Uncertainty and anxiety for some Northerners, as Trump returns to power

Pauline Frost, chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation in northern Yukon, usually looks forward to late January, when the winter sun returns to her Arctic village.

This year, however, feels different to Frost. The predictable return of longer days happens to coincide with something much less predictable, and hugely consequential: Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

“There are uncertain times before us,” said Frost, from Old Crow, Yukon, where her First Nation is based. 

“It’s just so unpredictable, you just have to be ready to react. It is something we think about all the time.”

Protecting Gwich’in culture

The transboundary Gwich’in Nation spans Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Salmon and caribou are both traditional staples and the heart of Gwich’in culture. 

Protecting the land, water and animals is a key part of security for the Gwich’in, says Frost — and she’s bracing for the possibility of a renewed fight over those things under another Trump administration. 

The incoming U.S. president has made clear his intention to develop Alaska’s North Slope, home to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, which the Gwich’in depend on. The area is also home to massive oil reserves.

The stakes couldn’t be higher, according to Frost. 

The area is known to the Gwich’in as Iizhik Gwats’an Gwandaii Goodlit, or “the sacred place where life begins,” and the fight over oil development there has ebbed and flowed for decades, depending on who’s sitting in the White House — similar to the battle over offshore drilling.

The Biden administration tried to limit oil drilling in ANWR, even into its final weeks in power, but just days into this new year, the State of Alaska is challenging that in court. 

To Frost, the incoming U.S. administration means nothing is certain.

“We can never predict what Trump will do,” she said. 

Trump ‘will continue to push us’

Frost is not alone among northerners who are anxious to see what a second Trump presidency will mean for the Arctic region.

Ken Coates, chair of the Yukon Arctic Security Advisory Council, warned this week that Canada is “in the most troubled time you could imagine, in terms of Arctic security.”

He cited Russia and China’s growing interest and aggression in the region, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement this week that he was stepping down. 

To Coates, Canada’s international standing in the Arctic is already weak — and likely to get weaker, at least until Trudeau’s successor is in place.

“Mr. Trump will continue to push us and we’ll probably make bad decisions as a result. Rather than the ones that serve the interests of the North, we’ll do the ones that serve the interests of the United States,” he said.

“We should be looking instead at saying, ‘What do we need in the North for our security and our defence?'” 

There is also the question of Indigenous rights in the circumpolar region, and some experts think 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’s no respect or awareness of Indigenous rights,” said Whitney Lackenbauer, Canada Research Chair in the Study of the Canadian North at Trent University.

Lackenbauer said the Biden administration, along with Trudeau’s government and Greenland, represent an awareness of and sensitivity to respect for Indigenous rights-holders, and recognizing them as key figures in setting the agenda for the Arctic region. 

“Some of this may fall to the wayside,” Lackenbauer said. 

He called Trump’s recent comments about making Canada the 51st state, and taking over Greenland, bombastic and unprecedented rhetoric — but worth paying attention to.

“It indicates that the U.S. under Trump is not going to behave in a way that’s congenial or friendly, even though they are a key ally to so many of us.”

Kuupik Kleist, former government leader in Greenland, said he agrees Trump’s comments can’t be dismissed as silly or amusing. Kleist said he remembers Trump’s first term in office, when Kleist was a commissioner to the Inuit Circumpolar Council and Greenland was seen as the centre of a power struggle for the Arctic. 

“These threats must be taken very seriously,” he said about Trump’s comments. 

“At least during my lifetime, it is the biggest threat.” 

Greenland’s current prime minister, Múte B. Egede, like Kleist advocates for greater independence from Denmark, and has said Greenland doesn’t want to be American. However, he also said Friday that he understands the American interest in the resource-rich Arctic island and that he is open to discussion about what “unites us.” 

He said his government is interested in greater international co-operation but stands firm on its intent of self-determination, using the slogan “Nothing about us without us” in its foreign policy. 

Kleist, however, said he feels much of the Greenlandic and Danish response to Trump’s recent comments has been too cautious. He noted that it’s stirred up debate on independence for the largely Inuit-populated island, and whether efforts to decolonize the island have made it more vulnerable.  

“I think the Danish politicians are divided,” said Kleist. 

‘It’s like disbelief,’ says climate activist

Some northerners are also anxious about what a new Trump administration will mean for the fight against climate change.

In Whitehorse, Carissa Waugh has made connections with other youth in the circumpolar world through her advocacy work. She says she’s not alone in feeling unsettled. With climate anxiety already prevalent for so many of her peers, Trump is a compounding factor.

“A lot of uncertainty and anxiety, a lot of uneasiness and it’s like disbelief,” she said.

“I’m a young Indigenous woman and I do a lot of work in climate action. And Trump is very ‘anti-‘ all of that. And it’s not just me — there’s a whole lot of other people out there like me.” 

Waugh is involved with Reconnection Vision, which she describes as a radical rethink of the climate crisis.

“We have a totally different point of view,” she said of the Indigenous approach to healing the planet, which includes restoring the balance and connection people have with nature. 

She said she knows that worldview is far from how Trump moves through the world. 

“It feels like we’re taking a huge step back. I don’t know how to put it into words, just worried.” 

Still, Waugh said she is not going to give up fighting for what she believes in, even if she may have to work harder to be heard.

“I don’t want our children to have this feeling that we have. The whole Trump situation is firing us up, we’re thinking what can we do, what can we say, how can we get out there,” she said.

Lackenbauer also argues that Trump’s Arctic plans may, in some way, bring the North together.

“I think it really behooves us to focus on a lot of those other relationships that we have,” he said, pointing to the strong relationship between Canada and Greenland as an example.

Coates also looks at Canada’s leadership void right now and sees opportunity for other voices to be heard with more prominence. 

“We’re probably going to hear more about our Northern premiers, the governor of Alaska, and certainly going to hear more from the Indigenous leaders who are protecting and conveying concerns about the Arctic to international audiences,” he said.

In Old Crow, Chief Frost isn’t waiting for Trump’s inauguration to do that. A renewed campaign to secure permanent protection of the caribou calving grounds has begun. 

That campaign is “about our human rights, our way of life, and our very survival,” she said in a statement on Friday.