. Egede, like Kleist, advocates greater independence from Denmark, and has stated that Greenland does not want to be American. However, he also said on Friday that he understood US interest in the resource-rich Arctic island and that he was open to discussions about “uniting us”.
He said his government was interested in greater international cooperation but remained firm in its intention of self-determination, using the slogan “Nothing about us without us” in its foreign policy.
However, Kleist said he feels the Greenlandic and Danish response to Trump's recent comments has been too cautious. He noted that this has fueled the independence debate for the largely Inuit-populated island, and that efforts to colonize the island have further weakened it.
“I think Danish politicians are divided,” Kleist said.
'It's like disbelief,' says the climate activist
Some Northerners are also worried about what the new Trump administration will mean for the fight against climate change.
In Whitehorse, Carissa Walle connects with other young people in the peripheral world through her advocacy work. She says she's not alone in feeling uneasy. With climate anxiety already prevalent for many of his peers, Trump is a complicating factor.
“A lot of uncertainty and anxiety, a lot of discomfort and it's like disbelief,” she said.
“I'm a young indigenous woman and I do a lot of climate work. And Trump is very much the 'anti' of it all. And it's not just me – there are many other people like me.”
Waugh is involved with Reconnection Vision, which she describes as a radical rethinking of the climate crisis.
“We have a completely different approach,” she said of the indigenous approach to healing the planet, which involves restoring balance and people's relationship with nature.
She said she knows that world view is far from how Trump operates in the world.
“It feels like we took a big step back. I don't know how to put it into words, just worried.”
Still, Wale said she won't stop fighting for what she believes in, even if she has to work hard to be heard.
“I don't want our children to have this feeling that we have. The whole Trump situation is depressing us, wondering what we can do, what we can say, how we can get out of there,” she said.
Lackenbauer also argues that Trump's Arctic plan could somehow bring the North together.
“I think it's really appropriate to focus on the many other relationships we have,” he said, pointing to the strong relationship between Canada and Greenland as an example.
Coates also sees a leadership vacuum in Canada right now and an opportunity to hear other voices more prominently.
“We're probably going to hear more from our northern premiers, the governor of Alaska, and certainly more from indigenous leaders who are concerned and protecting the international audience about the Arctic,” he said.
In Old Croma, Chief Frost isn't looking forward to Trump's inauguration. A renewal campaign has begun to secure the permanent protection of caribou calving grounds.
That campaign is “about our human rights, our way of life, and our existence,” she said in a statement Friday.
