Canada as an arctic power preparing for the Canadian Chairmanship of the Arctic Council (2013-2015)

Summary: Once a forbidding Cold War frontier, the Arctic has become a theatre for dramatic environmental, economic and political change. The world now knows about the melting polar ice cap, threatened coastal communities and species vulnerability. Media headlines trumpet the opening of new Arctic sea routes and a "rush" to resource riches. Less understood are the powerful political events that have shifted power northwards over the last four decades through indigenous land settlements in North America and the devolution of powers over lands and resources to Alaska, Canada's Northern territories, Greenland, and Arctic Norway.