Le décloisonnement du passage du Nord-Ouest

• Main Author: Alain Adrien Grenier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Institut des Amériques 2018-11-01
• Series: IdeAs : Idées d’Amériques
• Subjects: tourism; navigation; issues; Arctic; Northwesp Passage; Nunavut
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ideas/3313

Stimulated by the impact of climate change on the Arctic, several interest groups (states and shipowners) see the Northwest Passage as a dream route to navigate between Europe and Asia at the far North of the North American continent. Due to a lack of resources, the Canadian government is delaying the development of the infrastructures necessary to commercialize the passage, jeopardizing its ability to assume sovereignty over the coveted passage. Meanwhile, for the past three decades, maritime adventure tourism has been developing in this environment characterized by extreme geo-climatic and socio-economic conditions. Nunavut – "our land" in Inuktitut – is the host territory for this phenomenon. The "polar" tourism that is developing there is justified by the public's interest in the nature (fauna, flora, landscape) of the polar regions, a curiosity for the Inuit people who inhabit this land, and a desire barely hidden by tourists to reach these extreme latitudes, long cursed by the tragic stories of explorers. In addition to the navigational challenges shipowners also face, the polar cruise tourism industry encounters other issues, specific to its case. On the one hand, the scattering of tourist attractions in Nunavut – a territory of 2,000,000,000 km2 with a population of 38,000 (NBS, 2018) – represents a major organizational challenge for tour operators. In addition, there is a lack of the necessary infrastructures (airports, harbours and accommodation) to welcome visitors and to take their safety into account. This development also challenges the Inuit people as to their role in this economic activity as well as in the management and protection of their natural and cultural heritage. Located at the crossroads of geography and sociology, this study shows how the tourism industry, through its exploration of Arctic waters, scout-like, contributes to the opening of a maritime territory that it sought, initially, to protect.